Support for ad-tracking opt out

Google targets adverts based on searches

US privacy advocates and consumer bodies are seeking the creation of an opt-out list for internet users who do not want to be tracked by advertisers.

The "do not track" list would prevent companies from tailoring adverts based on a user's web habits.

The groups behind the idea include the Center for Democracy and Technology, Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Consumer Federation of America.

They have approached the Federal Trade Commission to create the list.

The "do not track" list would be similar to the "do not call list" in the US which stops phone advertisers calling households.

Personalised, or social, advertising is expected to be big business in the coming years with Google, Yahoo and Microsoft all purchasing online ad firms in recent months.

The "do not track" list would require advertisers that place electronic cookies or tags on consumers' computers to register with the FTC all domain names of the servers involved in such activities, according to the groups.

"All of this is going to make consumers even more aware of just how much is being tracked

"Online opt-outs should be as well-known and as easy as the Do Not Call list," Mark Cooper, research director of Consumer Federation of America, told Reuters news agency.

The list would prohibit advertisers from collecting and using personally identifiable information about health and financial activities.

It would also require independent auditing of companies using behavioural tracking to ensure they upheld privacy standards.

While many search engines allow users to opt out of personalised services, it often comes at the expense of being able to use mail accounts and other tools.

Steve Rubel, a senior marketing strategist, at Edelman, wrote on his blog Micro Persuasion: "Regardless of where the Feds decide to weigh in, the noise around mining behavioural data and patterns and the potential privacy implications is only going to get louder in the coming months.

"All of this is going to make consumers even more aware of just how much is being tracked."

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Family bets GPS will help beat teen's ticket

WINDSOR, California (AP) -- Given the option of contesting a traffic ticket, most motorists -- 19 out of 20 by some estimates -- would rather pay up than pit their word against a police officer's in court.

Though courts do not routinely accept GPS readouts as evidence, somedrivers are starting to use them to challenge traffic violations.

A retired sheriff's deputy nevertheless hopes to beat the long odds of the law by setting the performance of a police officer's radar gun against the accuracy of the GPS tracking device he installed in his teenage stepson's car.

The retired deputy, Roger Rude, readily admits his 17-year-old stepson, Shaun Malone, enjoys putting the pedal to the metal. That's why he and Shaun's mother insisted on putting a global positioning system that monitors the location and speed of the boy's Toyota Celica.

Shaun complained bitterly about his electronic chaperone until it became his new best friend on July 4, when he was pulled over and cited for going 62 mph in a 45 mph zone.

Rude encouraged him to fight the ticket after the log he downloaded using software provided by the GPS unit's Colorado-based supplier showed Shaun was going the speed limit within 100 feet of where a Petaluma officer clocked him speeding.

"I'm not trying to get a guilty kid off," Rude said. "I've always had faith in our justice system. I would like to see the truth prevail and I would like Shaun to see that the system works."

Though traffic courts do not routinely accept GPS readouts as evidence of a vehicle's speed -- and many GPS receivers aren't capable of keeping records anyway -- some tech-savvy drivers around the world slowly are starting to use the technology to challenge moving violations, according to anecdotal accounts from defense lawyers and law enforcement officials.

This summer, for instance, an Australian farmer became a hero to speeders everywhere when he got a ticket dismissed after presenting police with data from his tracking device.

While winning a case this way is far from a sure thing, GPS-generated evidence could at least inject an element of doubt into typically one-sided proceedings, said Jim Baxter, president of the National Motorists Association.

A Sonoma County traffic commissioner is expected to rule within the next two weeks whether to dismiss Shaun's ticket based on Rude's written argument that the motorcycle officer's radar gun was either improperly calibrated or thrown off by another speeding car.

"Radar is a pretty good tool, but it's not an infallible tool," said Rude, who spent 31 years in law enforcement. "With the GPS tracker, there is no doubt about it. There is no human interference."

Rude plans to offer scientific data and experts if his challenge doesn't succeed right away.

Petaluma police Lt. John Edwards said he could not discuss Shaun's case but disputed Rude's contention that GPS is more accurate than a speed gun.

"GPS works on satellite signals, so you have a delay of some type," Edwards said. "Is it a couple-second delay? A 30-second delay? Because in that time people can speed up, slow down."

The device in Shaun's car, originally designed for trucking companies, rental car agencies and other businesses with fleets, sends a signal every 30 seconds that records his whereabouts and travel speed.

His parents signed up to be automatically notified by e-mail whenever he exceeded 70 mph, and the one time he did he lost his driving privileges for 10 days.

Rude said he is talking about the ticket -- Shaun has tried to stay out of it -- to encourage other parents to keep tabs on their teenage drivers using GPS. He said he has told too many parents their child was killed in a wreck.

David W. Brown, a Monterey lawyer and author of "Fight Your Ticket in California," said attacking the reliability of radar guns does not usually get speeders very far, especially if they are unwilling to devote extra time and money to hiring legal experts.

