Article,Summary
"Ink helps drive democracy in Asia

The Kyrgyz Republic, a small, mountainous state of the former Soviet republic, is using invisible ink and ultraviolet readers in the country's elections as part of a drive to prevent multiple voting.

This new technology is causing both worries and guarded optimism among different sectors of the population. In an effort to live up to its reputation in the 1990s as ""an island of democracy"", the Kyrgyz President, Askar Akaev, pushed through the law requiring the use of ink during the upcoming Parliamentary and Presidential elections. The US government agreed to fund all expenses associated with this decision.

The Kyrgyz Republic is seen by many experts as backsliding from the high point it reached in the mid-1990s with a hastily pushed through referendum in 2003, reducing the legislative branch to one chamber with 75 deputies. The use of ink is only one part of a general effort to show commitment towards more open elections - the German Embassy, the Soros Foundation and the Kyrgyz government have all contributed to purchase transparent ballot boxes.

The actual technology behind the ink is not that complicated. The ink is sprayed on a person's left thumb. It dries and is not visible under normal light.

However, the presence of ultraviolet light (of the kind used to verify money) causes the ink to glow with a neon yellow light. At the entrance to each polling station, one election official will scan voter's fingers with UV lamp before allowing them to enter, and every voter will have his/her left thumb sprayed with ink before receiving the ballot. If the ink shows under the UV light the voter will not be allowed to enter the polling station. Likewise, any voter who refuses to be inked will not receive the ballot. These elections are assuming even greater significance because of two large factors - the upcoming parliamentary elections are a prelude to a potentially regime changing presidential election in the Autumn as well as the echo of recent elections in other former Soviet Republics, notably Ukraine and Georgia. The use of ink has been controversial - especially among groups perceived to be pro-government.

Widely circulated articles compared the use of ink to the rural practice of marking sheep - a still common metaphor in this primarily agricultural society.

The author of one such article began a petition drive against the use of the ink. The greatest part of the opposition to ink has often been sheer ignorance. Local newspapers have carried stories that the ink is harmful, radioactive or even that the ultraviolet readers may cause health problems. Others, such as the aggressively middle of the road, Coalition of Non-governmental Organizations, have lauded the move as an important step forward. This type of ink has been used in many elections in the world, in countries as varied as Serbia, South Africa, Indonesia and Turkey. The other common type of ink in elections is indelible visible ink - but as the elections in Afghanistan showed, improper use of this type of ink can cause additional problems. The use of ""invisible"" ink is not without its own problems. In most elections, numerous rumors have spread about it.

In Serbia, for example, both Christian and Islamic leaders assured their populations that its use was not contrary to religion. Other rumours are associated with how to remove the ink - various soft drinks, solvents and cleaning products are put forward. However, in reality, the ink is very effective at getting under the cuticle of the thumb and difficult to wash off. The ink stays on the finger for at least 72 hours and for up to a week. The use of ink and readers by itself is not a panacea for election ills. The passage of the inking law is, nevertheless, a clear step forward towards free and fair elections."" The country's widely watched parliamentary elections are scheduled for 27 February.

David Mikosz works for the IFES, an international, non-profit organisation that supports the building of democratic societies.
","The other common type of ink in elections is indelible visible ink - but as the elections in Afghanistan showed, improper use of this type of ink can cause additional problems.The use of ink and readers by itself is not a panacea for election ills.The use of ""invisible"" ink is not without its own problems.The use of ink is only one part of a general effort to show commitment towards more open elections - the German Embassy, the Soros Foundation and the Kyrgyz government have all contributed to purchase transparent ballot boxes.The author of one such article began a petition drive against the use of the ink.The use of ink has been controversial - especially among groups perceived to be pro-government.In an effort to live up to its reputation in the 1990s as ""an island of democracy"", the Kyrgyz President, Askar Akaev, pushed through the law requiring the use of ink during the upcoming Parliamentary and Presidential elections.At the entrance to each polling station, one election official will scan voter's fingers with UV lamp before allowing them to enter, and every voter will have his/her left thumb sprayed with ink before receiving the ballot.The ink is sprayed on a person's left thumb.If the ink shows under the UV light the voter will not be allowed to enter the polling station.The actual technology behind the ink is not that complicated.The Kyrgyz Republic, a small, mountainous state of the former Soviet republic, is using invisible ink and ultraviolet readers in the country's elections as part of a drive to prevent multiple voting.This type of ink has been used in many elections in the world, in countries as varied as Serbia, South Africa, Indonesia and Turkey."
"China net cafe culture crackdown

Chinese authorities closed 12,575 net cafes in the closing months of 2004, the country's government said.

According to the official news agency most of the net cafes were closed down because they were operating illegally. Chinese net cafes operate under a set of strict guidelines and many of those most recently closed broke rules that limit how close they can be to schools. The move is the latest in a series of steps the Chinese government has taken to crack down on what it considers to be immoral net use.

The official Xinhua News Agency said the crackdown was carried out to create a ""safer environment for young people in China"". Rules introduced in 2002 demand that net cafes be at least 200 metres away from middle and elementary schools. The hours that children can use net cafes are also tightly regulated. China has long been worried that net cafes are an unhealthy influence on young people. The 12,575 cafes were shut in the three months from October to December. China also tries to dictate the types of computer games people can play to limit the amount of violence people are exposed to.

Net cafes are hugely popular in China because the relatively high cost of computer hardware means that few people have PCs in their homes. This is not the first time that the Chinese government has moved against net cafes that are not operating within its strict guidelines. All the 100,000 or so net cafes in the country are required to use software that controls what websites users can see. Logs of sites people visit are also kept. Laws on net cafe opening hours and who can use them were introduced in 2002 following a fire at one cafe that killed 25 people. During the crackdown following the blaze authorities moved to clean up net cafes and demanded that all of them get permits to operate. In August 2004 Chinese authorities shut down 700 websites and arrested 224 people in a crackdown on net porn. At the same time it introduced new controls to block overseas sex sites. The Reporters Without Borders group said in a report that Chinese government technologies for e-mail interception and net censorship are among the most highly developed in the world.
","Laws on net cafe opening hours and who can use them were introduced in 2002 following a fire at one cafe that killed 25 people.Chinese authorities closed 12,575 net cafes in the closing months of 2004, the country's government said.China has long been worried that net cafes are an unhealthy influence on young people.This is not the first time that the Chinese government has moved against net cafes that are not operating within its strict guidelines.The hours that children can use net cafes are also tightly regulated.According to the official news agency most of the net cafes were closed down because they were operating illegally.In August 2004 Chinese authorities shut down 700 websites and arrested 224 people in a crackdown on net porn.Net cafes are hugely popular in China because the relatively high cost of computer hardware means that few people have PCs in their homes."
"Microsoft seeking spyware trojan

Microsoft is investigating a trojan program that attempts to switch off the firm's anti-spyware software.

The spyware tool was only released by Microsoft in the last few weeks and has been downloaded by six million people. Stephen Toulouse, a security manager at Microsoft, said the malicious program was called Bankash-A Trojan and was being sent as an e-mail attachment. Microsoft said it did not believe the program was widespread and recommended users to use an anti-virus program. The program attempts to disable or delete Microsoft's anti-spyware tool and suppress warning messages given to users.

It may also try to steal online banking passwords or other personal information by tracking users' keystrokes.

Microsoft said in a statement it is investigating what it called a criminal attack on its software. Earlier this week, Microsoft said it would buy anti-virus software maker Sybari Software to improve its security in its Windows and e-mail software. Microsoft has said it plans to offer its own paid-for anti-virus software but it has not yet set a date for its release. The anti-spyware program being targeted is currently only in beta form and aims to help users find and remove spyware - programs which monitor internet use, causes advert pop-ups and slow a PC's performance.
","Microsoft is investigating a trojan program that attempts to switch off the firm's anti-spyware software.Microsoft said it did not believe the program was widespread and recommended users to use an anti-virus program.Stephen Toulouse, a security manager at Microsoft, said the malicious program was called Bankash-A Trojan and was being sent as an e-mail attachment.Microsoft said in a statement it is investigating what it called a criminal attack on its software."
"Digital guru floats sub-$100 PC

Nicholas Negroponte, chairman and founder of MIT's Media Labs, says he is developing a laptop PC that will go on sale for less than $100 (£53).

He told the BBC World Service programme Go Digital he hoped it would become an education tool in developing countries. He said one laptop per child could be "" very important to the development of not just that child but now the whole family, village and neighbourhood"". He said the child could use the laptop like a text book. He described the device as a stripped down laptop, which would run a Linux-based operating system, ""We have to get the display down to below $20, to do this we need to rear project the image rather than using an ordinary flat panel.

""The second trick is to get rid of the fat , if you can skinny it down you can gain speed and the ability to use smaller processors and slower memory."" The device will probably be exported as a kit of parts to be assembled locally to keep costs down. Mr Negroponte said this was a not for profit venture, though he recognised that the manufacturers of the components would be making money. In 1995 Mr Negroponte published the bestselling Being Digital, now widely seen as predicting the digital age. The concept is based on experiments in the US state of Maine, where children were given laptop computers to take home and do their work on.

