The DRM maze for consumers

Friday, December 28, 2007

The last few years in the history of digital content are littered with examples of Digital Rights Management (DRM) solutions that have been accused of being over complex and consumer unfriendly.

Western Digital sells a range of networked hard drives, which allows users to share files across both a local network of home computers and across the net.

But the firm has now blocked remote access to 30 different types of media files, including MP3s and MP4s, to users running its Anywhere Access program.

The company says it has done this as an anti-piracy effort, to prevent people from copying and sharing copyright files.

But the block makes no distinction between files which are user generated, such as home movies, and paid-for, DRM-protected content.

ZUNE - SHARE AND SHARE NOT ALIKE

When Microsoft introduced its Zune media player to rival the iPod it boasted a supposed killer feature - the ability to share songs wirelessly with friends.

Unfortunately, the Zune not only failed to support the Digital Rights Management system Microsoft had pioneered for its partners, it also restricted the sharing of a song to "three plays or three days, whichever comes first".

Users were able to share a song but a friend had a limited number of plays and time, in which to listen to it.

And the restriction applied to any kind of music file - even if it was a track recorded by the user himself.

Strangely, many of the songs offered to Zune users for download from Microsoft's online store could not be shared at all due to "rights restrictions".

Microsoft has now lifted the time restrictions for listening to shared tracks.

NOKIA - FREE MUSIC?

The world's largest mobile phone manufacturer has decided to tackle rampant music piracy by offering tracks for free to its customers.

The Comes With Music service will let owners of its premium handsets download as much music as they like to their phone or PC from the Universal catalogue.

There is no cost to download or a subscription fee. But there is a proviso - if users want to burn the music to a CD to play on a separate player, or in the car, they have to pay out.

Before Google bought YouTube its foray into the world of online video was championed by its own-brand video store. The Google Video store let people buy TV shows such as Star Trek and CSI, which were protected by digital rights management.

Unfortunately, when Google decided to shut down the store in favour of supporting YouTube it left customers who had bought content unable to continue to play their videos.

Google initially offered its customers credit through its own online payment service, called Checkout, but after complaints it changed its mind and offered users a straight refund.

The issue highlighted concerns that digital content bought by consumers that is protected by DRM may not always be accessible if the content producer and/or distributors removes its support for the format.

SONY - THE ROOT OF THE PROBLEM

In 2005 Sony took a new approach to protecting its CDs from copying by including software on the discs which automatically installed on a PC if the disc was played in a computer.

The software was designed to prevent copying but it also left PCs open to potential hacker and virus attacks.

Consumers were not told of the software on the discs and the discs themselves gave no indication of the copy protection software stored on them.

After the problems were highlighted Sony released a tool which would remove the program from users' computers - but it too had security issues.

Sony ultimately recalled the discs with the software installed and after a series of high-profile, class-action lawsuits paid out to consumers who had bought the CDs.

ITUNES - DRM HERE BUT NOT THERE

When Steve Jobs issued his open letter decrying DRM on music many observers felt that the tide was beginning to shift against DRM.

Apple's iTunes store now offers users MP3s of music, without copy restrictions, from the EMI back catalogue.

But Steve Jobs has said the move did not mean an end to DRM on videos it sells via iTunes.

"The music and video markets are not parallel. The video industry does not deliver 90% of its content DRM-free," he said.

CONSOLES - HI-DEF FUTURE?

The Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 are capable of producing high definition video, up to 1080p, or so-called Full HD resolutions.

If you buy the HD-DVD player add-on for the Xbox 360 you can playback movies in the highest resolution available today, assuming your TV can support it, while PS3s can play Blu-ray movies out of the box.

However, all Xbox 360 consoles sold in the first 18 months from launch, and the first few months in the case of the low-end PS3's availability, do not have a so-called HDMI port. This is a digital interface to output video and audio, which can encrypt the information being sent to the TV to prevent copying.

HDMI is part of a system which allows content producers to protect their material by placing a protection flag on it, called an Image Constraint Token. This means devices that do not have a HDMI port (or DVI port) will not be able to play the content at the fullest resolution.

Potentially, it means many Xbox 360 owners and some early PS3 enthusiasts would not be able to play their legally bought HD-DVD and Blu-ray movies in the best quality, despite the fact Microsoft and Sony are leading supporters of HD technology.

So far, no HD-DVD or Blu-ray titles released have used the protection flag, but the technology is there to be implemented and it could mean millions of console owners would only be able to play their films at a quarter of the potential resolution.

When Virgin launched its digital offering, including a subscription "music club", in 2004 Sir Richard Branson boasted: "With a strong music heritage behind us, as a record label and a retailer, Virgin has a huge advantage, and platform to launch a digital service that will become the ultimate destination to buy, stream, burn and enjoy the best the music world has to offer."

Like many online music stores, it came with DRM designed to prevent copyright theft and to enable users to rent their music.

But when the site shut down in September this year it left members of The Music Club unable to play their songs, because they could no longer renew their monthly fee.

For customers who had paid extra to transfer their music to an MP3 player this was doubly frustrating.

Ethiopia's Iraq? Coming home Whale diary

Source from: news.bbc.co.uk

The obstacles in a DRM-free world

Amazon
Amazon's service was launched recently

I'll generally buy a CD and rip it as a high-quality AAC file rather than pay out for a song I can only play on selected devices or copy a few times.

Existing DRM-free services like eMusic, or those with some non-DRM inventory like MusicNet and of course Apple, are out there but don't cover a lot of the artists I like and have nothing like the inventory you'd find in a decent record shop.

And I know that you can take the songs you buy from the iTunes Music Store and burn them to CD and then re-import them, but doing so further reduces the quality of the music you're listening, especially when compared to a CD. It also takes time.

Buying music on subscription is a dangerous habit, as customers of Virgin Music found out recently when they were told that their song collections would become unplayable once the store stops operating.

Locked song

Even the rights you think you have can be taken away if a song is locked using DRM.

Who is to say that Apple, in their infinite wisdom, won't decide that you can't burn their Fairplay protected files to CD any more? After all, they have already reduced the number of times you can burn a particular playlist once, so they have a track record in changing terms and conditions.

News that Amazon was to launch a music download service was therefore well-received in my household

My son, less willing to defer his gratification, does buy some songs directly from iTunes, and I've already had to cope with the hassle of moving his song library from his old PC to his new Mac Mini.

Windows DRM is just as bad, creating obstacles to copying files or playing them on different devices or computers, and generally getting in the way of the experience.

So I prefer CDs. And of course if I have a CD, complete with cover image, sleeve notes and any extras, then I can always re-rip it if my files get inadvertently deleted.

News that Amazon was to launch a music download service was therefore well-received in my household, even it is only a beta service with a relatively small catalogue. It promised a competitively-priced music - especially at the current pound/dollar exchange rate - and best of all the songs were in MP3 format with no DRM.

I have an Amazon.com user account as well as one at Amazon.co.uk, partly because a lot of my favourite writers, like Louise Erdrich and Joan Didion, get published there early and partly because four or five years ago Region 1 DVDs of children's movies like Pokemon and Toy Story appeared a lot earlier than the European versions.

Multi-region player

The new store is easy to find from the home page, so I decided to buy Amy Winehouse's Back to Black for $8.99.