Still, among people who do challenge tickets, the proportion who triumph is relatively large, he said. Their technique? Betting the officer who cited them will be unable to make it to court.

"Statistically, when people do prevail, that is the most common method," he said.

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

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Weather looks good for Discovery landing

HOUSTON, Texas (AP) -- Discovery's astronauts aimed for an early afternoon touchdown Wednesday to conclude a 15-day mission that saved a space station wing and allowed construction to continue at the orbiting outpost.

The space shuttle Discovery is scheduled to land Wednesday afternoon.

Forecasters did not expect the weather to interfere with Discovery's planned landing at Kennedy Space Center.

Discovery is set for the first coast-to-coast re-entry by a space shuttle since the destruction of Columbia nearly five years ago.

The ship's first landing path would take the crew over far western Canada, the Great Plains and several Southern states.

If bad weather or other problems force NASA to scrub the landing attempt, the shuttle's second opportunity would include flying over several Western states, Texas and Louisiana.

Mission managers decided Tuesday that Discovery was safe for re-entry after examining the results of multiple thermal shield inspections.

Discovery blasted off on October 23 on a mission that was considered the most challenging and complex in the nine years of orbital assembly of the international space station.

The crew delivered and installed a new pressurized compartment called Harmony, which will serve as a docking port for future laboratories, and moved a massive solar power tower half the length of a football field to the far left end of the station.

The mission took a dramatic turn, however, when one of the tower's giant solar wings ripped in two places as the astronauts unfurled them after the move.

Saturday's emergency repair of the torn wing was an unprecedented and daring feat whipped up by flight controllers in just a few days.

Standing at the end of a 90-foot robotically operated boom, spacewalker Scott Parazynski stretched his 6-foot-2 frame to cut the tangled wires that snagged the wing and install homemade braces.

He was farther from the safe confines of the station than any other astronaut had ever been, and he was mere inches away from the wing, which was coursing with more than 100 volts of electricity.

The historic repair effort allowed NASA to press forward with plans to launch the shuttle Atlantis in December to deliver a new European laboratory to the space station.

The torn wing was one of two space station power problems that emerged during Discovery's visit. Steel shavings were found inside a rotary joint needed to turn another set of solar wings at the orbiting outpost.

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

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Hi-tech ways to stay in touch

The technologies families can use to stay in touch are as diverse as those family groups themselves. Here the BBC News website gives a run-down on some of the technologies that the most modern of families are putting to good use.

Twitter helps you keep tabs on more than just people

Usually text messages only travel between two people but Twitter ensures each one reaches a wider audience. Messages sent to Twitter are echoed to your own page and to all the friends signed up to get them.

The 140 character limit in text messages imposes an austere brevity and many use Twitter to keep friends and colleagues up to date with where they are, who they are meeting and what they are thinking.

When out and about, updating a Twitter blog is easier than doing a web-based blog update.

Since Twitter launched in mid-2006 many competitors have sprung up including Pownce, Jaiku and Yelp.

MOBLOGGING

The advent of cameraphones boosted the number of mobloggers

This can mean that a blog post or entry is written and sent from a laptop via a wi-fi hotspot in a cafe or from a capable mobile phone. As long as it is done on the hoof, it qualifies.

Many of the first to blog with a mobile simply took pictures of what they saw and who they met while out and about. Many mobloggers use tiny programs that automatically send any snap they take to their blog.

As camera phones have become inescapable the number of moblogs and mobloggers has escalated.

Now any blog is as likely to contain snaps sent from a phone as it is longer text entries composed in a moment of repose. Pretty much all blogging software contains tools that will take content from any and every device.

VIDEOBLOGGING

Many see videoblogging as an outgrowth of webcams

Video clips can be shot with a mobile phone, webcam, handheld or static camera. Clips can be snapshots of what just happened, diary-like entries or quasi-professionally produced shows.

Many bloggers who make their living from their journal use short video shows as a means to keep their audience entertained and up to date.

The popularity of portable media players, such as the iPod, has substantially grown the audience for such shows.

Some, such as Justin.tv, send out a constant stream of video from a camera they wear to show what they are up to each and every minute.

SOCIAL NETWORKS

Social sites give many bloggers a ready-made audience

Social networking sites such as MySpace, Facebook and Bebo solve this problem as they deliver a ready-made audience - many of whom will be people you already know.

Most of these sites let users upload photos, videos and text - just like any blogging site.

Many of these sites are now starting to add extras and add-ons that let people step up the interaction with the folk with whom they have connected.

LIFECASTING

Saving all your life can soak up huge amounts of storage space

While some video bloggers stream images of where they go, lifecasting tries to create a more permanent, searchable, record of a person's life.