While the idea was popular amongst the children, it initially received some resistance from the teachers and there were problems with laptops getting broken. However, Mr Negroponte has adapted the idea to his own work in Cambodia where he set up two schools together with his wife and gave the children laptops. ""We put in 25 laptops three years ago , only one has been broken, the kids cherish these things, it's also a TV a telephone and a games machine, not just a textbook."" Mr Negroponte wants the laptops to become more common than mobile phones but conceded this was ambitious. ""Nokia make 200 million cell phones a year, so for us to claim we're going to make 200 million laptops is a big number, but we're not talking about doing it in three or five years, we're talking about months."" He plans to be distributing them by the end of 2006 and is already in discussion with the Chinese education ministry who are expected to make a large order. ""In China they spend $17 per child per year on textbooks. That's for five or six years, so if we can distribute and sell laptops in quantities of one million or more to ministries of education that's cheaper and the marketing overheads go away.""
","He said one laptop per child could be "" very important to the development of not just that child but now the whole family, village and neighbourhood"".He said the child could use the laptop like a text book.Mr Negroponte wants the laptops to become more common than mobile phones but conceded this was ambitious.That's for five or six years, so if we can distribute and sell laptops in quantities of one million or more to ministries of education that's cheaper and the marketing overheads go away.""Nicholas Negroponte, chairman and founder of MIT's Media Labs, says he is developing a laptop PC that will go on sale for less than $100 (£53).The concept is based on experiments in the US state of Maine, where children were given laptop computers to take home and do their work on.However, Mr Negroponte has adapted the idea to his own work in Cambodia where he set up two schools together with his wife and gave the children laptops.""Nokia make 200 million cell phones a year, so for us to claim we're going to make 200 million laptops is a big number, but we're not talking about doing it in three or five years, we're talking about months."""
"Technology gets the creative bug

The hi-tech and the arts worlds have for some time danced around each other and offered creative and technical help when required.

Often this help has come in the form of corporate art sponsorship or infrastructure provision. But that dance is growing more intimate as hi-tech firms look to the creative industries for inspiration. And vice versa. UK telco BT is serious about the idea and has launched its Connected World initiative. The idea, says BT, is to shape a ""21st Century model"" which will help cement the art, technology, and business worlds together. ""We are hoping to understand the creative industry that has a natural thirst for broadband technology,"" said Frank Stone, head of the BT's business sector programmes. He looks after several ""centres of excellence"" which the telco has set up with other institutions and organisations, one of which is focused on creative industries.

To mark the initiative's launch, a major international art installation is to open on 15 April in Brussels, with a further exhibit in Madrid later in the summer. They have both been created using the telco's technology that it has been incubating at its research and development arm, including a sophisticated graphics rendering program. Using a 3D graphics engine, the type commonly used in gaming, Bafta-winning artists Langlands & Bell have created a virtual, story-based, 3D model of Brussels' Coudenberg Cellars.

They have recently been excavated and are thought to be the remnants of Coudenberg Palace, an historical seat of European power. The 3D world can be navigated using a joystick and offers an immersive experience of a landscape that historically had a river running through it until it was bricked up in the 19th Century. ""The river was integral to the city's survival for hundreds of years and it was equally essential to the city that it disappeared,"" said the artists. ""We hope that by uncovering the river, we can greater understand the connections between the past and the present, and appreciate the flow of modernity, once concealing, but now revealing the River Senne."" In their previous works they used the Quake game graphics engine. The game engine is the core component of a video game because it handles graphics rendering, game AI, and how objects behave and relate to each other in a game. They are so time-consuming and expensive to create, the engines can be licensed out to handle other graphics-intensive games. BT's own engine, Tara (Total Abstract Rendering Architecture) has been in development since 2001 and has been used to recreate virtual interactive models of buildings for planners. It was also used in 2003 in Encounter, an urban-based, pervasive game that combined both virtual play in conjunction with physical, on-the-street action. Because the artists wanted video and interactive elements in their worlds, new features were added to Tara in order to handle the complex data sets. But collaboration between art and digital technology is by no means new, and many keen coders, designers, games makers and animators argue that what they create is art itself.

As more tools for self-expression are given to the person on the street, enabling people to take photos with a phone and upload them to the web for instance, creativity will become an integral part of technology. The Orange Expressionist exhibition last year, for example, displayed thousands of picture messages from people all over the UK to create an interactive installation.

Technology as a way of unleashing creativity has massive potential, not least because it gives people something to do with their technology. Big businesses know it is good for them to get in on the creative vein too. The art world is ""fantastically rich"", said Mr Stone, with creative people and ideas which means traditional companies like BT want to get in with them. Between 1997 and 2002, the creative industry brought £21 billion to London alone. It is an industry that is growing by 6% a year too. The partnership between artists and technologists is part of trying to understand the creative potential of technologies like broadband net, according to Mr Stone. ""This is not just about putting art galleries and museums online,"" he said. ""It is about how can everyone have the best seat in house and asking if technology has a role in solving that problem."" With broadband penetration reaching 100% in the UK, businesses with a stake in the technology want to give people reasons to want and use it. The creative drive is not purely altruistic obviously. It is about both industries borrowing strategies and creative ideas together which can result in better business practices for creative industries, or more patent ideas for tech companies. ""What we are trying to do is have outside-in thinking. ""We are creating a future cultural drive for the economy,"" said Mr Stone.
","""We are hoping to understand the creative industry that has a natural thirst for broadband technology,"" said Frank Stone, head of the BT's business sector programmes.The art world is ""fantastically rich"", said Mr Stone, with creative people and ideas which means traditional companies like BT want to get in with them.The partnership between artists and technologists is part of trying to understand the creative potential of technologies like broadband net, according to Mr Stone.The idea, says BT, is to shape a ""21st Century model"" which will help cement the art, technology, and business worlds together.It is about both industries borrowing strategies and creative ideas together which can result in better business practices for creative industries, or more patent ideas for tech companies.Technology as a way of unleashing creativity has massive potential, not least because it gives people something to do with their technology.BT's own engine, Tara (Total Abstract Rendering Architecture) has been in development since 2001 and has been used to recreate virtual interactive models of buildings for planners.But collaboration between art and digital technology is by no means new, and many keen coders, designers, games makers and animators argue that what they create is art itself.The hi-tech and the arts worlds have for some time danced around each other and offered creative and technical help when required.They have both been created using the telco's technology that it has been incubating at its research and development arm, including a sophisticated graphics rendering program.But that dance is growing more intimate as hi-tech firms look to the creative industries for inspiration.UK telco BT is serious about the idea and has launched its Connected World initiative.Between 1997 and 2002, the creative industry brought £21 billion to London alone.He looks after several ""centres of excellence"" which the telco has set up with other institutions and organisations, one of which is focused on creative industries.In their previous works they used the Quake game graphics engine."
"Wi-fi web reaches farmers in Peru

A network of community computer centres, linked by wireless technology, is providing a helping hand for poor farmers in Peru.

The pilot scheme in the Huaral Valley, 80 kilometres north of the capital Lima, aims to offer the 6,000-strong community up-to-date information on agricultural market prices and trends. The Agricultural Information Project for Farmers of the Chancay-Huaral Valley also provides vital links between local organisations in charge of water irrigation, enabling them to coordinate their actions. More than 13,000 rural inhabitants, as well as 18,000 students in the region, will also benefit from the telecoms infrastructure.

The 14 telecentres uses only free open source software and affordable computer equipment. The network has been three years in the making and was officially inaugurated in September.

The non-government organisation, Cepes (Peruvian Centre for Social Studies) led the $200,000 project, also backed by local institutions, the Education and Agriculture ministries, and European development organisations. ""The plan includes training on computers and internet skills for both operators and users of the system,"" said Carlos Saldarriaga, technical coordinator at Cepes. Farmers are also taking extra lessons on how to apply the new information to make the most of their plots of land. The Board of Irrigation Users which runs the computer centres, aims to make the network self-sustainable within three years, through the cash generated by using the telecentres as internet cafes.

One of the key elements of the project is the Agricultural Information System, with its flagship huaral.org website. There, farmers can find the prices for local produce, as well as information on topics ranging from plague prevention to the latest farming techniques. The system also helps the inhabitants of the Chancay-Huaral Valley to organise their vital irrigation systems. ""Water is the main element that unites them all. It is a precious element in Peru's coastal areas, because it is so scarce, and therefore it is necessary to have proper irrigation systems to make the most of it,"" Mr Saldarriaga told the BBC News website. The information network also allows farmers to look beyond their own region, and share experiences with other colleagues from the rest of Peru and even around the world.

Cepes says the involvement of the farmers has been key in the project's success. ""Throughout the last three years, the people have provided a vital thrust to the project; they feel it belongs to them,"" said Mr Saldarriaga. The community training sessions, attended by an equal number of men and women, have been the perfect showcase for their enthusiasm. ""We have had an excellent response, mainly from young people. But we have also had a great feedback when we trained 40 or 50-year old women, who were seeing a computer for the first time in their lives."" So far, the Huaral programme promoters say the experience has been very positive, and are already planning on spreading the model among other farmers' organisations in Peru. ""This is a pilot project, and we have been very keen on its cloning potential in other places,"" underlined Mr Saldarriaga.

The Cepes researcher recalls what happened in Cuyo, a 50-family community with no electricity, during the construction of the local telecentre site. There it was necessary to build a mini-hydraulic dam in order to generate 2kW worth of power for the computers, the communications equipment and the cabin lights. ""It was already dark when the technicians realised they didn't have any light bulbs to test the generator, so they turned up to the local store to buy light bulbs,"" recalls Carlos Saldarriaga. ""The logical answer was 'we don't sell any', so they had to wait until the next morning to do the testing."" Now, with the wireless network, Cuyo as well as the other communities is no longer isolated.
","The Agricultural Information Project for Farmers of the Chancay-Huaral Valley also provides vital links between local organisations in charge of water irrigation, enabling them to coordinate their actions.One of the key elements of the project is the Agricultural Information System, with its flagship huaral.org website.The information network also allows farmers to look beyond their own region, and share experiences with other colleagues from the rest of Peru and even around the world.A network of community computer centres, linked by wireless technology, is providing a helping hand for poor farmers in Peru.""Throughout the last three years, the people have provided a vital thrust to the project; they feel it belongs to them,"" said Mr Saldarriaga.The Board of Irrigation Users which runs the computer centres, aims to make the network self-sustainable within three years, through the cash generated by using the telecentres as internet cafes.The system also helps the inhabitants of the Chancay-Huaral Valley to organise their vital irrigation systems.""The plan includes training on computers and internet skills for both operators and users of the system,"" said Carlos Saldarriaga, technical coordinator at Cepes.It is a precious element in Peru's coastal areas, because it is so scarce, and therefore it is necessary to have proper irrigation systems to make the most of it,"" Mr Saldarriaga told the BBC News website.Now, with the wireless network, Cuyo as well as the other communities is no longer isolated.The network has been three years in the making and was officially inaugurated in September.The non-government organisation, Cepes (Peruvian Centre for Social Studies) led the $200,000 project, also backed by local institutions, the Education and Agriculture ministries, and European development organisations."
"Microsoft releases bumper patches

Microsoft has warned PC users to update their systems with the latest security fixes for flaws in Windows programs.