I installed the Amazon MP Downloader, noting with interest that there were Mac and Windows versions available from the start, but nothing for Linux.

The downloader simplifies the process of getting a whole album's worth of songs and adding them to your existing music library, whether you're using Windows Media Player or iTunes. Reports are that it isn't as seamless as buying from iTunes, but that the convenience of having unencumbered song makes it worthwhile.

Man with two iPods
MP3 files will play on every digital music player

Unfortunately I only have reports to go on, because when I tried to buy my chosen music I was asked for address details for my credit card, even though I have one on file with the store.

And then I found that I could only proceed if I had a US address, and had to abandon the attempt.

I'm disappointed, and annoyed. This is a store which happily sends me DVDs that are region-encoded for the United States and Canada only.

It will even ship me books from publishers who are not authorised to sell in the UK under the contracts made with authors and agents.

Yet it seems that the record companies are able to exert a level of control over mere bits that not even the largest film company can manage over physical DVDs, and Amazon has accepted the constraints.

I could get round it by asking one of my US-based friends to front for me and use their credit card.

And even if Amazon is using some sort of geo-location technology to stop non-US downloads it would be as easy to get around by faking my IP address as it is to persuade the BBC's iPlayer that you're safely in Surrey no matter where you actually are.

But that isn't the point.

Amazon is a phenomenally successful retailer and it understands customer service better than almost any company I have encountered.

Last week my friend John didn't get the copy of Halo 3 he had ordered, so called them to ask what was going on. Not only did they phone him back when they promised to do so, they sorted the problem within minutes and sent him e-mails to confirm the situation.

If anyone can take the record companies and the current online music retailers and show them how it should be done then it is Amazon.

But if the record companies continue to push their old-world business practices, insisting on territorial limits and other restrictions, then even Amazon will find it impossible to save the music industry from the implosion which lies ahead.


Source from: news.bbc.co.uk

A very real future for virtual worlds

Thursday, December 27, 2007

Second Life has long been seen as as the bell-wether for the growing interest in virtual spaces. Here, founder Philip Rosedale talks about the past and future of the parallel world he is helping to create.

These are interesting times for Second Life. In the four short years it has existed, it has seen media coverage go from hysterical to hectoring. It has been hailed as both a harbinger of the next big thing and a brake on the burgeoning development of virtual worlds.

Speculation about its future has intensified as news emerged that chief technology officer Cory Ondrejka, who helped design and build Second Life, has left the company.

But said Philip Rosedale, one of the founders of Linden Lab which oversees the running of Second Life, the departure will not dent the vision all the original engineers had for their creation.

"Cory is a fantastic guy, he's fantastically capable and we will miss him a lot," said Mr Rosedale.

Philip Rosedale and his Second Life avatar, Linden Lab
Philip Rosedale and his Second Life avatar Philip Linden

"There's not a shift in direction in the company that I wanted to make or Cory wanted to make that was incompatible," he told the BBC News website.

"We are a core of technologists in our heart," he said. "The first 10 people that joined, there are only two that have left, they are all engineers."

For the near future, Linden Lab is looking at ways of making the technology behind Second Life much more open and easy to use.Web worlds

"We are still in the early days so the things that are wrong are still wrong," he said, "It is still hard to figure out how to use Second Life and how to find things."

In many respects, he said, online virtual worlds are at the point now that the web reached in the early 1990s.

"We have often had fun in the office finding quotes from the early 90s that map exactly to what they say about Second Life now, " he said, "that it's disorganised, you cannot find anything and there is a lot of crap."

We are at the very early stages of something very big

"Virtual worlds are inherently comprehensible to us in a way that the web is not," said Mr Rosedale. "They look like the world we already know and take advantage of our ability to remember and organise."

"Information is presented there in a way that matches our memories and experiences," he said. "Your and my ability to remember the words we use and the information we talk about is much higher if it's presented as a room or space around us."

Equally important, he said, was the visibility or presence that being in a virtual world bestows on its users.

By contrast, he said, when visiting a website people are anonymous and invisible.

Shopping on Amazon might be much easier and enjoyable if you could turn to one of the other 10,000 or so people on the site at the same time as you and ask about what they were buying, get recommendations and swap good or bad experiences.

Second Life screenshot, Linden Lab
Many firms are using Second Life to collaborate

For virtual worlds to be able to extend this usefulness to the mass of people a lot of work has yet to be done, said Mr Rosedale.

What it might take, he said, was software that would let people browse virtual worlds like they do webpages. Built in to that software would be an identity management system that re-drew yourself to match those different spaces.

"I think it is going to happen, that kind of portability of identity is important but I could not hazard a guess right now about how quickly it will happen," he said.

"But," he said, "with a sufficiently open platform then people will move into it quite rapidly."

It might, he speculated, one day outstrip the web as a means for people to communicate and work together.

"Because virtual worlds like Second Life do not impose language barriers like the web does - that almost certainly means their ultimate utility range is larger," he said. "We are at the very early stages of something very big." Political partying? Life in the freezer The year ahead

Source from: news.bbc.co.uk

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.


Source from: news.bbc.co.uk

Music copyright in the spotlight

Conductor and orchestra, BBC
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.

Gavel and block, Eyewire
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

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.

Ethernet cable, Eyewire
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.

Jon Stewart, AP
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

Do you know what they know about you?

Two computer discs holding the personal details of all families in the UK with a child under 16 have gone missing. The scandal of the 25 million missing records has highlighted the vulnerability of data.

It is easy to develop a sense of creeping paranoia when you begin to contemplate just how many companies, government departments and other organisations know your personal data.

She said it would be naive to think that an encounter with one organisation means one isolated database is queried. Typically data is gathered from many sources before a decision is reached.

For instance the USVISIT border system, which is consulted when Britons cross from the UK to the US, mines about 30 separate databases as it checks identities.

Ms Gallagher and colleague Peter Bradwell will release their report in early December.

"Pretty much every organisation you engage with day-to-day - from clicking your Oyster card to ordering your take away - means sharing personal information."

That sharing of data, she said, has become entwined with modern life and it was a mistake to think that sharing information so often only has a downside.

You are not going to get people complying with data protection on the basis of good will

Anyone that tries to stop their personal data leaking away often find they are denied benefits enjoyed by those that are happier to share.

For instance, paying cash for everything will keep your name off credit checking databases. However, without the re-assurance of that check banks and credit card companies may refuse to issue a loan or mortgage. Data control

And there are a lot of people within companies, government and other organisations that are allowed to use data that can be used to identify you.

According to the 2006/7 annual report from the Information Commissioner there are more than 287,000 data controllers in the UK who have a responsibility for making sure that personal data is used correctly.

Personal data in this sense is information that can be used to identify an individual.

Many of those data controllers will oversee many more who actually do the job of maintaining and expanding the databases holding the data.

And it does not stop there. The web is helping that data take wing and travel farther than ever before.

Computer keyboard, Eyewire
Government departments are increasingly sharing data

What few people realise, said Ms Gallagher, was that handing over data to one organisation can mean that it reaches many others and becomes an entry on the database they maintain.

"There is no awareness of what happens to that data when you give it away," said Ms Gallagher.