It involves capturing as much data as possible about everything someone does. Not just recording and archiving face-to-face or phone conversations but also creating an indexed database of documents, text messages e-mails, pictures - everything.

An attempt to record part of a life in this way is being tried by Microsoft researcher Gordon Bell as part of the MyLifeBits project.

His archive now contains more than 120,000 e-mails, almost 60,000 photographs, hours of phone call recordings and much more data about his life.

Just as important as grabbing the data is indexing it properly and creating links between all the elements to give an overview of how a life is being lived.Rural France US housing crunch Hyper market

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Discovery crew preps for landing

HOUSTON, Texas (AP) -- Discovery's astronauts got their spaceship ready for the ride home on Tuesday, wrapping up a 15-day mission that kept the crew far busier than planned.

The space shuttle Discovery is scheduled to land Wednesday afternoon.

NASA said the preliminary weather forecast looked good for Wednesday's planned early afternoon touchdown at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The landing originally was scheduled before dawn, but commander Pamela Melroy said she asked Mission Control to switch it to daylight to make it easier on herself and her crew.

The schedule change also allowed the seven astronauts to shift their sleep time later instead of earlier, she said in an interview with The Associated Press.

This 15-day mission is longer than most -- and more stressful, too, with the astronauts required to carry out repairs to a torn solar energy panel at the space station.

Melroy said she was "extremely concerned" when spacewalker Scott Parazynski went outside to work on the ripped wing Saturday.

"You may have heard me at one point kind of squeak out 'Be careful' as I saw the solar array coming toward him," she told the AP. "But I got more comfortable because I was watching him very closely ... and he was using good body position and hand techniques."

She also took comfort in the fact that another astronaut, Douglas Wheelock, was watching over everything from the base of the solar wing.

Parazynski said that he barely managed to reach the wing's snagged wires and cut them.

"Another foot beyond that and I don't think we could have reached it," he said. "If it had been any farther away, it would have been a Plan B or C or D. I don't know what it would have been."

After leaving the space station on Monday, the astronauts used a laser- and camera-tipped boom to hunt for possible micrometeorite damage to the shuttle's wing and nose that might have occurred during the 11 days the shuttle was docked to the orbiting outpost.

NASA was finishing up its analysis of the latest laser data and expected to let the astronauts know later Tuesday if they are cleared for landing.

Because of the schedule switch to a daytime landing, Discovery will make the first coast-to-coast re-entry since Columbia disintegrated over Texas in 2003.

Discovery's original landing plan called for the ship to glide up from the southwest over Central America and the Caribbean before landing in Florida. But now the shuttle will descend over the Pacific Northwest and all the way across the country into Florida.

The astronauts woke up Tuesday morning to Deep Purple's "Space Trucking," played for astronaut Clayton Anderson, who's headed home after a five-month stay on the space station.

"You know they say all great things have to come to an end, and I'm really sorry that I have to agree with that for now, but I had an awesome ride with several awesome crews," Anderson said. "I miss my family and I miss my friends and I'm looking forward to being back on the ground."

Anderson said he's looking forward to ice-cold drinks and ice cream, which are unavailable on the space station.

Shuttle Atlantis, meanwhile, is being prepped for launch as early as December 6. It is set to deliver a new European laboratory called Columbus to the space station.

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

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Google at the gas pump

SAN FRANCISCO, California (AP) -- Lost drivers in the United States soon will be able to Google for help at the pump.

Drivers at 3,500 U.S. gas stations soon will be able to use Google maps at the pump.

As part of a partnership to be announced Wednesday, the online search leader will dispense driving directions at thousands of gasoline pumps across the country beginning early next month.

The pumps, made by Gilbarco Veeder-Root, include an Internet connection and will display Google's mapping service in color on a small screen.

Motorists will be able to scroll through several categories to find local landmarks, hotels, restaurants and hospitals selected by the gas station's owner. After the driver selects a destination, the pump will print out directions.

Eventually, Gilbarco Veeder-Root hopes to enable motorists to type in a specific address and get directions.

"We think the service will create more customer loyalty for retailers," said Gilbarco Veeder-Root spokeswoman Lucy Sackett.

Greensboro, North Carolina-based Gilbarco Veeder-Root will initially offer the Google service in about 3,500 gas pumps and expand based on retailer demand.

Unlike most of Google's services, this one will not include ads bringing the company income. But participating retailers will be able to make extra money from other merchants that offer coupons on the service.

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

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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 has managed to sell 1.4m iPhones in the first 90 days on sale.

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

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

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'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.

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 Point and shoot Fibre-optic future

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'$100 laptop' begins production

The first machines have started rolling off the production line

Mass production of the so-called $100 laptop has begun, five years after the concept was first proposed.

Computer manufacturer Quanta has started building the low-cost laptops at a factory in Changshu, China.