In its monthly security bulletin, it flagged up eight ""critical"" security holes which could leave PCs open to attack if left unpatched. The number of holes considered ""critical"" is more than usual. They affect Windows programs, including Internet Explorer (IE), media player and instant messaging. Four other important fixes were also released. These were considered to be less critical, however. If not updated, either automatically or manually, PC users running the programs could be vulnerable to viruses or other malicious attacks designed to exploit the holes. Many of the flaws could be used by virus writers to take over computers remotely, install programs, change, and delete or see data.

One of the critical patches Microsoft has made available is an important one that fixes some IE flaws. Stephen Toulouse, a Microsoft security manager, said the flaws were known about, and although the firm had not seen any attacks exploiting the flaw, he did not rule them out. Often, when a critical flaw is announced, spates of viruses follow because home users and businesses leave the flaw unpatched. A further patch fixes a hole in Media Player, Windows Messenger and MSN Messenger which an attacker could use to take control of unprotected machines through .png files. Microsoft announces any vulnerabilities in its software every month. The most important ones are those which are classed as ""critical"". Its latest releases came the week that the company announced it was to buy security software maker Sybari Software as part of Microsoft's plans to make its own security programs.
","Microsoft has warned PC users to update their systems with the latest security fixes for flaws in Windows programs.One of the critical patches Microsoft has made available is an important one that fixes some IE flaws.In its monthly security bulletin, it flagged up eight ""critical"" security holes which could leave PCs open to attack if left unpatched.Often, when a critical flaw is announced, spates of viruses follow because home users and businesses leave the flaw unpatched.The most important ones are those which are classed as ""critical"".The number of holes considered ""critical"" is more than usual."
"Virus poses as Christmas e-mail

Security firms are warning about a Windows virus disguising itself as an electronic Christmas card.

The Zafi.D virus translates the Christmas greeting on its subject line into the language of the person receiving infected e-mail. Anti-virus firms speculate that this multilingual ability is helping the malicious program spread widely online. Anti-virus firm Sophos said that 10% of the e-mail currently on the net was infected with the Zafi virus.

Like many other Windows viruses, Zafi-D plunders Microsoft Outlook for e-mail addresses and then uses mail-sending software to despatch itself across the web to new victims. To be infected users must open up the attachment travelling with the message which bears the code for the malicious bug. The attachment on the e-mail poses as an electronic Christmas card but anyone opening it will simply get a crude image of two smiley faces.

The virus' subject line says ""Merry Christmas"" and translates this into one of 15 languages depending of the final suffix of the e-mail address the infected message has been sent to. The message in the body of the e-mail reads: ""Happy Holidays"" and this too is translated. On infected machines the virus tries to disable anti-virus and firewall software and opens up a backdoor on the PC to hand over control to the writer of the virus. The virus is thought to have spread most widely in South America, Italy, Spain, Bulgaria and Hungary. The original Zafi virus appeared in April this year. ""We have seen these hoaxes for several Christmases already, and personally I prefer traditional pen and paper cards, and we recommend this to all our clients too,"" said Mikko Hypponen, who heads F-Secure's anti-virus team.
","Anti-virus firm Sophos said that 10% of the e-mail currently on the net was infected with the Zafi virus.The Zafi.D virus translates the Christmas greeting on its subject line into the language of the person receiving infected e-mail.The virus' subject line says ""Merry Christmas"" and translates this into one of 15 languages depending of the final suffix of the e-mail address the infected message has been sent to.On infected machines the virus tries to disable anti-virus and firewall software and opens up a backdoor on the PC to hand over control to the writer of the virus.Security firms are warning about a Windows virus disguising itself as an electronic Christmas card.The original Zafi virus appeared in April this year."
"Apple laptop is 'greatest gadget'

The Apple Powerbook 100 has been chosen as the greatest gadget of all time, by US magazine Mobile PC.

The 1991 laptop was chosen because it was one of the first ""lightweight"" portable computers and helped define the layout of all future notebook PCs. The magazine has compiled an all-time top 100 list of gadgets, which includes the Sony Walkman at number three and the 1956 Zenith remote control at two. Gadgets needed moving parts and/or electronics to warrant inclusion. The magazine specified that gadgets also needed to be a ""self-contained apparatus that can be used on its own, not a subset of another device"".

""In general we included only items that were potentially mobile,"" said the magazine.

""In the end, we tried to get to the heart of what really makes a gadget a gadget,"" it concluded. The oldest ""gadget"" in the top 100 is the abacus, which the magazine dates at 190 A.D., and put in 60th place. Other pre-electronic gadgets in the top 100 include the sextant from 1731 (59th position), the marine chronometer from 1761 (42nd position) and the Kodak Brownie camera from 1900 (28th position). The Tivo personal video recorder is the newest device to make the top 10, which also includes the first flash mp3 player (Diamound Multimedia), as well as the first ""successful"" digital camera (Casio QV-10) and mobile phone (Motorola Startac). The most popular gadget of the moment, the Apple iPod, is at number 12 in the list while the first Sony transistor radio is at number 13.

Sony's third entry in the top 20 is the CDP-101 CD player from 1983. ""Who can forget the crystalline, hiss-free blast of Madonna's Like A Virgin emenating from their first CD player?"" asked the magazine. Karl Elsener's knife, the Swiss Army Knife from 1891, is at number 20 in the list. Gadgets which could be said to feature surprisngly low down in the list include the original telephone (23rd), the Nintendo GameBoy (25th), and the Pulsar quartz digital watch (36th). The list also contains plenty of oddities: the Pez sweet dispenser (98th), 1980s toy Tamagotchi (86th) and the bizarre Ronco inside the shell egg scrambler (84th).

Why worry about mobile phones. Soon they will be subsumed into the PDA's / laptops etc.

What about the Marine Chronometer? Completely revolutionised navigation for boats and was in use for centuries. For it's time, a technological marvel!

Sony Net Minidisc! It paved the way for more mp3 player to explode onto the market. I always used my NetMD, and could not go anywhere without it.

A laptop computer is not a gadget! It's a working tool!

The Sinclair Executive was the world's first pocket calculator. I think this should be there as well.

How about the clockwork radio? Or GPS? Or a pocket calculator? All these things are useful to real people, not just PC magazine editors.

Are the people who created this list insane ? Surely the most important gadget of the modern age is the mobile phone? It has revolutionalised communication, which is more than can be said for a niche market laptop. From outside the modern age, the marine chronometer is the single most important gadget, without which modern transportation systems would not have evolved so quickly.

Has everyone forgot about the Breville pie maker??

An interesting list. Of the electronic gadgets, thousands of journalists in the early 1980s blessed the original noteboook pc - the Tandy 100. The size of A4 paper and light, three weeks on a set of batteries, an excellent keyboard, a modem. A pity Tandy did not make it DOS compatible.

What's an Apple Powerbook 100 ? It's out of date - not much of a ""gadget"". Surely it has to be something simple / timeless - the tin opener, Swiss Army Knife, safety razor blade, wristwatch or the thing for taking stones out of horses hooves ?

It has to be the mobile phone. No other single device has had such an effect on our way of living in such a short space of time.

The ball point pen has got to be one of the most used and common gadgets ever. Also many might be grateful for the pocket calculator which was a great improvement over the slide rule.

The Casio pocket calculator that played a simple game and made tinny noises was also a hot gadget in 1980. A true gadget, it could be carried around and shown off.

All top 10 are electronic toys, so the list is probably a better reflection of the current high-tech obsession than anyhting else. I say this as the Swiss Army Knife only made No 20.

Sinclair QL a machine far ahead of its time. The first home machine with a true multi-takings OS. Shame the marketing was so bad!!!

Apple.. a triumph of fashion over... well everything else.

Utter rubbish. Yes, the Apple laptop and Sony Walkman are classic gadgets. But to call the sextant and the marine chronometer 'gadgets' and rank them as less important than a TV remote control reveals a quite shocking lack of historical perspective. The former literally helped change the world by vastly improving navigation at see. The latter is the seed around which the couch potato culture has developed. No competition.

I'd also put Apple's Newton and the first Palm Pilot there as the front runners for portable computing, and possibly the Toshiba Libretto for the same reason. I only wish that Vulcan Inc's Flipstart wasn't just vapourware otherwise it would be at the top.

How did a laptop ever manage to beat off the challenge of the wristwatch or the telephone (mobile or otherwise)? What about radios and TVs?

The swiss army knife. By far the most useful gadget. I got mine 12 years ago. Still wearing and using it a lot! It stood the test of time.

Psion Organiser series 3, should be up there. Had a usable qwerty keyboard, removable storage, good set of apps and programmable. Case design was good (batteries in the hinge - a first, I think). Great product innovation.

The first mobile PC was voted best gadget by readers of...err... mobile PC?! Why do you keep putting these obviously biased lists on your site? It's obviously the mobile phone or remote control, and readers of a less partisan publication would tell you that.

The Motorola Startac should be Number One. Why? There will be mobile phones long after notebook computers and other gadgets are either gone or integrated in communications devices.

The Psion series 3c! The first most practical way to carry all your info around...

I too would back the Sinclair Spectrum - without this little beauty I would never have moved into the world of IT and earn the living that I do now.

I'd have put the mobile phone high up the list. Probably a Nokia model.

Sinclair Spectrum - 16k. It plugged into the tv. Games were rubbish but it gave me a taste for programming and that's what I do for a living now.