"It is not so much the organisations with which you willingly share data," she said, "it is where it goes after that."

Many organisations that collect data, such as credit checking agencies, were under commercial pressure to widen the scope of what they collect, said Ms Gallagher.

No longer are firms just interested in the basic facts about you - now what matters as much as what type of credit card you own is when you go shopping, which stores you visit and what you buy.

That pattern holds as much information as the raw facts about you - it helps companies decide which socio-economic bracket to put you and how to go about tailoring marketing to fit you and your lifestyle.Watching them

Surveillance and the collection of data about people has become so pervasive that it has spawned a dedicated research organisation - the Surveillance Studies Network.

Dr Kirstie Ball, a senior lecturer at the Open University, said that although many social scientists been studied the subject for years the pervasiveness of that scrutiny was prompting an upsurge of interest.

"That personal data held by every organisation you interact with runs the parameters of your existence, your consumption, your entitlements," she said.

Pens in pot, BBC
Almost every time you fill in a form the data makes it to a database

"We're all interested in the collection and application of personal data and its consequences for individual rights and social science concepts such as trust and discrimination," said Dr Ball.

"It merits study and understanding because its consequences can be tangible," she said.

For instance, she said, an employee ticking the wrong box when they enter your data into a database could mean a person ends up labelled as a former criminal or credit liability.

It is possible to ask to see the data that companies and organisations hold about you, but a very small number of people take up this opportunity to vet what is known about them. Making sure all of it is accurate would be a mammoth task.

For Ms Gallagher at Demos beefing up the power of the Information Commissioner to enforce the Data Protection Act would help redress some of the imbalance between the data companies hold about us.

"Organisations and companies should be responding to the way we live," she said.

Only by using those powers will the creeping spread of that data be held stemmed.

"You are not going to get people complying with data protection on the basis of good will," she said. "Data is just too valuable."

  • Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs has set up a Child Benefit Helpline on 0845 302 1444 for customers who want more details.Blow by blow Life in the freezer The year ahead
    Source from: news.bbc.co.uk
  • 'Broaderband Britain' video round-up

    The BBC News website has gone to meet the select few customers with super-speed broadband and the companies re-cabling Britain.

    Gaming contest

    He says that British players are languishing with 2Mbps connections while contestants abroad have internet links up to 50 times as fast.

    Web video in class

    St Joseph's College in Dumfries is part of a Scotland-wide program aimed at bringing high speed broadband to schools.

    It hooks up to an 80Mbps service, enabling teachers to rewrite lesson plans to include online video.

    Comparison test

    The 80Mbps service received at St Joseph's College allows pupils to access online study aids instantaneously.

    Higher student Michael Osman demonstrates how the school's speedy service compares with his snail's pace home link.

    Cabling up sewers

    Laying high-speed fibre optic cables usually involves digging up roads.

    Broadband service installer H2O is minimising disruption by laying lines capable of carrying 100Mbps services through the sewer network.

    Broadband's future

    The first 100Mbps cables being laid through sewers are connecting businesses and education institutes.

    H2O's managing Director Elfed Thomas says he hopes to begin providing lines to homes within a year.

    Net speed warning

    Broadband speeds depend upon the quality of phone cables laid decades ago in many areas of the UK.

    BBC Working Lunch's Rachel Horne compares what is on offer from providers relying on copper wire.

    Blow by blow Life in the freezer The year ahead

    Source from: news.bbc.co.uk

    Providers question 'neutral net'

    As broadband speeds get faster and the appetite for video services grows apace, bandwidth becomes an ever more precious commodity.

    Labour party on YouTube
    More people are watching video online

    Already people are seeing the amount of bandwidth they can use limited by monthly caps and, in the US, operators have just won the right to charge more for bandwidth-hungry services.

    With next-generation networks likely to cost billions to roll out, the issue of how operators will make money from them becomes even more pertinent.

    Network operators in the US, and increasingly also in the UK, believe that rather than pass all of the costs on to the end user, content providers should also put their hands in their pockets in order to guarantee the best delivery of their services.

    But others feel that allowing operators to prioritise certain traffic over other is fundamentally at odds with the free principles of the net which has allowed companies to flourish from very humble beginnings.

    Pipe-dreams?

    Games control in hand
    PlusNet offers a service tailored to gamers

    "It could be time for a new pricing model," said Simon Gunter, head of strategy at UK ISP Tiscali.

    He added: "We have to handle much more video and the question is - how do we square the costs of distributing lots of content? We could look to minimise the costs of distribution and in that the content originators may need to contribute."

    Already some operators offer tailored packages.

    For example, UK internet service provider PlusNet offers a broadband package aimed just at gamers.

    "It offers a better performance. Gamers are assured of a faster gaming service," said Neil Laycock, chief executive of PlusNet.

    Going forward he expects more and more consumers to demand a certain quality of service from specific applications such as broadband telephony.

    "Net neutrality is an issue no ISP can escape. We're convinced that demand for bandwidth driven by innovative applications will always outstrip the physical and economic supply of network," he said.

    "For that reason, net neutrality is a pipe-dream. We believe it is vital to put the customer in control of what takes priority on their line and we're already developing that capability," he said.

    Quality of service

    The debate to maintain a neutral net has been raging most vehemently across the pond where competition between cable and rival operators is fierce.

    In the US network providers such as Verizon and AT&T have effectively already won the right to prioritise the traffic of certain content providers, a power that has horrified net activists.

    "The problem with the system in the US is that in order to guarantee one player's content it is prioritised over someone else's" explained Antony Walker, head of the UK's Broadband Stakeholder's Group.

    "That is moving away from the basic model of the net that created innovators such as MySpace and YouTube on the basis that all bits of content were equal," he said.

    Competition

    BT engineer
    Could the US learn lessons from the UK broadband market?

    The issue in the US is being fought by organisations such as the Open Internet Coalition. Companies with a huge net presence such as Google and Microsoft have also joined the campaign.

    The Open Internet Coalition says some companies are employing network management tools to deliberately block file-sharing traffic, irrespective of what files are being shared.

    It also accuses companies of blocking content that they feel is too political in nature or is in someway derogatory to them.

    For companies such as Operax, which offers the network management tools that allow operators to prioritise traffic, the issue is being blown out of proportion.

    "The major arguers for net neutrality say that access to the network will be locked down for commercial advantage but I think that is a myth. There is no evil plan and everyone recognises that a competitive net is a key driver," said Chris Merrick, chief marketing officer with Operax.

    The prices that companies such as Verizon - which is investing $18bn in a fibre network to reach huge swathes of the US - are paying to connect people need to be recouped somehow, he argues.

    "What people are saying is 'Let's have quality of service for specific services such as voice-over IP and IPTV. Let's allocate resources to make sure they work effectively while still guaranteeing access to the free-for-all internet.'," he said.

    Many believe the debate is unlikely to become quite so heated in the UK as it has in the US, largely down to the fact that the UK has a far more competitive market.

    "Essentially the issue of net neutrality is about competition. In the US the broadband market operates like a duopoly," said Antony Walker.

    Pricier services?

    The regulatory landscape in the UK is such that there is far more competition with 60% of homes having a choice of at least four broadband providers.