One Laptop per Child (OLPC), the group behind the project, said that children in developing countries would begin receiving machines this month

Last month, OLPC received its first official order for 100,000 machines from the government of Uruguay.

"Today represents an important milestone in the evolution of the One Laptop per Child project," said Nicholas Negroponte, founder of OLPC.

The organisation had reached the critical stage despite "all the naysayers," he said.

Price hike

Since Professor Negroponte first put forward the idea of distributing low-cost laptop to children in developing countries in 2002, the plan has been both praised and mocked.

Intel chairman Craig Barret described the XO laptop, as the machine is known, as a "$100 gadget" whilst Microsoft founder Bill Gates questioned its lack of hard drive and "tiny screen".

Other critics have questioned the need for the laptops in countries which, they said, had more pressing needs such as sanitation and health care.

But Professor Negroponte has always maintained that the project is about education not technology.

However, the green and white XO machines pack a number of innovations which make them suitable for use in remote and environmentally hostile areas.

The machine has no moving parts and can be easily maintained. It has a sunlight-readable display that allows children to use it outside and, importantly for areas with little access to electricity, it is ultra low power and can be charged by a variety of devices including solar panels.

Although OLPC eventually plan to sell the machines for $100 or less, the current price is $188 (93).

Christmas gift

Initially OLPC has said that it required three million orders of the XO to make production viable.

Uruguay is the first country to order the machines

Governments were originally offered the machines in lots of 250,000.

So far, however, the organisation's only confirmed order is from Uruguay. The South American country has ordered 100,00 of the machines with an option to purchase a further 300,000.

Other governments have expressed interest in the machines.

For example, the government of Mongolia has announced that it plans to launch a pilot project providing 20,000 laptops, to children aged six to 12.

OLPC has also allowed a limited number of the machines to be bought by people in North America through its Give 1 Get 1 programme (G1G1), which will allow members of the public to buy a machine for themselves as well as one for a child in a developing country.

The programme will offer laptops between the 12 and 26 November. OLPC said that the start of production means that people participating in the scheme will receive their XO by December this year.In pictures Point and shoot Fibre-optic future

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Symbian dismisses Google Android

Symbian powers more than 165 million phones

Google's dominance of the web will not translate to the mobile phone market, a senior executive at Symbian has said.

John Forsyth, vice president of strategy at Symbian, the platform that powers many of the world's phones, said Google lacked experience.

Google has formed an alliance with 33 firms to develop an open platform for mobile phones, called Android.

Meanwhile, the head of Nokia in the UK said the firm was in discussions with Google about using the platform.

Simon Ainslie, Nokia UK's managing director, said: "We are always open to discussion and debate on that. We were not ready to make any commitment to it or discuss it at the time."

"We are having ongoing discussions with Google."

'Very happy'

Mr Ainslie said the time was not right to make any announcement as to "how we can work with them".

He also said that Nokia was very happy with its partnership with Symbian.

He said: "It's the world's most used platform. It's not a simple solution to make a platform work on a mobile."

It's a bit like the common cold. It keeps coming round and then we go back to business

Mr Forsyth said Google had to be aware that making a "mobile OS is a very specialised form of rocket science.

"It's not search rocket science."

He said the alliance was yet another attempt to launch a Linux-based operating system to drive mobile phones.

"About every three months this year there has been a mobile Linux initiative of some sort launched.

"It's a bit like the common cold. It keeps coming round and then we go back to business. We don't participate in these full stop. We make our own platform and we are focused on driving that into the mobile phone market at large ever more aggressively."

Symbian's recent financial results show it sold 20.4m smartphone software licenses in the last quarter of 2007 and since the company was launched nine years ago more than 165 million phones have been shipped using its platform.

'Deeply unsexy'

Mr Forsyth said there was nothing to indicate that Google's dominance of the web would make it successful as a mobile phone platform provider.

"Search and a mobile phone platform are completely different things.

"It's costly, arduous and at times a deeply unsexy job of supporting customers day by day in launching phones. That's something there's very little experience of in Google's environment.

"if you are a serious phone maker and you are asked to bet your handsets on somebody, you would want to bet on someone with a track record of delivery and support."

Mr Forsyth also questioned whether developers would flock to the system.

"It's very clear what developers want - volume and a stable platform that doesn't keep breaking. You have to have a lot of zeroes in your sales figures before a developer gets out of bed.

"They are talking about having a phone by the end of next year. It's not one that is going to ignite developers."In pictures Australian election Fibre-optic future

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PC stripper helps spam to spread

Be deciphering the text, victims get to see more explicit images

A virtual stripper is helping to defeat anti-spam security checks.

Spammers have created a Windows game which shows a woman in a state of undress when people correctly type in text shown in an accompanying image.

The scrambled text images come from sites which use them to stop computers automatically signing up for accounts that can be put to illegal use.

By getting people to type in the text the spammers can take over the accounts and use them to send junk mail.