I wish more modern notebooks -- even Apple's newest offerings -- were more like the PB100. Particularly disheartening is the demise of the trackball, which has given way to the largely useless ""trackpad"" which every notebook on the market today uses. They're invariably inaccurate, uncomfortable, and cumbersome to use.

Congratulations to Apple, a deserved win!
","The Apple Powerbook 100 has been chosen as the greatest gadget of all time, by US magazine Mobile PC.The most popular gadget of the moment, the Apple iPod, is at number 12 in the list while the first Sony transistor radio is at number 13.The first mobile PC was voted best gadget by readers of...err... mobile PC?!Surely the most important gadget of the modern age is the mobile phone?The magazine has compiled an all-time top 100 list of gadgets, which includes the Sony Walkman at number three and the 1956 Zenith remote control at two.A laptop computer is not a gadget!It has to be the mobile phone.The Tivo personal video recorder is the newest device to make the top 10, which also includes the first flash mp3 player (Diamound Multimedia), as well as the first ""successful"" digital camera (Casio QV-10) and mobile phone (Motorola Startac).The Sinclair Executive was the world's first pocket calculator.There will be mobile phones long after notebook computers and other gadgets are either gone or integrated in communications devices.The Casio pocket calculator that played a simple game and made tinny noises was also a hot gadget in 1980.I'd have put the mobile phone high up the list.The oldest ""gadget"" in the top 100 is the abacus, which the magazine dates at 190 A.D., and put in 60th place.The 1991 laptop was chosen because it was one of the first ""lightweight"" portable computers and helped define the layout of all future notebook PCs.The ball point pen has got to be one of the most used and common gadgets ever.By far the most useful gadget.""In the end, we tried to get to the heart of what really makes a gadget a gadget,"" it concluded.The magazine specified that gadgets also needed to be a ""self-contained apparatus that can be used on its own, not a subset of another device"".From outside the modern age, the marine chronometer is the single most important gadget, without which modern transportation systems would not have evolved so quickly.Karl Elsener's knife, the Swiss Army Knife from 1891, is at number 20 in the list.Case design was good (batteries in the hinge - a first, I think).It's out of date - not much of a ""gadget"".Yes, the Apple laptop and Sony Walkman are classic gadgets.A true gadget, it could be carried around and shown off.No other single device has had such an effect on our way of living in such a short space of time.Other pre-electronic gadgets in the top 100 include the sextant from 1731 (59th position), the marine chronometer from 1761 (42nd position) and the Kodak Brownie camera from 1900 (28th position).Also many might be grateful for the pocket calculator which was a great improvement over the slide rule.It's obviously the mobile phone or remote control, and readers of a less partisan publication would tell you that.""In general we included only items that were potentially mobile,"" said the magazine.It has revolutionalised communication, which is more than can be said for a niche market laptop.Gadgets which could be said to feature surprisngly low down in the list include the original telephone (23rd), the Nintendo GameBoy (25th), and the Pulsar quartz digital watch (36th).How did a laptop ever manage to beat off the challenge of the wristwatch or the telephone (mobile or otherwise)?All top 10 are electronic toys, so the list is probably a better reflection of the current high-tech obsession than anyhting else.But to call the sextant and the marine chronometer 'gadgets' and rank them as less important than a TV remote control reveals a quite shocking lack of historical perspective.An interesting list.Psion Organiser series 3, should be up there.The Psion series 3c!The first most practical way to carry all your info around..."
"Google's toolbar sparks concern

Search engine firm Google has released a trial tool which is concerning some net users because it directs people to pre-selected commercial websites.

The AutoLink feature comes with Google's latest toolbar and provides links in a webpage to Amazon.com if it finds a book's ISBN number on the site. It also links to Google's map service, if there is an address, or to car firm Carfax, if there is a licence plate. Google said the feature, available only in the US, ""adds useful links"". But some users are concerned that Google's dominant position in the search engine market place could mean it would be giving a competitive edge to firms like Amazon.

AutoLink works by creating a link to a website based on information contained in a webpage - even if there is no link specified and whether or not the publisher of the page has given permission.

If a user clicks the AutoLink feature in the Google toolbar then a webpage with a book's unique ISBN number would link directly to Amazon's website. It could mean online libraries that list ISBN book numbers find they are directing users to Amazon.com whether they like it or not. Websites which have paid for advertising on their pages may also be directing people to rival services. Dan Gillmor, founder of Grassroots Media, which supports citizen-based media, said the tool was a ""bad idea, and an unfortunate move by a company that is looking to continue its hypergrowth"". In a statement Google said the feature was still only in beta, ie trial, stage and that the company welcomed feedback from users. It said: ""The user can choose never to click on the AutoLink button, and web pages she views will never be modified. ""In addition, the user can choose to disable the AutoLink feature entirely at any time.""

The new tool has been compared to the Smart Tags feature from Microsoft by some users. It was widely criticised by net users and later dropped by Microsoft after concerns over trademark use were raised. Smart Tags allowed Microsoft to link any word on a web page to another site chosen by the company. Google said none of the companies which received AutoLinks had paid for the service. Some users said AutoLink would only be fair if websites had to sign up to allow the feature to work on their pages or if they received revenue for any ""click through"" to a commercial site. Cory Doctorow, European outreach coordinator for digital civil liberties group Electronic Fronter Foundation, said that Google should not be penalised for its market dominance. ""Of course Google should be allowed to direct people to whatever proxies it chooses. ""But as an end user I would want to know - 'Can I choose to use this service?, 'How much is Google being paid?', 'Can I substitute my own companies for the ones chosen by Google?'."" Mr Doctorow said the only objection would be if users were forced into using AutoLink or ""tricked into using the service"".
","If a user clicks the AutoLink feature in the Google toolbar then a webpage with a book's unique ISBN number would link directly to Amazon's website.Some users said AutoLink would only be fair if websites had to sign up to allow the feature to work on their pages or if they received revenue for any ""click through"" to a commercial site.Google said none of the companies which received AutoLinks had paid for the service.""But as an end user I would want to know - 'Can I choose to use this service?, 'How much is Google being paid?In a statement Google said the feature was still only in beta, ie trial, stage and that the company welcomed feedback from users.Search engine firm Google has released a trial tool which is concerning some net users because it directs people to pre-selected commercial websites.It said: ""The user can choose never to click on the AutoLink button, and web pages she views will never be modified.Mr Doctorow said the only objection would be if users were forced into using AutoLink or ""tricked into using the service"".""In addition, the user can choose to disable the AutoLink feature entirely at any time.""The AutoLink feature comes with Google's latest toolbar and provides links in a webpage to Amazon.com if it finds a book's ISBN number on the site."
"UK net users leading TV downloads

British TV viewers lead the trend of illegally downloading US shows from the net, according to research.

New episodes of 24, Desperate Housewives and Six Feet Under, appear on the web hours after they are shown in the US, said a report. Web tracking company Envisional said 18% of downloaders were from within the UK and that downloads of TV programmes had increased by 150% in the last year. About 70% were using file-sharing program BitTorrent, the firm said. ""It's now as easy to download a pirate TV show as it is to programme a VCR,"" said Ben Coppin from Envisional. A typical episode of 24 was downloaded by about 100,000 people globally, said the report, and an estimated 20,000 of those were from within the UK.

Fans of many popular US TV programmes, like 24, usually have to wait weeks or months until the latest series is shown in the UK. But in some cases, said the report, people were able to watch the new episodes in Britain before US audiences on the west coast of the country. ""Missing a television show presents little problem to anyone with a basic knowledge of the internet,"" explained Mr Coppin.

""Two clicks and your favourite programme is downloading. In effect, the internet is now a global video recorder."" Exact figures are difficult to pin down, but it is thought that about 80,000 to 100,000 people in the UK download TV programmes. Some may just want the odd episode, others are downloading regularly. Many broadcast analysts agree that the net is radically altering the way people get content, like TV programmes. This presents a challenge to broadcasters who are concerned that channel schedules may become less important to people. It is also of concern to them because advertisements are usually cut out of the downloaded programmes. The industry has coined the term ""time-shifting"" to describe this trend of being able to watch what you want, when you want. The increased popularity of personal digital video recorders, TiVo-type boxes which automatically record programmes like Sky+, have also contributed to the trend. There are also numerous programs available on the net which automatically search and store TV programmes for viewers, effectively creating a personal video recorder on a computer.

Within half an hour, recorded episodes can be uploaded - or posted - onto file-sharing networks or other download sites. Because they tend to be shorter then full-length films, they can be processed - digitised - quickly. More people with high-speed broadband connections in the UK also means that episodes can be downloaded quickly.

According to Jupiter Research 40% of homes with broadband say it helps them pick and choose the programmes they want to see or that friends have recommended. The Envisional reports said that the TV industry should consider offering a legal way to download shows. The BBC ran a trial of what it calls the Interactive Media Player (iMP) last year, which was based on a peer-to-peer distribution model. It let people download programmes it held the rights to up to eight days after they had already aired. It is looking to do a more expansive trial later this year. The BBC already allows radio fans to hear programmes they missed online up to a week after broadcast. About six million people in the UK now have a fast, always-on net connection via cable or phone lines.
","Web tracking company Envisional said 18% of downloaders were from within the UK and that downloads of TV programmes had increased by 150% in the last year.A typical episode of 24 was downloaded by about 100,000 people globally, said the report, and an estimated 20,000 of those were from within the UK.""It's now as easy to download a pirate TV show as it is to programme a VCR,"" said Ben Coppin from Envisional.More people with high-speed broadband connections in the UK also means that episodes can be downloaded quickly.Exact figures are difficult to pin down, but it is thought that about 80,000 to 100,000 people in the UK download TV programmes.But in some cases, said the report, people were able to watch the new episodes in Britain before US audiences on the west coast of the country.There are also numerous programs available on the net which automatically search and store TV programmes for viewers, effectively creating a personal video recorder on a computer.The Envisional reports said that the TV industry should consider offering a legal way to download shows.Many broadcast analysts agree that the net is radically altering the way people get content, like TV programmes.It let people download programmes it held the rights to up to eight days after they had already aired.British TV viewers lead the trend of illegally downloading US shows from the net, according to research.Fans of many popular US TV programmes, like 24, usually have to wait weeks or months until the latest series is shown in the UK."
"IBM puts cash behind Linux push

IBM is spending $100m (£52m) over the next three years beefing up its commitment to Linux software.