    And Ofcom forces BT to act with so-called "equivalence" so that any services it offers to consumers must also be offered in a wholesale version.

    It is a system that the US is looking closely at.

    One thing which most commentators agree on is that the cost of rolling out next-generation broadband is unlikely to be passed on to the consumer.

    "The question is not whether you can charge more but rather whether you will even be able to charge what you charge today," said Ian Fogg, an analyst with research firm Jupiter.

    And whether consumers are going to be accept their content in a series of differently tailored packages is also open to debate, he thinks.

    "People are used to the concept that when they pay for broadband they are paying for access to the whole internet, with a choice of websites. Packaging it is going against what the internet is about," he said.Blow by blow Life in the freezer The year ahead

    Source from: news.bbc.co.uk

    Apple shuts down rumours website

    Mac Mini, Apple
    Think Secret broke the news about the Mac Mini
    Apple has settled a legal row with tip site Think Secret that will see the website shut down.

    The legal battle between Apple and the site blew up in January 2005 when Think Secret revealed details of the Mac Mini before its official unveiling.

    Apple brought the lawsuit to make the fan site reveal who had leaked details about the cut-down computer.

    By agreeing to shut down, the Think Secret site gets to preserve the anonymity of its sources.

    Source code

    In a statement about the deal Nick Ciarelli, Think Secret publisher, said: "I'm pleased to have reached this amicable settlement, and will now be able to move forward with my college studies and broader journalistic pursuits."

    Apple declined to provide details of the settlement but a spokesman said it was "happy to have this behind us."

    Apple is notoriously secretive about forthcoming products and it sued Think Secret claiming that bloggers should not enjoy the same rights to protect sources granted to mainstream journalists.

    A California court initially sided with Apple but the hi-tech firm lost the case on appeal. The outcome of that said bloggers should be considered as journalists and subject to the same protections.

    The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) aided Think Secret in its legal fight to stop Apple forcing it to reveal its sources.

    "I hope that Apple takes from this that it is neither useful nor wise to sue its fans," said Kurt Opsahl, an attorney for the EFF.

    Mr Ciarelli started Think Secret when he was 13 years old and is now a student at Harvard University. The name of the website is a play on the "Think Different" slogan Apple once used in its advertising.Blow by blow Life in the freezer The year ahead

    Source from: news.bbc.co.uk

    Manhunt 2 to face court challenge

    Manhunt 2 footage British censors have won the right to fight the UK release of video game Manhunt 2 in the High Court.

    A judge accepted the British Board of Film Classification's argument that the game had been approved for release on a misinterpretation of the law.

    The game was banned in June but the Video Appeals Committee said the game could be classified and released.

    The BBFC said that the VAC had been guilty of "a very serious misdirection of law" on the question of harm.

    The judge said: "I have taken into account the high public interest in the possibility of harm to children."

    Mr Justice Wyn Williams ruled the Board had an arguable case that should go to a full hearing.

    Both sides agreed that the game was not suitable for children, but the BBFC argued that if given a certificate for release, it could still end up in the hands of minors.

    The judge also suspended the VAC's decision that the game should be classified, halting any possibility of it going on sale until after the High Court challenge, due to take place before 31 January next year.

    The BBFC said it would pay any damages that developer Rockstar might suffer as a result of the stay, if the Board loses its legal challenge.

    The Board had warned that if the VAC decision had stood, it would have fundamental implications for all of its decisions, including those about unacceptable levels of violence.

    Rockstar Games said that Manhunt 2 was "well within the bounds established by other 18+ rated entertainment".

    Blow by blow Life in the freezer The year ahead

    Source from: news.bbc.co.uk

    Astronomers: Asteroid could hit Mars in January

    art.mars.ap.jpg

    LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Mars could be in for an asteroid hit.

    If the asteroid strikes Mars, it will probably hit near the equator close to where the rover Opportunity is exploring.

    A newly discovered hunk of space rock has a 1 in 75 chance of slamming into the red planet on January 30, scientists said Thursday.

    "These odds are extremely unusual. We frequently work with really long odds when we track ... threatening asteroids," said Steve Chesley, an astronomer with the Near Earth Object Program at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

    The asteroid, known as 2007 WD5, was discovered in late November and is similar in size to an object that hit remote central Siberia in 1908, unleashing energy equivalent to a 15-megaton nuclear bomb and wiping out 60 million trees.

    Scientists tracking the asteroid, currently halfway between Earth and Mars, initially put the odds of impact at 1 in 350 but increased the chances this week. Scientists expect the odds to diminish again early next month after getting new observations of the asteroid's orbit, Chesley said.

    "We know that it's going to fly by Mars and most likely going to miss, but there's a possibility of an impact," he said.

    If the asteroid does smash into Mars, it will probably hit near the equator close to where the rover Opportunity has been exploring the Martian plains since 2004. The robot is not in danger because it lies outside the impact zone. Speeding at 8 miles a second, a collision would carve a hole the size of the famed Meteor Crater in Arizona.

    In 1994, fragments of the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 smacked into Jupiter, creating a series of overlapping fireballs in space. Astronomers have yet to witness an asteroid impact with another planet.

    "Unlike an Earth impact, we're not afraid, but we're excited," Chesley said.

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


    Source from: edition.cnn.com

    Businesses have designs for the poor

    art.tradeshow.afp.jpg

    (CNN) -- As anyone who's fallen in love with an iPod or Wii game console can attest to, good product design matters. It can matter more, in fact, than how many (or what kind) of features are crammed into a device.

    A December 2006 Hong Kong trade show examined ways technology can help the world's poor.

    Consider the N-Gage game phone that Nokia launched four years ago. Despite some great features and a global marketing campaign, poor design made the product a highly ridiculed disappointment. (You had to shut down the phone, open the casing, and remove the battery simply to swap game cartridges, for starters.)

    So, given the stakes, it's understandable why top product designers are a hot commodity in the high-tech arena. But for an increasing number of designers, the stakes are even higher elsewhere: global poverty.

    Imagine taking the industrial design smarts behind the iPod and applying it to the far more basic technology needs of the extremely poor. In the past, few top designers would have bothered. But that's changing.

    At MIT, Stanford, and other universities, young design and engineering talents are eagerly enrolling in courses that teach them how to meet the technology needs of the developing world. Stanford offers a course called "Entrepreneurial Design for Extreme Affordability." One of the teachers, David Kelley, is the founder of IDEO, the industrial design firm behind such tech classics as the Palm V PDA and the first production mouse for the Lisa and Macintosh computers from Apple.

    Amy B. Smith, an inventor who lectures at MIT, said her course on design for the developing world gets about a hundred applicants, but she can only take 30.

    Smith was a lead organizer behind the International Development Design Summit (www.iddsummit.org), held at MIT this summer and planned again for next year. Mechanics, doctors and farmers from around the developing world teamed up with top design talents to come up with "pro-poor" technologies that are inexpensive and effective. One, an off-grid refrigeration unit, uses PVC piping, tiny water drips, and an evaporation-based cooling method to store perishable food in rural areas.

    An exhibit called "Design for the Other 90%" (http://other90.cooperhewitt.org) recently ran at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York. The exhibit highlighted the "growing trend in design to create affordable and socially responsible objects for the vast majority of the world's population (90 percent) not traditionally serviced by designers," according to organizers.