Text chat

The scrambled text systems used to defeat automatic sign-ups are known as Captchas or "Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart".

Typically they feature a disfigured word or one overlaid with artefacts that make it difficult for anyone but a human to decipher.

Many computer criminals have been trying to crack these systems to get at the net-based resources, such as e-mail accounts or blogging tools, they are designed to protect.

"The free e-mail services, so far, have been extremely successful at using Captchas to recognise a human being or an automatic program," said Raimund Genes, chief technology officer at Trend Micro.

The Windows game uses humans to crack anti-spam security

The novel system for getting round Captchas uses images of a woman called "melissa" who invites victims to decipher the scrambled text. Entering the correct text produces another image and another chunk of scrambled text.

Mr Genes said the Captchas seen with the first versions of the malicious program are all taken from the sign-up system for Yahoo webmail.

In the past many viruses have tricked people into opening booby-trapped attachments with the false promise of seeing explicit images, said Mr Genes, but this was one of the first to actually show people more images if people respond.

Because of the effectiveness of this technology, we have begun to see scammers adapt their tactics

Mr Genes said the program could prove because "the average male e-mail user would want to see more".

So far the two security firms who have spotted the program, Trend Micro and Panda Security, have not seen many copies of it in the wild suggesting few people have been caught out.

Mr Genes said it was very likely a proof of concept program that might find wide use in the future.

"Maybe they are trying it out to slip under the radar," he said. "More and more malware does not want to get any publicity, it wants to be silent and hidden."

The virtual stripper program arrives on machines that are already infected with malicious software, said Mr Genes. The program comes to life when the Internet Explorer browser is used on infected machines.

The Captcha-busting program can run on Windows 98, ME, NT, 2000, XP, and Server 2003.

Mr Genes recommended that people run anti-virus, anti-spyware and web watching programs to avoid infection and to install updates as soon as they become available.

A Yahoo spokesperson said: "Yahoo began deploying Captcha more than six years ago to help combat the ability for malicious programs to send spam.

"Because of the effectiveness of this technology, we have begun to see scammers adapt their tactics, where human beings solve the puzzles the viruses cannot."

The company added: "Yahoo is continuing to innovate in our defenses against this type of abuse. We have a number of mechanisms to help us detect and respond to abuse."French flavour Day in pictures Q&A

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Warning over net address limits

Vint Cerf is one of the founding fathers of the net

Internet Service Providers urgently need to roll out the next generation of net addresses for online devices, internet pioneer Vint Cerf has said.

Every device that goes online is allocated a unique IP address but the pool of numbers is finite and due to run out around 2010.

A new system, called IPv6, has been awaiting roll out for 10 years.

Unless IPv6 is switched on in the coming years, some devices might not be able to go online, Mr Cerf has warned.

Mr Cerf, who played a key role in the development of the protocols which underpin the global net, said: "There is a risk of not being able to get online."

He added: "The rate of consumption of available remaining IPv4 numbers appears to be on track to run out in 2010/11."

Mr Cerf is about to step down as chairman of Icann, the body which oversees the net, and is also Google's chief internet evangelist.

Potential shortage

The current system, called IPv4 provides four billion addresses but the explosion in the number of devices which go online has led to the potential shortage.

Although IPv6 was standardised 10 years ago it has not been rolled out at speed.

While modern computers, servers, routers and other online devices are able to use IPv6, internet service providers have yet to implement the system.

"The reason they haven't - which is quite understandable - is that customers haven't asked for it yet," said Mr Cerf, adding, "my job, whether with my Icann hat on or not, is to persuade them to ask for it.

To be clear - if we finally exhaust the IPv4 pool it doesn't mean the internet stops working

"If you don't ask for it, then when you most want it you won't have it."

IPv6 will create 340 trillion trillion trillion separate addresses, enough to satisfy demand for decades to come.

"To be clear - if we finally exhaust the IPv4 pool it doesn't mean the internet stops working. But people wanting an IPv4 address won't get one.

"If there is an internet that does not support IPv6, not getting an IPv4 address means not getting on the net."

He added: "The appreciation of the importance of getting IPv6 into operation is very much more visible than before.

"I'm anticipating in 2008 a substantial increase of use of IPv6, introduced in parallel with IPv4."

One complicating factor is that IPv6 and IPv4 are not compatible so ISPs will have to run the two systems in parallel - adding to costs.

In Asia, governments in China, Korea and Japan have begun to lead roll out of IPv6 and the European Union is reviewing methods to encourage adoption.French flavour Day in pictures Q&A

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Cow-killing meteorite sells for $1,554

NEW YORK (AP) -- Two of the world's most famous meteorites failed to attract buyers at an auction Sunday, while an ordinary metal mailbox zapped by a falling space rock in 1984 was sold for the unearthly price of almost $83,000.

A 30-pound chunk of the Wllamette Meteorite is shown in an undated photograph.