The cash injection will be used to help its customers use Linux on every type of device from handheld computers and phones right up to powerful servers. IBM said the money will fund a variety of technical, research and marketing initiatives to boost Linux use. IBM said it had taken the step in response to greater customer demand for the open source software.

In 2004 IBM said it had seen double digit growth in the number of customers using Linux to help staff work together more closely. The money will be used to help this push towards greater collaboration and will add Linux-based elements to IBM's Workplace software. Workplace is a suite of programs and tools that allow workers to get at core business applications no matter what device they use to connect to corporate networks. One of the main focuses of the initiative will be to make it easier to use Linux-based desktop computers and mobile devices with Workplace. Even before IBM announced this latest spending boost it was one of the biggest advocates of the open source way of working. In 2001 it put $300m into a three-year Linux program and has produced Linux versions of many of its programs. Linux and the open source software movement are based on the premise that developers should be free to tinker with the core components of software programs. They reason that more open scrutiny of software produces better programs and fuels innovation.
","IBM said it had taken the step in response to greater customer demand for the open source software.Linux and the open source software movement are based on the premise that developers should be free to tinker with the core components of software programs.IBM is spending $100m (£52m) over the next three years beefing up its commitment to Linux software.IBM said the money will fund a variety of technical, research and marketing initiatives to boost Linux use.The cash injection will be used to help its customers use Linux on every type of device from handheld computers and phones right up to powerful servers."
"UK pioneers digital film network

The world's first digital cinema network will be established in the UK over the next 18 months.

The UK Film Council has awarded a contract worth £11.5m to Arts Alliance Digital Cinema (AADC), who will set up the network of up to 250 screens. AADC will oversee the selection of cinemas across the UK which will use the digital equipment. High definition projectors and computer servers will be installed to show mainly British and specialist films. Most cinemas currently have mechanical projectors but the new network will see up to 250 screens in up to 150 cinemas fitted with digital projectors capable of displaying high definition images. The new network will double the world's total of digital screens. Cinemas will be given the film on a portable hard drive and they will then copy the content to a computer server.

Each film is about 100 gigabytes and has been compressed from an original one terabyte-size file. Fiona Deans, associate director of AADC, said the compression was visually lossless so no picture degradation will occur.

The film will all be encrypted to prevent piracy and each cinema will have an individual key which will unlock the movie. ""People will see the picture quality is a bit clearer with no scratches. ""The picture will look exactly the same as when the print was first made - there is no degradation in quality over time.""

The key benefit of the digital network will be an increase in the distribution and screening of British films, documentaries and foreign language films.

""Access to specialised film is currently restricted across the UK,"" said Pete Buckingham, head of Distribution and Exhibition at the UK Film Council. ""Although a genuine variety of films is available in central London and a few other metropolitan areas, the choice for many outside these areas remains limited, and the Digital Screen Network will improve access for audiences across the UK,"" Digital prints costs less than a traditional 35mm print - giving distributors more flexibility in how they screen films, said Ms Deans. ""It can cost up to £1,500 to make a copy of a print for specialist films. ""In the digital world you can make prints for considerably less than that. ""Distributors can then send out prints to more cinemas and prints can stay in cinemas for much longer."" The UK digital network will be the first to employ 2k projectors - which are capable of showing films at resolutions of 2048 * 1080 pixels. A separate competitive process to determine which cinemas will receive the digital screening technology will conclude in May. The sheer cost of traditional prints means that some cinemas need to show them twice a day in order to recoup costs. ""Some films need word of mouth and time to build momentum - they don't need to be shown twice a day,"" explained Ms Deans. ""A cinema will often book a 35mm print in for two weeks - even if the film is a roaring success they cannot hold on to the print because it will have to go to another cinema. ""With digital prints, every cinema will have its own copy.""
","The UK Film Council has awarded a contract worth £11.5m to Arts Alliance Digital Cinema (AADC), who will set up the network of up to 250 screens.The world's first digital cinema network will be established in the UK over the next 18 months.""Although a genuine variety of films is available in central London and a few other metropolitan areas, the choice for many outside these areas remains limited, and the Digital Screen Network will improve access for audiences across the UK,"" Digital prints costs less than a traditional 35mm print - giving distributors more flexibility in how they screen films, said Ms Deans.Most cinemas currently have mechanical projectors but the new network will see up to 250 screens in up to 150 cinemas fitted with digital projectors capable of displaying high definition images.""With digital prints, every cinema will have its own copy.""""A cinema will often book a 35mm print in for two weeks - even if the film is a roaring success they cannot hold on to the print because it will have to go to another cinema.The UK digital network will be the first to employ 2k projectors - which are capable of showing films at resolutions of 2048 * 1080 pixels.AADC will oversee the selection of cinemas across the UK which will use the digital equipment.""Distributors can then send out prints to more cinemas and prints can stay in cinemas for much longer.""""In the digital world you can make prints for considerably less than that."
"EU software patent law faces axe

The European Parliament has thrown out a bill that would have allowed software to be patented.

Politicians unanimously rejected the bill and now it must go through another round of consultation if it is to have a chance of becoming law. During consultation the software patents bill could be substantially re-drafted or even scrapped. The bill was backed by some hi-tech firms, saying they needed protections it offered to make research worthwhile.

Hugo Lueders, European director for public policy at CompTIA, an umbrella organization for technology companies, said only when intellectual property was adequately protected would European inventors prosper. He said the benefits of the bill had been obscured by special interest groups which muddied debate over the rights and wrongs of software patents. Other proponents of the bill said it was a good compromise that avoided the excesses of the American system which allows the patenting of business practices as well as software. But opponents of the bill said that it could stifle innovation, be abused by firms keen to protect existing monopolies and could hamper the growth of the open source movement. The proposed law had a troubled passage through the European parliament. Its progress was delayed twice when Polish MEPs rejected plans to adopt it. Also earlier this month the influential European Legal Affairs Committee (JURI) said the law should be re-drafted after it failed to win the support of MEPs. To become law both the European Parliament and a qualified majority of EU states have to approve of the draft wording of the bill. The latest rejection means that now the bill on computer inventions must go back to the EU for re-consideration.
",The European Parliament has thrown out a bill that would have allowed software to be patented.To become law both the European Parliament and a qualified majority of EU states have to approve of the draft wording of the bill.During consultation the software patents bill could be substantially re-drafted or even scrapped.Politicians unanimously rejected the bill and now it must go through another round of consultation if it is to have a chance of becoming law.Other proponents of the bill said it was a good compromise that avoided the excesses of the American system which allows the patenting of business practices as well as software.He said the benefits of the bill had been obscured by special interest groups which muddied debate over the rights and wrongs of software patents.
"Xbox power cable 'fire fear'

Microsoft has said it will replace more than 14 million power cables for its Xbox consoles due to safety concerns.

The company said the move was a ""preventative step"" after reports of fire hazard problems with the cables. It affects Xboxes made before 23 October 2003 for all regions but mainland Europe - and consoles in that region made before 13 January 2004. Microsoft said it had received 30 reports of minor injury or property damage due to faulty cables. The firm said fewer than one in 10,000 consoles had experienced component failures. The recall affects almost three quarters of all Xboxes sold around the world since its launch in 2001.

In a statement, it added: ""In almost all instances, any damage caused by these failures was contained within the console itself or limited to the tip of the power cord at the back of the console."" But in seven cases, customers reported sustaining a minor burn to their hand. In 23 cases, customers reported smoke damage, or minor damage to a carpet or entertainment centre. ""This is a preventative step we're choosing to take despite the rarity of these incidents,"" said Robbie Bach, senior vice president, Microsoft home and entertainment division. ""We regret the inconvenience, but believe offering consumers a free replacement cord is the responsible thing to do."" Consumers can order a new cable from the Xbox website or by telephoning 0800 028 9276 in the UK. Microsoft said customers would get replacement cords within two to four weeks from the time of order. It advised users to turn off their Xboxes when not in use. A follow-up to Xbox is expected to released at the end of this year or the beginning of 2006.
","Microsoft has said it will replace more than 14 million power cables for its Xbox consoles due to safety concerns.Microsoft said it had received 30 reports of minor injury or property damage due to faulty cables.Microsoft said customers would get replacement cords within two to four weeks from the time of order.In a statement, it added: ""In almost all instances, any damage caused by these failures was contained within the console itself or limited to the tip of the power cord at the back of the console.""In 23 cases, customers reported smoke damage, or minor damage to a carpet or entertainment centre.The firm said fewer than one in 10,000 consoles had experienced component failures."
"Global blogger action day called

The global web blog community is being called into action to lend support to two imprisoned Iranian bloggers.

The month-old Committee to Protect Bloggers' is asking those with blogs to dedicate their sites on 22 February to the ""Free Mojtaba and Arash Day"". Arash Sigarchi and Mojtaba Saminejad are both in prison in Iran. Blogs are free sites through which people publish thoughts and opinions. Iranian authorities have been clamping down on prominent sites for some time. ""I hope this day will focus people,"" Curt Hopkins, director of the Committee, told the BBC News website.

The group has a list of actions which it says bloggers can take, including writing to local Iranian embassies. The Committee has deemed Tuesday ""Free Mojtaba and Arash Day"" as part of its first campaign. It is calling on the blogsphere - the name for the worldwide community of bloggers - to do what it can to help raise awareness of the plight of Mojtaba and Arash as well as other ""cyber-dissidents"". ""If you have a blog, the least you could do is put nothing on that blog except 'Free Mojtaba and Arash Day',"" said Mr Hopkins. ""That would mean you could see that phrase 7.1 million times. That alone will shine some light on the situation. ""If you don't have one, find one dedicated to that - it takes about 30 seconds."" Technorati, a blog search engine, tracks about six million blogs and says that more than 12,000 are added daily. A blog is created every 5.8 seconds, according to a US research think-tank.