    Getting attention were items such as the StarSight utility pole, which draws energy from its solar panels to provide lighting, wireless Internet access, security surveillance and more (see www.starsightproject.com).

    Meanwhile, a pioneer of pro-poor technologies is behind a new organization that will churn out even more ideas. Paul Polak, who started International Development Enterprises (www.ideorg.org) about 25 years ago to aid the rural poor, helped launch a new organization called D-Rev a few months ago. D-Rev is keeping a low profile to ensure a smooth take-off.

    A non-profit organization, IDE gained recognition for encouraging the use of water treadle pumps in Asia and Africa. The pumps are made of basic materials readily available in remote areas, but reminiscent of StairMasters in that stepping motions are used to draw up groundwater for watering crops (http://other90.cooperhewitt.org/Design/bamboo-treadle-pump).

    Other IDE projects include dirt-cheap ceramic water filters and simple but effective irrigation systems. The idea with each project is to "activate the markets" so that small local merchants have a profit-motive to sell such technologies to poor farmers in their area.

    D-Rev, the new organization, will encourage the design of more products for low-income people, but not only for the rural poor. The organization is keeping mum on many details, but one of its projects is a "one-horse micro-diesel engine, which will do for mechanization at the village what the Prius did for the motor car," Polak said.

    Another is an electro-chlorinator approach to purifying drinking water in the slums.

    "One of the problems with slums is a lot of times they don't have access to a water supply, or they tap into the city water, which really makes you sick because it's got pathogens," Polak said. "I think we can do a low-cost kiosk that'll set up a slum entrepreneur on a franchise basis with $300 in capital costs that'll produce 5,000 liters of drinkable water a day." Imagine 10,000 such kiosks, he added, and you've got a big business.

    Polak foresees more designers getting involved in such projects. "Most of the designers in the world spend all their time working to solve the problems of the richest 5 [percent] or 10 percent of the world's customers," he said. "Before I die I want to see this crazy ratio reversed."

    He's hopeful, partly because of the reaction he sees among designers. "When they get an opportunity to do this different kind of design," he said, "many of them absolutely love it."

    Another D-Rev project is a $15 computer aimed at the rural illiterate. But it's less like a laptop and more like an electronic talking book, ala the LeapFrog Leap Pad and the Fisher Price PowerTouch toys.

    These toys come in the form of a flat plastic slate into which a book and electronic cartridge can be attached. When the book is opened and the user touches the page, the combined electronics in the slate and the cartridge respond by voice recordings that are relevant to the page.

    D-Rev describes the interface it's designing as somewhat similar. And like the toys, the device will be highly interactive, intuitive to use (zero training required), and usable even by those who are not literate, in English or their own language.

    The cartridges, which might sell separately for around $3.50 each, could teach various things in various language, depending on the local needs. One might teach rural farmers in monsoon areas who are familiar only with rice paddies how to grow, maintain and profit from other crops during the long dry season.

    In the forgotten reaches of the developing world, where poverty strikes deep and many can't read in any language, such a computer might prove more useful than, say, a $100 laptop with an English-language keyboard.

    "The 800 million people who can't read and write wouldn't know what to do with a laptop," said Polak. "So you've got to radically change the whole product, radically change its price and radically change its distribution, its marketing strategy. And now you have a digital revolution for the poor."


    Source from: edition.cnn.com

    Sony rethinks flat screen focus

    Sony screen
    Sony hopes OLED screens will re-invigorate its TV business
    Sony has said it will no longer produce a flat-screen TV technology once seen as a rival to LCD and plasma displays.

    The firm said it will stop making rear-projection televisions in February 2008 because of falling demand.

    Instead, it will focus on flat screens built using liquid crystal display (LCD) and organic light-emitting diode (OLED) technology, a spokesperson said.

    The Japanese electronics giant recently showed off the world's first commercial OLED TV, with a screen just 3mm thick.

    The 11-in (28-cm) energy-efficient display costs 850 and produces crisp, vivid images.

    The technology is expensive and difficult, but forms a key part of Sony's attempt to recapture the television market.

    In the six months to September, the firm lost 60 billion yen ($526.3 million) on its TVs.

    The loss-making rear-projection televisions - which use a projector, lenses and mirrors to create images on large screens - have fallen in popularity.

    In October this year, Sony lowered its sales forecast by 43% to 400,000 for the technology, popular in the US for home cinemas.

    By contrast, the electronics firm expects to sell 10 million LCD televisions in the year to March 2008.

    Other firms have already pulled out of the rear-projection TV market. Earlier this year, Hitachi withdrew its rear-projection TVs from the North American market, while Seiko Epson has also halted production.

    Most electronics makers are focusing on cheaper LCD and plasma display panels to build large flat screen TVs.Blow by blow Life in the freezer The hit list

    Source from: news.bbc.co.uk

    Airlines take another look at inflight Internet

    art.airborne.internet.ap.jpg

    NEW YORK (AP) -- Airlines and service providers seeking to deliver high-speed Internet services to passengers say they've learned from Boeing Co.'s 2006 decision to pull the plug on its ambitions to outfit its planes with a similar service.

    Charles Ogilvie, director of inflight entertainment for Virgin America, demonstrates airborne usage.

    Analysts say Boeing's failed Connexion online service was costly to install and operate, resulting in large expenditures before getting a single paying customer. An industrywide downturn triggered by the 2001 terrorist attacks made the system an even tougher sell to struggling airlines.

    Among other things, JetBlue Airways Corp., AMR Corp.'s American Airlines and Virgin America are today turning to air-to-ground connections to avoid Boeing's expensive satellite fees.

    "We wanted to attack every one of the things that were inhibitors in that first-generation system," said Jack Blumenstein, chief executive of Aircell LLC, which is providing service for American and Virgin.

    JetBlue's LiveTV subsidiary paid the Federal Communications Commission $7 million for wireless spectrum that one test JetBlue aircraft has been using since Decemeber 11 to communicate with about 100 cell towers spread across the continental United States.

    The 1-megahertz frequency band allows that aircraft to offer free e-mail and instant-messaging services on laptops and handheld devices through Yahoo Inc. and BlackBerry maker Research In Motion Ltd.

    Aircell licensed a band three times the size of LiveTV's for $31 million and plans to offer broader Internet services, including Web surfing, for about $10 a flight -- what Boeing had charged for the first hour. Pending regulatory approval, Aircell's first Internet-capable flight is expected on American in 2008, using 92 cell towers on the ground.

    The air-to-ground approach has its limits, though. It's useless for many international flights because of long stretches over oceans. And it hasn't been approved outside North America.

    That is why Alaska Air Group Inc.'s Alaska Airlines, which has over-the-ocean flights to Alaska and Hawaii, is going with a satellite-based system through Row 44 Inc. Row 44 is using an existing satellite network from Hughes Communications Inc. rather than trying to assemble its own as Boeing had.

    Panasonic Avionics Corp., a unit of Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., took a similar approach in developing a service for Australia's Qantas Airways Ltd. and other airlines.

    "The service itself is about three times more bandwidth efficient than Connexion was," said David Bruner, Panasonic's executive director for corporate sales and marketing.