A 30-pound chunk of the Willamette Meteorite, which was found in Oregon in 1902 and has been steeped in ownership controversies for more than a century, was offered by Bonhams auction house at an estimated value of $1.3 million but was withdrawn from sale after bidding ended at $300,000.

Similarly, the 1,410-pound Brenham Main Mass, dug out of a Kansas farm field in 2005, was withdrawn by Bonhams CEO and auctioneer Malcolm Barber after it drew a top bid of only $200,000 -- well short of the pre-sale estimate of $630,000 to $700,000.

In both cases the sellers, who were present, said they weren't worried because potential purchasers were known to be interested in the extraterrestrial rocks even though they may not have joined the bidding.

"I'm disappointed, but it was not through any lack of effort," said Philip Mani, a San Antonio lawyer and geologist who is one of three owners of the Brenham meteorite, along with Steve Arnold, who found it, and Allen Binford, who owns the wheat field near Greensburg, Kansas, where it was discovered.

"We are in the process of putting together a plan, and we have a number of inquiries from people expressing interest."

The entire 15.5-ton Willamette Meteorite has been owned by the American Museum of Natural History since 1908, with pieces loaned or given to other collectors from time to time.

The small piece was offered at auction by Darryl Pitt, curator of the Macovich Collection, the world's largest collection of space rocks, who traded the museum a Martian rock for the Willamette chip in 1998.

The fact that it went unsold was "not really a surprise," Pitt said, adding that he also expected a lot of interest from prospective buyers.

Having sold several other rocks, including a Siberian meteorite _ a product of history's largest known meteor shower -- for the day's top price of $122,750, he called the auction "not a bad day. It shows there is a lot of interest in meteorites."

The couple who bought the Siberian rock declined to identify themselves.

Scientists believe the huge Willamette meteorite, the largest ever found in North America, crashed thousands of years ago in what is now Canada and was pushed southward by glaciers before it was discovered in an area occupied by Oregon's Clackamas Indians.

The Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, which includes the Clackamas, has objected to the auction of the 30-pound fragment. The tribe believes the meteorite is a sacred object that was sent to Earth by the Sky People; demands for its return to the group have been refused.

"I don't know what to say about their claim," Pitt said after the auction.

Among the more than 50 meteorites, moon rocks and other items that Bonhams auctioned off for a total of $750,000, a surprise star was a mailbox that had sat outside the home of Carutha Barnard in Claxton, Georgia, until it was blasted one night in 1984 by a three-pound rock from outer space.

In spirited bidding, the mailbox -- somewhat the worse for the experience but with its red metal flag still bravely in the "up" position -- went to an unidentified bidder for $82,750 including the buyer's premium of 20 percent. A tiny piece of the rock itself, less than an ounce, went for $7,700.

The Valera Meteorite, noteworthy as the only space rock documented to have caused a fatality on Earth, was sold for $1,554. Its victim in 1972 was a cow in Venezuela.

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

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Net giants 'still failing China'

Google has faced tough criticism of its China policy

Earlier this year net giants Google and Yahoo came under fire from Human Rights Watch and Reporters Sans Frontieres, for their activities in China. But is the criticism warranted?

In 2003 the Chinese police who had been monitoring message boards, blogs and personal emails, asked for the sign up account details of two anonymous bloggers.

These were handed over by Yahoo China to the Chinese Government.

More than 57 Chinese people have been arrested as result of discussing democracy on the internet, say Amnesty International.

Human Rights Watch, a New York based campaign group, says a line has been crossed.

"Google, Yahoo and Microsoft no longer carry out the censorship for the Chinese government," says Asia Director, Brad Adams, "they are the censor."

This comment stems from the lack of clarity over what is being censored, who has initiated it, and why.

There are two types of censoring at work. Firstly, whole websites are eliminated from Yahoo and Google in China.

De-listed sites

As Judy Lin, a former Reuters reporter in Beijing, says: "I found it very difficult to do my job.

I couldn't access the New York Times, The Washington Times, BBC News or any websites about Tiananmen square

"I couldn't access the New York Times, The Washington Times, BBC News or any websites about Tiananmen square."

Additionally, typing in certain words, such as democracy, human rights, and the Chinese opposition group Falungong will produce error pages.

In an official statement, Yahoo said: "It is our understanding that every internet and media company doing business in China receives a list of prohibited words.

"It's important to distinguish that as of October 2005, Ali baba now operates the combined entity including the Yahoo China business.

"We no longer manage day to day operations in China, so we do not have a copy of this list of prohibited words."

'Government's bidding'

"There was talk of a list that the Chinese government drew up and handed to the internet companies. There is no list, and Yahoo in particular is doing the Chinese Government's bidding by predicting which words will be problematic, testing them against the firewall and then implementing them."