The Committee to Protect Bloggers was started by US blogger Curt Hopkins and counts fired flight attendant blogger Ellen Simonetti as a deputy director. She has since started the International Bloggers' Bill of Rights, a global petition to protect bloggers at work. Although not the only website committed to human rights issues by any means, it aims to be the hub or organisation, information and support for bloggers in particular and their rights to freedom of speech.

The Committee, although only a month old, aims to be the focal point for blogger action on similar issues in the future, and will operate as a non-for-profit organisation. ""Blogging is in this weird no man's land. People think of it as being one thing or another depending on their point of view,"" said Mr Hopkins. ""Some think of themselves as pundits, kind of like journalists, and some like me have a private blog which is just a publishing platform. ""But they do not have a constituency and are out there in the cold.""

It is not just human rights issues in countries which have a track record of restricting what is published in the media that is of concern to bloggers. The question of bloggers and what rights they have to say what they want on their sites is a thorny one and has received much press attention recently. High profile cases in which employees have been sacked for what they have said on their personal, and often anonymous blogs, have highlighted the muddy situation that the blogsphere is currently in.

""This is a big messy argument,"" explained Mr Hopkins. He added: ""It is just such a new way of doing business, there will be clamp downs."" But the way these issues get tested is through the courts which, said Mr Hopkins, ""is part of the whole messy conversation."" ""If you haven't already got bloggers in your company, you will have them tomorrow - and if you don't have a blogger policy now you had better start looking at having one. Mr Hopkins said that the blogsphere - which is doubling every five months - was powerful because it takes so little time and expertise to create a blog. ""Everyone does this - mums, radicals, conservatives,"" he said. Many companies offer easy-to-use services to create a blog and publish it in minutes to a global community. ""That is the essential difference. What I call 'templating software' gives every single person on Earth the chance to have one. ""You don't even have to have your own computer.""
","""If you have a blog, the least you could do is put nothing on that blog except 'Free Mojtaba and Arash Day',"" said Mr Hopkins.The month-old Committee to Protect Bloggers' is asking those with blogs to dedicate their sites on 22 February to the ""Free Mojtaba and Arash Day"".Mr Hopkins said that the blogsphere - which is doubling every five months - was powerful because it takes so little time and expertise to create a blog.The Committee to Protect Bloggers was started by US blogger Curt Hopkins and counts fired flight attendant blogger Ellen Simonetti as a deputy director.People think of it as being one thing or another depending on their point of view,"" said Mr Hopkins.But the way these issues get tested is through the courts which, said Mr Hopkins, ""is part of the whole messy conversation.""The question of bloggers and what rights they have to say what they want on their sites is a thorny one and has received much press attention recently.Technorati, a blog search engine, tracks about six million blogs and says that more than 12,000 are added daily.""If you haven't already got bloggers in your company, you will have them tomorrow - and if you don't have a blogger policy now you had better start looking at having one.The Committee has deemed Tuesday ""Free Mojtaba and Arash Day"" as part of its first campaign.The global web blog community is being called into action to lend support to two imprisoned Iranian bloggers.The group has a list of actions which it says bloggers can take, including writing to local Iranian embassies.It is calling on the blogsphere - the name for the worldwide community of bloggers - to do what it can to help raise awareness of the plight of Mojtaba and Arash as well as other ""cyber-dissidents"".She has since started the International Bloggers' Bill of Rights, a global petition to protect bloggers at work.The Committee, although only a month old, aims to be the focal point for blogger action on similar issues in the future, and will operate as a non-for-profit organisation."
"Finding new homes for old phones

Re-using old mobile phones is not just good for the environment, it has social benefits too.

Research has found that in some developing nations old mobile phones can help close the digital divide. The Forum for the Future research found that the low cost of these recycled handsets means they can have a very useful second life in poorer nations. But the Forum found that more needed to be done to collect old phones rather than let them rot in landfill sites.

The report reveals that approximately 15 million mobile phones go out of use every year in the UK. Of the 15 million that are swapped for newer models each year, only 25% get returned to mobile phone firms for recycling or re-use. The slowly growing mass of unrecycled, discarded phones has now reached 90 million handsets, the equivalent of 9,000 tonnes of waste, estimates James Goodman, report author and a senior adviser at the Forum for the Future. ""It's quite common for people to have two or three phones just lying around,"" said Mr Goodman.

Many of these older phones could end up in landfill sites leaking the potentially toxic materials they are made of into the wider world, said Mr Goodman. Far better, he said, to hand the phone back to an operator who can send it overseas where it can enjoy a second lease of life. ""We've heard the environmental argument for handing a phone back,"" said Mr Goodman, ""but there's a strong social argument too."" Older mobile phones are proving particularly useful in poorer nations where people want to use a mobile and keep in touch with friends and family but do not have the income to buy the most up to date model. The Forum for the Future report took an in-depth look at Romania where reconditioned mobile phones were proving very popular. ""It's an interesting country because it has a really crap fixed line network,"" said Mr Goodman, ""and there's a real desire for people to get mobile phones."" But the relatively low wages in Romania, which is one of the poorest countries in Europe, mean few people can afford a shiny new phone. ""The affordability of the handsets is a real barrier to getting one,"" he said. Reconditioned handsets have boosted take-up of mobiles as the report revealed that almost one-third of Romanian pre-pay mobile phone users were using reconditioned handsets. The re-used handsets tend to be about one-third of the price of a new handset. Georgeta Minciu, a Romanian part-time cleaner, said: ""Normally a mobile phone would not be possible on my wages. I am a single parent - keeping in touch with my daughter is important to me."" ""This is the only way I can afford to have a phone,"" she said. Mr Goodman said phone operators and consumers needed to do more to ensure that more of Britain's mobile mountain made it overseas. But, he added, those keen to use a mobile will not accept any old handset. ""If its more than a few years old people are not going to want it,"" he said.
","Mr Goodman said phone operators and consumers needed to do more to ensure that more of Britain's mobile mountain made it overseas.""This is the only way I can afford to have a phone,"" she said.Older mobile phones are proving particularly useful in poorer nations where people want to use a mobile and keep in touch with friends and family but do not have the income to buy the most up to date model.Re-using old mobile phones is not just good for the environment, it has social benefits too.Reconditioned handsets have boosted take-up of mobiles as the report revealed that almost one-third of Romanian pre-pay mobile phone users were using reconditioned handsets.""It's quite common for people to have two or three phones just lying around,"" said Mr Goodman.Research has found that in some developing nations old mobile phones can help close the digital divide.Georgeta Minciu, a Romanian part-time cleaner, said: ""Normally a mobile phone would not be possible on my wages.The Forum for the Future report took an in-depth look at Romania where reconditioned mobile phones were proving very popular.The report reveals that approximately 15 million mobile phones go out of use every year in the UK."
"PlayStation 3 chip to be unveiled

Details of the chip designed to power Sony's PlayStation 3 console will be released in San Francisco on Monday.

Sony, IBM and Toshiba, who have been working on the Cell processor for three years, will unveil the chip at a technology conference. The chip is reported to be up to 10 times faster than current processors. It is being designed for use in graphics workstations, the new PlayStation console, and has been described as a supercomputer on a chip. Sony has said the Cell processor could be used to bridge the gap between movies and video games. Special effects and graphics designed for films could be ported for use directly in a video game, Sony told an audience at the E3 exhibition in Los Angeles last year.

Cell could also be marketed as an ideal technology for televisions and supercomputers, and everything in between, said Kevin Krewell, the editor in chief of Microprocessor Report. The chip will be made of several different processing cores that work on tasks together. The PlayStation 3 is expected in 2006 but developers are expecting to get prototypes early next year to tune games that will appear on it at launch. Details of the chip will be released at the International Solid State Circuits Conference in San Francisco. Some details have already emerged, however. When put inside powerful computer servers, the Cell consortium expects it to be capable of handling 16 trillion floating point operations, or calculations, every second.

The chip has also been refined to be able to handle the detailed graphics common in games and the data demands of films and broadband media. IBM said it would start producing the chip in early 2005 at manufacturing plants in the US. The first machines off the line using the Cell processor will be computer workstations and servers. A working version of the PS3 is due to be shown off in May 2005 but a full launch of the next generation console is not expected to start until 2006. ""In the future, all forms of digital content will be converged and fused onto the broadband network,"" said Ken Kutaragi, chief operating officer of Sony, said last year. ""Current PC architecture is nearing its limits,"" he added.
","Sony, IBM and Toshiba, who have been working on the Cell processor for three years, will unveil the chip at a technology conference.It is being designed for use in graphics workstations, the new PlayStation console, and has been described as a supercomputer on a chip.Details of the chip designed to power Sony's PlayStation 3 console will be released in San Francisco on Monday.Sony has said the Cell processor could be used to bridge the gap between movies and video games.IBM said it would start producing the chip in early 2005 at manufacturing plants in the US.The chip has also been refined to be able to handle the detailed graphics common in games and the data demands of films and broadband media.The chip is reported to be up to 10 times faster than current processors.Details of the chip will be released at the International Solid State Circuits Conference in San Francisco."
"Intel unveils laser breakthrough

Intel has unveiled research that could mean data is soon being moved around chips at the speed of light.

Scientists at Intel have overcome a fundamental problem that before now has prevented silicon being used to generate and amplify laser light. The breakthrough should make it easier to interconnect data networks with the chips that process the information. The Intel researchers said products exploiting the breakthrough should appear by the end of the decade.