    Think of it this way: Boeing leased satellite transponders from various providers whether it needed the capacity or not. Under its deal with Intelsat Ltd., Panasonic can buy capacity in smaller units until it needs more.

    Technology also has improved such that airplanes using Row 44's or Panasonic's systems don't need to carry as much weight as Boeing required, saving fuel costs.

    Panasonic plans to charge about $12 an hour or $22 per 24-hour period for its service, compared with Boeing's $10 for the first hour or $27 for the full day. Alaska hasn't set prices, and free service for frequent fliers was among its options.

    OnAir, which recently started service on one Air France aircraft, is taking yet another approach in delivering inflight services: It is using existing cellular phone systems, including their technical and billing infrastructure.

    With an on-board GSM cell "tower" certified by European regulators, phones won't emit strong signals and potentially interfere with the aircraft's navigational equipment trying to connect with a tower on the ground.

    Boeing had deals with major international carriers such as Germany's Lufthansa AG and Japan Airlines Corp., but large U.S. carriers -- several of which filed for bankruptcy in the aftermath of September 11 -- balked at investing in extra services.

    Boeing, which did not disclose how much it invested in the service, took a pretax accounting charge of $320 million in 2006.

    Glenn Fleishman, editor of the Wi-Fi Networking News site, said Connexion's failure resulted from Boeing's specific approach and "doesn't reflect the viability of (in-flight services) from a financial or technical perspective."

    He said the new approaches look promising, though they may run into their own issues with scalability or coverage.

    Boeing spokesman John Dern said the aircraft maker had no plans to re-enter the business and was leaving such services to others.

    "There are others out there with different business models, and I don't know anyone who's mounted a successful standalone business yet," Dern said. "No doubt there will be firms that try, and I'm sure somebody will figure out a way to do it."

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


    Source from: edition.cnn.com

    The technology with impact 2007

    Wednesday, December 26, 2007

    Facebook logo
    Facebook has been successful - and controversial

    The BBC News technology team members pick out their favourite technology of 2007.

    My technology of the year is, somewhat predictably, Facebook.

    I know it isn't the most original of picks and ever since logging on back in the summer, I have had a nagging suspicion that it is little more than a glorified form of instant messaging - only slower, but I still find it addictive.

    And that comes from someone who has never updated their status and rarely uploads pictures or does anything with the various applications I sign up for.

    So why do I love it? Essentially it is about communication and people which, for me, is what technology should be all about. It also appeals to my innate sense of curiosity and allows me to people-watch on a grand scale, on my own terms and without getting accused of staring.

    On a personal level I have found it if not life-changing then definitely life-enhancing. It reunited me with a long-lost university friend, as well as being the first place I learned of another friend's pregnancy and saw yet more friends' baby pics for the first time.

    On a professional level it has allowed me to 'get' social networking which, up until that point, was a vague umbrella term for something I didn't entirely understand.

    I have one concern. When instant messaging was in its infancy I was rarely disconnected but these days my account languishes. The interesting thing for me will be to see whether the same happens for my Facebook profile once the novelty wears off.

    In January Apple Boss Steve Jobs launched the iPhone, a device he said would "revolutionise the industry". And the phone certainly lived up to expectations, for some.

    But, for me, the highlight of the year was a technology that has the potential to have a far greater transformative impact.

    Lights
    Look no wires - power deliver over the air

    In July, US researchers showed-off a relatively simple system that could deliver energy to devices, such as laptop computers, without the need for wires. The setup, called Witricity, was able to make a 60W light bulb glow from a distance of 2m (7ft).

    The bulb was even made to glow when obstructions such as wood and metal were placed between the transmitter and receiver.

    The reason it is my technology of the year is threefold. Firstly, if the system can be refined it has the potential to banish the annoying and ever-growing tangle of wires needed to recharge today's electronic gadgets to the past.

    There are already systems on the market that use recharging pads - similar to electric toothbrush chargers - or highly directional lasers, but none that are able to flood a room with useful energy in the same way as the Witricity setup.

    Secondly, the MIT researchers were able to build and test a workable system at breakneck speed.

    Although the basic physics underpinning the system were well understood, the first results from their working prototype were presented to the public just eight months after the researchers had presented a paper outlining their theoretical design.

    And finally, the experiment also vindicates the work of the nineteenth-century physics and engineering heavyweight Nikola Tesla.

    He experimented with long-range wireless energy transfer, but his most ambitious attempt - a 29m high aerial known as Wardenclyffe Tower, in New York - failed when he ran out of money.

    Witricity shows that Tesla was right to pursue a world without wires.

    2007 - the year of the iPhone and Vista and Leopard, and of more victories for the Nintendo Wii over the PlayStation3 in the console wars.

    For me, though, one technology has made a bigger personal impact than any other - social networking, or to be more precise, Facebook.

    In the first flush of my romance with Facebook, I added everyone in sight - students from American universities, forty-somethings who wanted to reassure me that I was not alone , someone masquerading as Patrick Moore, even, God help me, PR people.

    Quickly I sobered up and began to ration my friendship to people I actually knew - or at least friends of friends.

    And it worked. I developed a "virtual" social life, rediscovering old contacts, hooking up with other technology journalists, even talking more to my old friends.

    News arrived on my computer each morning - one colleague announced his engagement, others the end of relationships. I felt better connected, part of a loose community where I could share as much or as little of my life as I wanted.

    But in recent weeks, I have begun to wonder if Facebook has peaked. One friend - younger than me - became the first to leave, telling us it was encroaching too much on his time. Then I began to find aspects of the network increasingly irksome.

    Back in May, the decision to open Facebook up to outside developers seemed brilliant, promising to change a simple pared-down site into a platform for your entire online life.

    Now, I'm beginning to yearn for that early simplicity. I do not want to be bitten by vampires, or stock a virtual aquarium with fish, or watch another daft YouTube video sent to my FunWall.

    Facebook's other strategic move - the Beacon advertising system - also promises to make it less attractive to users.

    So are we falling out of love with Facebook? I posed that question to my "friends" the other day. "The novelty is wearing off.. " "Suffering seasonal Facebook fatigue.." were two comments.

    Another had found that all her thirty-something friends had gone. But most reported that, while their early passion had faded, they were still enjoying running their social lives online. So here's my prediction - Facebook will not fade away in 2008. But don't expect to hear quite as much about it as you have this year.

    I've been impressed with the iPhone, seen Facebook become an extension of my social life, suffered disappointed at the hands of Leopard and looked on in fascination as Microsoft struggled to make the best of Vista.

    But the technology that has had the biggest impact on me personally is rich web applications. I know that's more of a range of technologies - but web apps like Google Calendar, Docs, and Reader and the new photo-editing tools on Flickr have made my life simpler.

    I live a hybrid existence - using Macs at home, and on the road, but PCs at work. As such I have lots of issues around accessing information across two different platforms.

    The programs I use for my e-mail, diary, RSS feeds and photos have always been different across the two systems. But the rise of web apps that are flexible, platform-neutral and accessible from anywhere I have a net connection has made my life almost pain-free.

    The technology team plans its workload via Google calendar, we have collaborated on stories and scripts using a web-based word processor and I can now get access to the latest stories via RSS on my Mac, PC or mobile phone and it is always synchronised.