Certain results are omitted from Google searches in China

Human Rights Watch has repeatedly asked for copies of this list, and has never been given it.

These firewalls are maintained because the whole of China is served by only nine servers, through which all internet traffic is directed.

In addition, both Reporters Sans Frontiers and Human Rights Watch maintain that Chinese censorship is some of the most elaborate and comprehensive in the world.

Julian Pain from RSF challenges the legal basis for these lists , saying: "These are not actually legal: nowhere in the Chinese constitution does it say that certain words are illegal on internet sites."

Despite this China is viewed by the internet companies as a very lucrative market, with more than 100 million users online at any one time.

Yahoo, Google and other internet firms maintain they are interested in pursuing the utopian ideals on which they were founded.

Yahoo says the internet is a "positive force in China and a growing Chinese middle class is benefiting greatly from more education, communication, and technology".

'Giant market'

Brad Adams understands why there is such a furore over this issue because "in the future everything will be done on the internet: shopping, information retrieval and voting".

Chinese citizens are not interested in overthrowing the government

Chinese journalist Bu Hua, and Media Academic Shou Ming say there are more than 30,000 people involved in maintaining censorship within the Chinese government, monitoring information and discussions on message boards.

However both emphasise that the effects of this censorship are relatively small.

"Chinese citizens are not interested in overthrowing the government, or this Western concept of the public sphere" says Shou, "they want to talk about day to day concerns.

Yahoo says it bans words on an official list from the Chinese government

"Whilst each case is very sad for the people involved, fifty seven people arrested in a country of 1.4 billion is not very much."

Firewalls

Both her and Shou Ming use tactics like breaking up words or underscoring them to find ways around the censors.

Others in China use proxy servers - computers in another country which act as the gateway to the net outside of China.

Critics of internet companies like Google and Yahoo argue that despite the assurances they are still treading too softly. There is talk of an ethical code to be launched soon.

"There is no chance that China will throw out Yahoo, Microsoft or Google" says Brad Adams.

"Dissidents use their sites, which makes them 'honeypots' that the Chinese government can monitor. And the Chinese need the new technology and software these companies bring in, if only to copy it.

"If Google, Yahoo and Microsoft stand together and are divided and ruled by the Chinese, they will be able to uphold an ethical code."French flavour Day in pictures Q&A

Source from: news.bbc.co.uk

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US rebukes Yahoo over China case

Yahoo helped the Chinese authorities identify a journalist now in jail

A US congressional panel has criticised internet firm Yahoo for not giving full details to a probe into the jailing of a reporter by Chinese authorities.

Yahoo had been "at best inexcusably negligent" and at worst "deceptive" in evidence given to the House foreign affairs committee last year, it said.

Yahoo's Michael Callahan originally told congress he did not know why China wanted the reporter's details.

Shi Tao was jailed after Yahoo helped China officials identify him.

Chief executive Jerry Yang said his firm had always been open with Congress and that he personally was very concerned by human rights issues.

Yahoo has previously said it had to comply with Chinese laws to operate in the country.

'State secrets'

Tom Lantos, chairman of the House committee, issued a stinging rebuke to the US-based internet giant at Tuesday's hearing.

This was inexcusably negligent behaviour at best, and deliberately deceptive behaviour at worst

At issue is whether Michael Callahan, Yahoo's executive vice-president and general counsel, gave false information to the panel during an investigation in February 2006.

Mr Callahan said then that he did not know why the Chinese authorities wanted to trace Shi Tao - who was jailed for 10 years - but it has since emerged that other Yahoo employees had a document stating it was to do with revealing "state secrets".

Mr Callahan wrote a letter to Congress last week to apologise and stating that the pertinent information only came to his attention months after he gave testimony.

Chinese computer users are barred from accessing some websites

Mr Lantos said any big company operating in China should have been aware of the authorities' repression of free speech, and questioned how Mr Callahan could not have known of the document.

"Yahoo claims that this is just one big misunderstanding," Mr Lantos said.

"Let me be clear - this was no misunderstanding. This was inexcusably negligent behaviour at best, and deliberately deceptive behaviour at worst."

Mr Callahan responded that there had been "confusion" over the information Yahoo had about the demand made by Chinese authorities.

He apologised for not letting the House committee know when the additional information came to his attention.

Blocked content

Last month, the House committee backed legislation which would prevent internet companies such as Yahoo from co-operating with authorities in China and elsewhere.

Under the legislation, companies would also have to reveal terms and phrases they filtered in certain countries.

The bill, introduced by Republican representative Chris Smith, still needs approval from the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

The Chinese government enforces strict laws on internet use, blocking content it considers a threat, including references to the Tiananmen Square massacre and notable dissidents.French flavour Day in pictures Q&A

Source from: news.bbc.co.uk

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Bloomberg pushes carbon tax

SEATTLE, Washington (AP) -- New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg proposed a national "pollution pricing" plan Friday that would tax companies directly for the greenhouse gases they release.