""We've overcome a fundamental limit,"" said Dr Mario Paniccia, director of Intel's photonics technology lab. Writing in the journal Nature, Dr Paniccia - and colleagues Haisheng Rong, Richard Jones, Ansheng Liu, Oded Cohen, Dani Hak and Alexander Fang - show how they have made a continuous laser from the same material used to make computer processors. Currently, says Dr Paniccia, telecommunications equipment that amplifies the laser light that travels down fibre optic cables is very expensive because of the exotic materials, such as gallium arsenide, used to make it.

Telecommunications firms and chip makers would prefer to use silicon for these light-moving elements because it is cheap and many of the problems of using it in high-volume manufacturing have been solved. ""We're trying to take our silicon competency in manufacturing and apply it to new areas,"" said Dr Paniccia. While work has been done to make some of the components that can move light around, before now silicon has not successfully been used to generate or amplify the laser light pulses used to send data over long distances. This is despite the fact that silicon is a much better amplifier of light pulses than the form of the material used in fibre optic cables. This improved amplification is due to the crystalline structure of the silicon used to make computer chips. Dr Paniccia said that the structure of silicon meant that when laser light passed through it, some colliding photons rip electrons off the atoms within the material. ""It creates a cloud of electrons sitting in the silicon and that absorbs all the light,"" he said. But the Intel researchers have found a way to suck away these errant electrons and turn silicon into a material that can both generate and amplify laser light. Even better, the laser light produced in this way can, with the help of easy-to-make filters, be tuned across a very wide range of frequencies. Semi-conductor lasers made before now have only produced light in a narrow frequency ranges. The result could be the close integration of the fibre optic cables that carry data as light with the computer chips that process it. Dr Paniccia said the work was the one of several steps needed if silicon was to be used to make components that could carry and process light in the form of data pulses. ""It's a technical validation that it can work,"" he said.
","While work has been done to make some of the components that can move light around, before now silicon has not successfully been used to generate or amplify the laser light pulses used to send data over long distances.Dr Paniccia said the work was the one of several steps needed if silicon was to be used to make components that could carry and process light in the form of data pulses.Dr Paniccia said that the structure of silicon meant that when laser light passed through it, some colliding photons rip electrons off the atoms within the material.Scientists at Intel have overcome a fundamental problem that before now has prevented silicon being used to generate and amplify laser light.But the Intel researchers have found a way to suck away these errant electrons and turn silicon into a material that can both generate and amplify laser light.""It creates a cloud of electrons sitting in the silicon and that absorbs all the light,"" he said.Currently, says Dr Paniccia, telecommunications equipment that amplifies the laser light that travels down fibre optic cables is very expensive because of the exotic materials, such as gallium arsenide, used to make it.This is despite the fact that silicon is a much better amplifier of light pulses than the form of the material used in fibre optic cables."
"Security scares spark browser fix

Microsoft is working on a new version of its Internet Explorer web browser.

The revamp has been prompted by Microsoft's growing concern with security as well as increased competition from rival browsers. Microsoft said the new version will be far less vulnerable to the bugs that make its current browser a favourite of tech-savvy criminals. Test versions of the new program, called IE 7, are due to be released by the summer.

The announcement about Internet Explorer was made by Bill Gates, Microsoft chairman and chief software architect, during a keynote speech at the RSA Security conference currently being held in San Francisco. Although details were scant, Mr Gates, said IE7 would include new protections against viruses, spyware and phishing scams. This last category of threats involves criminals setting up spoof websites that look identical to those of banks and try to trick people into handing over login and account information.

In a bid to shore up the poor security in IE 6, Microsoft has regularly issued updates to patch loopholes exploited by criminals and the makers of nuisance programs such as spyware. Earlier this month it released a security bulletin that patched eight critical security holes - some of which were found in the IE browser. Microsoft has also made a series of acquisitions of small firms that specialise in computer security. One of the first fruits of these acquisitions appeared last month with the release of a Microsoft anti-spyware program. An own-brand anti-virus program is due to follow by the end of 2005. The decision to make Internet Explorer 7 is widely seen as a U-turn because, before now, Microsoft said it had no need to update the browser. Typically new versions of its browser appear with successive versions of the Windows operating system. A new version of IE was widely expected to debut with the next version of Windows, codenamed Longhorn, which is due to appear in 2006. The current version of Internet Explorer is four years old, and is widely seen as falling behind rivals such as Firefox and Opera. There are also persistent rumours that search engine Google is poised to produce its own brand browser based on Firefox. In particular the Firefox browser has been winning fans and users since its first full version was released in November 2004. Estimates of how many users Firefox has won over vary widely. According to market statistics gathered by Websidestory, Firefox's market share is now about 5% of all users. However, other browser stat gatherers say the figure is closer to 15%. Some technical websites report that a majority of their visitors use the Firefox browser. Internet Explorer still dominates with a share of about 90% but this is down from a peak of almost 96% in mid-2004.
","Microsoft is working on a new version of its Internet Explorer web browser.The decision to make Internet Explorer 7 is widely seen as a U-turn because, before now, Microsoft said it had no need to update the browser.In particular the Firefox browser has been winning fans and users since its first full version was released in November 2004.Microsoft said the new version will be far less vulnerable to the bugs that make its current browser a favourite of tech-savvy criminals.Typically new versions of its browser appear with successive versions of the Windows operating system.A new version of IE was widely expected to debut with the next version of Windows, codenamed Longhorn, which is due to appear in 2006.Test versions of the new program, called IE 7, are due to be released by the summer.The current version of Internet Explorer is four years old, and is widely seen as falling behind rivals such as Firefox and Opera.In a bid to shore up the poor security in IE 6, Microsoft has regularly issued updates to patch loopholes exploited by criminals and the makers of nuisance programs such as spyware.Earlier this month it released a security bulletin that patched eight critical security holes - some of which were found in the IE browser."
"Britons fed up with net service

A survey conducted by PC Pro Magazine has revealed that many Britons are unhappy with their internet service.

They are fed up with slow speeds, high prices and the level of customer service they receive. 17% of readers have switched suppliers and a further 16% are considering changing in the near future. It is particularly bad news for BT, the UK's biggest internet supplier, with almost three times as many people trying to leave as joining.

A third of the 2,000 broadband users interviewed were fed up with their current providers but this could be just the tip of the iceberg thinks Tim Danton, editor of PC Pro Magazine. ""We expect these figures to leap in 2005. Every month the prices drop, and more and more people are trying to switch,"" he said. The survey found that BT and Tiscali have been actively dissuading customers from leaving by offering them a lower price when they phone up to cancel their subscription. Some readers were offered a price drop just 25p more expensive than that offered by an alternative operator, making it hardly worth while swapping.

Other found themselves tied into 12-month contracts. Broadband has become hugely competitive and providers are desperate to hold on to customers. 12% of those surveyed found themselves unable to swap at all. ""We discovered a huge variety of problems, but one of the biggest issues is the current supplier withholding the information that people need to give to their new supplier,"" said Tim Danton, editor of PC Pro. ""This breaks the code of practice, but because that code is voluntary there's nothing we or Ofcom can do to help,"" he said. There is a vast choice of internet service providers in the UK now and an often bewildering array of broadband packages. With prices set to drop even further in coming months Mr Danton advises everyone to shop around carefully. ""If you just stick with your current connection then there's every chance you're being ripped off,"" he warned.
","Every month the prices drop, and more and more people are trying to switch,"" he said.""We discovered a huge variety of problems, but one of the biggest issues is the current supplier withholding the information that people need to give to their new supplier,"" said Tim Danton, editor of PC Pro.A third of the 2,000 broadband users interviewed were fed up with their current providers but this could be just the tip of the iceberg thinks Tim Danton, editor of PC Pro Magazine.A survey conducted by PC Pro Magazine has revealed that many Britons are unhappy with their internet service.With prices set to drop even further in coming months Mr Danton advises everyone to shop around carefully.The survey found that BT and Tiscali have been actively dissuading customers from leaving by offering them a lower price when they phone up to cancel their subscription.It is particularly bad news for BT, the UK's biggest internet supplier, with almost three times as many people trying to leave as joining."
"Sun offers processing by the hour

Sun Microsystems has launched a pay-as-you-go service which will allow customers requiring huge computing power to rent it by the hour.

Sun Grid costs users $1 (53p) for an hour's worth of processing and storage power on systems maintained by Sun. So-called grid computing is the latest buzz phrase in a company which believes that computing capacity is as important a commodity as hardware and software. Sun likened grid computing to the development of electricity.

The system could mature in the same way utilities such as electricity and water have developed, said Sun's chief operating officer Jonathan Schwartz. ""Why build your own grid when you can use ours for a buck an hour?"" he asked in a webcast launching Sun's quarterly Network Computing event in California. The company will have to persuade data centre managers to adopt a new model but it said it already had interest from customers in the oil, gas and financial services industries.

Some of them want to book computing capacity of more than 5,000 processors each, Sun said. Mr Schwartz ran a demonstration of the service, showing how data could be processed in a protein folding experiment. Hundreds of servers were used simultaneously, working on the problem for a few seconds each.

Although it only took a few seconds, the experiment cost $12 (£6.30) because it had used up 12 hour's worth of computing power. The Sun Grid relies on Solaris, the operating system owned by Sun. Initially it will house the grid in existing premises and will use idle servers to test software before shipping it to customers. It has not said how much the system will cost to develop but it already has a rival in IBM, which argues that its capacity on-demand service is cheaper than that offered by Sun.
","Sun likened grid computing to the development of electricity.Sun Grid costs users $1 (53p) for an hour's worth of processing and storage power on systems maintained by Sun.The Sun Grid relies on Solaris, the operating system owned by Sun.Some of them want to book computing capacity of more than 5,000 processors each, Sun said.Sun Microsystems has launched a pay-as-you-go service which will allow customers requiring huge computing power to rent it by the hour.So-called grid computing is the latest buzz phrase in a company which believes that computing capacity is as important a commodity as hardware and software."
"Lasers help bridge network gaps

An Indian telecommunications firm has turned to lasers to help it overcome the problems of setting up voice and data networks in the country.