    As technologies like Adobe Air and Google Gears allow richer and richer experiences to move to the cloud, and to merge the offline and online worlds, 2008 should be even more interesting.

    My pick of the year is a pretty geeky one - but in a good way. In late November Nominet, which looks after the .uk domain, started work on a British Enum directory.

    Enum, or Telephone Number Mapping, does a couple of hugely important things. It makes it possible to map net domains to telephone numbers. This means you can look up a number just like you do a net domain.

    This is important as it promises to start unifying the still, largely, separate worlds of phones and the net. For a start this means that firms who route calls over the net, like Skype, will be able to interconnect much more easily. But that's just the start.

    Given that eventually all communication could travel via the net it marks the start of a grand conjunction.

    Ultimately it could mean that when you have one way to contact someone you have all the ways they can be contacted. All you will have to do is look them up like you do a website now.

    The net will know.

    Californian model? Village militias Own goal
    Source from: news.bbc.co.uk

    How firms and fraudsters deal in data

    Compact disk, Eyewire
    Organisations should have policies that govern who does what with data

    The information lost by the HMRC could prove very valuable to fraudsters, computer security experts say.

    "In the fraud underworld the quality of data directly impacts the flexibility with which they can use it," said Andrew Moloney, financial services market director for RSA Security.

    There was no evidence yet that the data was being talked about or sold on the fraud boards and net markets that his company monitors, he said.

    However, most vendors of stolen data rarely mention where they got it from. Instead, they typically only mention its quality.

    Mr Moloney said there was a well-established chain of buyers and sellers who can handle large amounts of data and pass them on to those that wish to use them to commit fraud.Safeguarding data

    "That's partly grown up to protect the anonymous individuals involved," he said, "and partly because we have seen specialisms develop with individuals finding their own niche in that underground economy."

    What also made the data attractive to fraudsters, said Mr Moloney, was that much of the data in it, such as names of children and birth dates, cannot be changed and will be valuable if it reaches criminals in the next week or the next year.

    "Once it's compromised it is compromised for the long term," he said.

    With computerised databases long established in large organisations, a series of policies and practices has grown up to safeguard the sensitive data they contain - in theory.

    In the front line of these safeguards are the strictures laid down by the Data Protection Act which is policed by the Information Commissioner.

    The Act details what workers can and cannot do with sensitive data and how it must be treated as well as what staff should do to ensure it is not compromised.

    In a statement issued after the HMRC data loss was made public Richard Thomas, the information commissioner, said his organisation was already investigating two other breaches at the government department.Data commandments

    "Searching questions need to be answered about systems, procedures and human error inside both HMRC and the National Audit Office," said Mr Thomas.

    Birthday cake, BBC
    Much of the lost data, such as birth dates, cannot be changed

    Beyond data protection laws most organisations develop their own policies which govern how staff should treat such sensitive information, said Paul Simmonds, a board member of the Jericho Forum - a trade association for IT security bosses at the world's largest organisations.

    He said the Jericho Forum had developed a series of "commandments" which organisations should strive to live up to. They detail what organisations should do to ensure data is used appropriately.

    They cover such things as levels of security for different types of data; authentication to ensure data use is appropriate and how to share responsibilities for safeguarding information.

    "The Jericho Forum has long stated that data must be properly protected, both in transit and at rest," said Mr Simmonds. "Effectively this means sensitive data must always be encrypted.

    "This data loss is just another in a long list of organisations who ignore basic security principles," he added.Shore up defences

    Paul Davie, head of database security firm Secerno, said many companies were turning to technology to help shore up their defences.

    Security systems that oversaw interaction between a database and its users helped to do more than just stop bad guys from the outside stealing data, he said.

    Man using keyboard, BBC
    There are many places online where data is bought and sold

    "They want to understand the way the database is being queried by authorised users and what counts as normal use," said Mr Davie.

    "The technology is there to detect unusual behaviour such as a junior downloading huge amounts of data," he added.

    Evidence suggests that technology has a significant role to play. A University of Washington study released in March 2007 showed that 60% of data breaches were the result of bad practices inside organisations rather than hackers.

    "This is really high quality data," he said.

    Hackers have increasingly targeted databases, he said, because the information inside them was so valuable and well organised.

    By contrast data gathered by other hacker tools such as key logging software installed surreptitiously on PCs that watches what people type can produce reams of information that must be cleaned up before it is useable or saleable.

    Murky world Epic battle Delays, delays

    Source from: news.bbc.co.uk

    The future is bright for LEDs

    They wink at us every day from computer screens and stereos. But the humble LED is heading for a brighter future.

    New generation Light Emitting Diodes will purify water, make lights that mimic the colour of sunshine, and keep private data immune from hackers.

    Dr Rachel Oliver, an LED researcher from the University of Cambridge, thinks that they could easily succeed tungsten bulbs as the main way to light our homes.

    "LEDs have enormous benefits over standard light bulbs because they're a great deal more efficient, come in a range of different colours and have a very long lifetime. They are also good at saving energy too," she told BBC Radio 4's The Material World programme.

    "We could also light up out of the way places where normal bulbs are unsuitable," she added. "Because they last such a long time, architects could cover the side of a building with exciting lighting effects without worrying about constantly replacing the bulbs."

    The white light they give off is a cold light because it contains lots of blue

    LEDs are made from two halves of a special material called a semiconductor. One half is filled with negatively-charged electrons and the other with positively-charged areas called holes.

    Where the two halves meet, the positive and negative charges join together - causing the electrons to emit energy as photons of light.

    'Holy grail'

    "Blue LEDs were the holy grail for a long time," said Professor Jan Evans-Freeman, head of the Centre for Electronic Devices and Materials at Sheffield Hallam University.

    "But now blue LEDs are used everywhere, including the backlighting on mobile phones. Gallium nitride has proved to be a very effective material."

    Researchers are now using gallium nitride to move beyond blue and into the ultraviolet. The hope is to convert this into white lighting suitable for our homes.

    White light is produced in an LED when UV light reacts with a phosphor coating on the inside of the bulb.

    As LEDs are around 40% efficient, this makes them an attractive alternative to the 5% efficiency of tungsten bulbs. The problem is the type of white light they produce.

    'Cold light'

    But active research into phosphor chemistry could provide a solution.

    LED lights
    The colour of the light, and thus the LED, depends on the material that is used

    Dr Oliver said: "We're aiming for white light that looks like sunshine, and there are scientists trying to mix phosphors in just the right proportions. If we can achieve this, the white will not only look warmer, but could also be useful for people with Seasonal Affective Disorder."

    Ultraviolet LEDs also have the potential to revolutionise water quality in the developing world.

    A high-energy form of ultraviolet light known as deep-UV kills bacteria and viruses without the need for chemicals. For this reason, deep-UV is commonly used for sterilising water.

    But conventional UV lamps are bulky and need replacing regularly. LEDs are significantly smaller, cheaper and have lower energy requirements.

    "It's especially exciting from a third world perspective because LEDs could run off solar power or even by some sort of clockwork mechanism. This would bring water purification to people in remote areas," said Dr Oliver.

    "But making deep-UV LEDs is a big technological challenge," she said. "Deep-UV can't be made from the combination of materials we're used to, although I certainly think it's possible."