Bloomberg in Seattle: His carbon emissions tax plan is similar to a Democratic presidential candidate's.

"If you really want to reduce carbon emissions, tax carbon at the source, which would mean at the mine head, at the oil well, whatever," Bloomberg told more than 100 other mayors at a climate summit sponsored by the U.S. Conference of Mayors.

Bloomberg suggested a fee of $15 for every ton of greenhouse gas companies emit, with the money used to reduce payroll taxes and finance tax credits for companies that reduce their greenhouse gas pollution.

Greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane trap the sun's energy, warming the Earth's surface and lower atmosphere.

Bloomberg's plan is similar to one already proposed by Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut.

Bloomberg said the voluntary and unenforceable emissions targets favored by U.S. President George W. Bush are "like voluntary speed limits -- doomed to fail."

He also said another carbon-reduction approach known as cap-and-trade, which many Democratic candidates have endorsed, is a flawed solution and could create bidding wars.

Under cap-and-trade, power plants or businesses that exceed pollution caps must buy or trade for additional allowances, usually from others that have been able to cut their emissions.

Tony Kreindler, a spokesman for Environmental Defense, said it would be tough to push a carbon tax through Congress and it would not guarantee the same benefits as cap-and-trade.

"It's not a baseless solution, but when it comes to fixing climate change, by far the best option is cap-and-trade," Kreindler said.

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

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Cloning could save ancient redwoods

SAN GERONIMO, California (AP) -- An arborist on a mission to preserve and restore Northern California's towering redwoods has begun taking cuttings that he hopes can be used to make genetic clones of the ancient trees.

David Milarch, co-founder of the Champion Tree Project, holds a cutting from a 1,000-year-old Redwood tree.

On a recent foggy day in Marin County, about 25 miles (40 kilometers) north of San Francisco, David Milarch assembled a team of crack tree climbers who used ropes and harnesses to clamber more than 100 feet (30 meters) into the treetops at Roy's Redwoods Preserve.

The workers clipped boughs from some of the preserve's oldest and tallest trees to get genetically pure samples of some of nature's ultimate survivors.

Milarch, 58, believes these trees can provide the toughest possible stock for a kind of "genetic savings account." He hopes that material can be used to restore old-growth redwoods in their native range up and down the state.

About 95 percent of the original forest has been cut down over the last few hundred years.

Milarch, from the state of Michigan, recalled thinking on his first visit to Northern California in 1968 that he would see avenues of coast redwoods 100 miles (160 kilometers) long. What he found instead was a "moonscape," he said.

Nearly 40 years later, Milarch has returned, and he believes the latest advances in genetic cloning could save the most ancient of these trees.

"What does this tree's immune system have in it that it has survived when other trees haven't?" Milarch asked, leaning against a massive, shaggy trunk of a redwood he's dubbed "Grandma." He estimates the tree is at least 800 years old.

Average mature redwoods stand between 200 to 240 feet (60 to 73 meters) tall and have diameters of 10 to 15 feet (3 to 4.5 meters). The tallest trees have been measured at more than 370 feet (112 meters), making coast redwoods the tallest living organisms in the world. The hardiest members of the species can live to be 2,000 years old.

Redwoods have gained a prized status among nature lovers, but their high-quality timber has long been favored by home builders seeking the same durability that allows the trees to survive in the wild, which has led to widespread harvesting.

Milarch said coast redwoods can reproduce themselves through a natural cloning process and by mating with other trees. A tree like Grandma could effectively be the latest incarnation of an individual tree that first saw daylight 20,000 years ago, he said.

"If we're going to pick out the strongest, longest-lived genetics, this old gal's a survivor," Milarch said.

Horticulturists and genetic engineers plan to use the samples from the Marin County redwoods to see which of several techniques -- some traditional, some cutting-edge -- work best to reproduce the trees.

Milarch has high hopes for the most advanced approach, known as tissue culturing, which creates exact genetic replicas by manipulating individual cells.

Not everyone agrees that cloning represents the most effective way to preserve redwoods. Conservation groups have traditionally focused on curbing development and logging along the 500-mile (800-kilometer) stretch from Big Sur to the Oregon state line where most coast redwoods grow.

"Protecting the habitat of the species in place -- I think that's the most important approach to conservation," said Deborah Rogers, a redwood geneticist and director of conservation science for the San Diego County-based Center for Natural Lands Management.

Rogers said a genetic storehouse that could protect the entire species from an unforeseen cataclysm caused by climate change or an imported disease would require samples from hundreds of trees across the state.

Milarch hopes that samples from about 20 individual trees taken from ancient redwood stands in five distinct areas will be enough to get his restoration effort under way. Next he plans to solicit landowners and communities for plots of at least five acres where the clones will be planted and, ideally, interbreed.

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

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