    LEDs are currently expanding into the realms of computer security through a method known as quantum cryptography.

    People could be using it for financial transactions over the internet in the next 10 or 20 years

    It involves sending out a stream of individual photons from one computer to another.

    Information can be encoded onto each photon. But the laws of quantum mechanics mean that once someone reads the information, the data on the photon changes.

    If one of the photons in the stream is intercepted by a hacker, the information is altered and the message corrupted.

    "This will immediately alert the sender and recipient that someone is trying to read the secret message," said Oliver. "The sender can then recode the message and send it again."

    Quantum cryptography is not yet sufficiently advanced to be used as a standard technology, but shows promise for ultra-secure internet banking and online data protection in the future.

    "People could be using it for financial transactions over the internet in the next 10 or 20 years," she said.

    Murky world Epic battle Delays, delays

    Source from: news.bbc.co.uk

    Gamer jargon becomes word of the year

    A word widely used among online gamers has topped an online poll for Word of the Year run by US publishing group Merriam Webster.

    The word "W00t" got most votes in the poll looking for the word that best sums up 2007.

    It is now included in the Merriam Website open dictionary that exists on the web.

    The word, complete with zeroes instead of Os, has become widely used in chat during online games or chatrooms among those celebrating. Merriam Webster defines it as "expressing joy (it could be after a triumph, or for no reason at all)".

    In a statement Merriam Webster president John Morse said it was a good choice because it blended "whimsy and technology".

    "It's a term that's arrived only because we're now communicating electronically with each other," said Mr Morse.

    Although the word has achieved great currency among gamers, opinion is divided over its inspiration.

    Screengrab of Twitter homepage, Twitter
    A tweet is the name given to a single message on Twitter

    Others, in particular Wikipedia, suggest it comes from the tabletop role-playing world of Dungeons and Dragons and is an abbreviation of "Wow, loot!".

    A minor faction suggests that it might be short for "Want One Of Those" and is an expression of technological lust for a gadget, toy or other trinket.

    Despite its popularity online, Merriam Webster said it would only make it into the regular dictionary if its popularity lasts. If its longevity becomes proven it could join other net-inspired terms such as the verb "to google", "blog" and NSFW.

    There are currently no entries for "Woot" or "W00t" in the Oxford English Dictionary.

    While W00t has its backers, there are many other potential candidates for words that sum up the technological year.

    Among gamers "Ding!" could also be a popular choice as it is widely used when players reveal that one of their avatars has levelled up or got hold of a coveted magical item in a game.

    Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, AP
    Keen Facebook users are big users of its "poke" feature

    Outside the gaming community, the word "poke" must be high up the list of good candidates for its currency among the growing numbers of Facebook users who use it to prompt people they know to get in touch.

    Another possible is "tweet" which also emerges from that other popular networking site Twitter. The site shares short messages among groups of people and a "tweet" is the term for a single message sent over the service. It has become used in preference to "twit" for obvious reasons.

    Other widely acknowledged net memes for the year must include "lolcats" - which involves captioning pictures of animals - usually cats - with humorous text typically spelled in a distinctive, if mangled, style.

    In terms of technology one word that has been bandied around much more in 2007 than any other is "multi-touch". Apple's much hyped iPhone got the technological world talking about touch screens as a way to interact with a handset.

    In 2007 many mobiles, such as the LG Prada, HTC Touch, sport these tangible interfaces.Murky world Epic battle Delays, delays

    Source from: news.bbc.co.uk

    Whistle blows on Sensible Soccer

    Screengrab of Sensible World of Soccer on Xbox website, Microsoft
    The game was widely trailed before being made available
    Classic game Sensible World of Soccer has been removed from Microsoft's Xbox Live Arcade following reports that it was throwing players offline.

    The game was put on Xbox Live Arcade as a download for owners of the console on 19 December.

    But many who bought and downloaded it and tried to play online against other Xbox owners found that it disconnected them from the gaming network.

    The game's makers said a fixed version would be posted as soon as possible.

    Game over

    Originally written by Sensible Software for the Amiga and Atari computers, the venerable football game has gathered a cult following since its appearance in the early 1990s.

    The arrival of the game on the Xbox Arcade was widely promoted but the joy of fans was short-lived as the bug was discovered and the game was removed.

    Codemasters, which now owns the game, posted a message to its support forum on the afternoon of the 19th explaining the disappearance.

    The message said the problem with the online play was beyond its control to fix but added that Microsoft was working to correct the bug.

    No timescale was given for when the fixed version would appear.

    The message concluded: "We realise you have been waiting a long time for this release already and you (sic) continued patience is appreciated."

    Disappointed fans posted messages to the same support forum criticising the release of the buggy version and calling for it to be fixed quickly.

    One fan, called Taffdan, wrote: "...was up early before work to find that the game had come out but had been pulled.....poor show."

    Larry Hryb, a senior executive at Microsoft, apologised to users on his personal blog.

    He wrote: "If you downloaded this busted version, please delete it and when the new one is available you?ll be able to downloaded it again (at no charge if you purchased it.)"Murky world Epic battle Delays, delays

    Source from: news.bbc.co.uk

    BitTorrent search site loses case

    Bulldozer destroying pirated DVDs and CDs, Reuters
    The film industry is aiming to stop movie piracy
    A website which facilitated the online exchange of films, music and TV programmes without permission has lost a US copyright case.

    TorrentSpy was taken to court by the Motion Picture Association of America.

    A judge made a default ruling in favour of the MPAA after she said the site's operators had tampered with evidence.

    The site had ignored an order to retain server logs and the unique online addresses of computers which traded files using the BitTorrent program.

    The ruling could have personal privacy implications because the information TorrentSpy had been told to retain was held in Random Access Memory of computers.

    Defendants Justin Bunnell, Forrest Parker, Wes Parker and Valence Media originally had argued that its servers were located in the Netherlands and so were protected by Dutch law from having to turn over server logs.

    'Obstreperous' conduct

    The judge then asked for information from the Ram in their computers but the defendants failed in their attempt to argue the data was temporary and therefore could not be retained.

    The defendants' conduct was "obstreperous," Judge Florence-Marie Cooper wrote in her decision.

    "They have engaged in widespread and systematic efforts to destroy evidence and have provided false testimony under oath in a effort to hide evidence of such destruction.

    "A substantial number of items of evidence have been destroyed," she wrote. "Defendants were on notice that this information would be of importance in this case."

    TorrentSpy's lawyer Ira Rothken said his clients had concerns about protecting users' privacy.

    TorrentSpy is expected to appeal Judge Cooper's decision.

    A ruling on damages will happen at a later date.

    The MPAA, which filed the case against TorrentSpy in February 2006, welcomed the ruling.

    "The court's decision... sends a potent message to future defendants that this egregious behaviour will not be tolerated by the judicial system," John Malcolm, the MPAA's executive vice president and director of worldwide anti-piracy operations, said in a statement.

    "The sole purpose of TorrentSpy and sites like it is to facilitate and promote the unlawful dissemination of copyrighted content. TorrentSpy is a one-stop shop for copyright infringement."Murky world Epic battle Delays, delays

    Source from: news.bbc.co.uk