Tata Teleservices is using the lasers to make the link between customers' offices and its own core network. The laser bridges work across distances up to 4km and can be set up much faster than cable connections. In 12 months the lasers have helped the firm set up networks in more than 700 locations.

""In this particular geography getting permission to dig the ground and lay the pipes is a bit of a task,"" said Mr R. Sridharan, vice president of networks at Tata. ""Heavy traffic and the layout under the ground mean that digging is uniquely difficult,"" he said. In some locations, he said, permission to dig up roads and lay cables was impossible to get. He said it was far easier to secure permission for putting networking hardware on roofs. This has led Chennai-based Tata to turn to equipment that uses lasers to make the final mile leap between Tata's core network and the premises of customers. The Lightpointe laser bridges work over distances of up to 4km and are being used to route both voice and data from businesses on to the backbone of the network. The hardware works in pairs and beam data through the air in the form of laser pulses.

The laser bridges can route data at speeds up to 1.25gbps (2,000 times faster than a 512kbps broadband connection) but Tata is running its hardware at more modest speeds of 1-2mbps. The lasers are also ideal for India because of its climate. ""It's particularly suitable as the rain rate is a little low and it's hardly ever foggy,"" he said. In places where rain is heavy and fog is common laser links can struggle to maintain good connection speeds. The laser links also take far less time to set up and get working, said Mr Sridharan. ""Once we get the other permissions, normal time period for set up is a few hours,"" he said. By contrast, he said, digging up roads and laying cables can take weeks or months. This speed of set up has helped Tata with its aggressive expansion plans. Just over 12 months ago the firm had customers in only about 70 towns and cities. But by the end of March the firm hopes to reach more than 1,000. ""Speed is very important because of the pace of competition,"" said Mr Sridharan.
","The laser links also take far less time to set up and get working, said Mr Sridharan.In 12 months the lasers have helped the firm set up networks in more than 700 locations.The laser bridges can route data at speeds up to 1.25gbps (2,000 times faster than a 512kbps broadband connection) but Tata is running its hardware at more modest speeds of 1-2mbps.Tata Teleservices is using the lasers to make the link between customers' offices and its own core network.The Lightpointe laser bridges work over distances of up to 4km and are being used to route both voice and data from businesses on to the backbone of the network.An Indian telecommunications firm has turned to lasers to help it overcome the problems of setting up voice and data networks in the country.The laser bridges work across distances up to 4km and can be set up much faster than cable connections.""In this particular geography getting permission to dig the ground and lay the pipes is a bit of a task,"" said Mr R. Sridharan, vice president of networks at Tata.In some locations, he said, permission to dig up roads and lay cables was impossible to get."
"Game firm holds 'cast' auditions

Video game firm Bioware is to hold open auditions for people to become cast members for future games.

The company, which makes role playing games such as Knights of the Old Republic and Neverwinter Nights, is seeking people aged 18 to 99. The Canada-based company says it was looking for ""a wide variety of people to use as face models for characters"". Everyone chosen to appear in a video game will receive a performer's fee for the use of their image. The company is inviting people to come along to a shopping mall in West Edmonton, Alberta, on Friday and Saturday, bringing along a piece of photo identification.

""There are hundreds and hundreds of characters in a typical Bioware game,"" said Shauna Perry, Bioware's audio and external resources producer. ""Those people live in any city and village and so we need ordinary people, people with interesting faces."" She added: ""Not everyone is a model in the world so we don't want just models in our games."" People chosen to appear in a game will have their head scanned in three dimensions. Hundreds of photos of the person's head are taken so that a model of the head can be generated in 3D. ""The 3D model will look exactly like the person - it's really quite incredible how detailed they are,"" said Ms Perry. She said chosen participants will have no control over how the image is used in a computer game. ""We cannot give people any control over how the images are used. ""But their face could be used in multiple games - so they could be the hero in one, the villain in another and just a merchant in a third.""
","People chosen to appear in a game will have their head scanned in three dimensions.She said chosen participants will have no control over how the image is used in a computer game.""We cannot give people any control over how the images are used.Everyone chosen to appear in a video game will receive a performer's fee for the use of their image.Video game firm Bioware is to hold open auditions for people to become cast members for future games.The Canada-based company says it was looking for ""a wide variety of people to use as face models for characters""."
"Sony PSP console hits US in March

US gamers will be able to buy Sony's PlayStation Portable from 24 March, but there is no news of a Europe debut.

The handheld console will go on sale for $250 (£132) and the first million sold will come with Spider-Man 2 on UMD, the disc format for the machine. Sony has billed the machine as the Walkman of the 21st Century and has sold more than 800,000 units in Japan. The console (12cm by 7.4cm) will play games, movies and music and also offers support for wireless gaming. Sony is entering a market which has been dominated by Nintendo for many years.

It launched its DS handheld in Japan and the US last year and has sold 2.8 million units. Sony has said it wanted to launch the PSP in Europe at roughly the same time as the US, but gamers will now fear that the launch has been put back. Nintendo has said it will release the DS in Europe from 11 March. ""It has gaming at its core, but it's not a gaming device. It's an entertainment device,"" said Kaz Hirai, president of Sony Computer Entertainment America.
","Sony has billed the machine as the Walkman of the 21st Century and has sold more than 800,000 units in Japan.Sony has said it wanted to launch the PSP in Europe at roughly the same time as the US, but gamers will now fear that the launch has been put back.Nintendo has said it will release the DS in Europe from 11 March.It launched its DS handheld in Japan and the US last year and has sold 2.8 million units."
"Warnings about junk mail deluge

The amount of spam circulating online could be about to undergo a massive increase, say experts.

Anti-spam group Spamhaus is warning about a novel virus which hides the origins of junk mail. The program makes spam look like it is being sent by legitimate mail servers making it hard to spot and filter out. Spamhaus said that if the problem went unchecked real e-mail messages could get drowned by the sheer amount of junk being sent.

Before now many spammers have recruited home PCs to act as anonymous e-mail relays in an attempt to hide the origins of their junk mail. The PCs are recruited using viruses and worms that compromise machines via known vulnerabilities or by tricking people into opening an attachment infected with the malicious program. Once compromised the machines start to pump out junk mail on behalf of spammers. Spamhaus helps to block junk messages from these machines by collecting and circulating blacklists of net addresses known to harbour infected machines. But the novel worm spotted recently by Spamhaus routes junk via the mail servers of the net service firm that infected machines used to get online in the first place. In this way the junk mail gets a net address that looks legitimate. As blocking all mail from net firms just to catch the spam is impractical, Spamhaus is worried that the technique will give junk mailers the ability to spam with little fear of being spotted and stopped. Steve Linford, director of Spamhaus, predicted that if a lot of spammers exploit this technique it could trigger the failure of the net's e-mail sending infrastructure. David Stanley, UK managing director of filtering firm Ciphertrust, said the new technique was the next logical step for spammers. ""They are adding to their armoury,"" he said. The amount of spam in circulation was still growing, said Mr Stanley, but he did not think that the appearance of this trick would mean e-mail meltdown. But Kevin Hogan, senior manager at Symantec security response, said such warnings were premature. ""If something like this mean the end of e-mail then e-mail would have stopped two-three years ago,"" said Mr Hogan. While the technique of routing mail via mail servers of net service firms might cause problems for those that use blacklists and block lists it did not mean that other techniques for stopping spam lost their efficacy too. Mr Hogan said 90% of the junk mail filtered by Symantec subsidiary Brightmail was spotted using techniques that did not rely on looking at net addresses. For instance, said Mr Hogan, filtering out e-mail messages that contain a web link can stop about 75% of spam.
","Mr Hogan said 90% of the junk mail filtered by Symantec subsidiary Brightmail was spotted using techniques that did not rely on looking at net addresses.But the novel worm spotted recently by Spamhaus routes junk via the mail servers of the net service firm that infected machines used to get online in the first place.As blocking all mail from net firms just to catch the spam is impractical, Spamhaus is worried that the technique will give junk mailers the ability to spam with little fear of being spotted and stopped.Spamhaus said that if the problem went unchecked real e-mail messages could get drowned by the sheer amount of junk being sent.While the technique of routing mail via mail servers of net service firms might cause problems for those that use blacklists and block lists it did not mean that other techniques for stopping spam lost their efficacy too.In this way the junk mail gets a net address that looks legitimate.For instance, said Mr Hogan, filtering out e-mail messages that contain a web link can stop about 75% of spam.Anti-spam group Spamhaus is warning about a novel virus which hides the origins of junk mail."
"Warning over tsunami aid website

Net users are being told to avoid a scam website that claims to collect cash on behalf of tsunami victims.

The site looks plausible because it uses an old version of the official Disasters Emergency Committee webpage. However, DEC has no connection with the fake site and says it has contacted the police about it. The site is just the latest in a long list of scams that try to cash in on the goodwill generated by the tsunami disaster.

The link to the website is contained in a spam e-mail that is currently circulating. The message's subject line reads ""Urgent Tsunami Earthquake Appeal"" and its text bears all the poor grammar and bad spelling that characterises many other phishing attempts. The web address of the fake site is decuk.org which could be close enough to the official www.dec.org.uk address to confuse some people keen to donate. Patricia Sanders, spokeswoman for the Disaster Emergency Committee said it was aware of the site and had contacted the Computer Crime Unit at Scotland Yard to help get it shut down. She said the spam e-mails directing people to the site started circulating two days ago shortly after the domain name of the site was registered. It is thought that the fake site is being run from Romania. Ms Sanders said DEC had contacted US net registrars who handle domain ownership and the net hosting firm that is keeping the site on the web.

DEC was going to push for all cash donated via the site to be handed over to the official organisation. BT and DEC's hosting company were also making efforts to get the site shut down, she said.

Ms Sanders said sending out spam e-mail to solicit donations was not DEC's style and that it would never canvass support in this way. She said that DEC hoped to get the fake site shut down as soon as possible. All attempts by the BBC News website to contact the people behind the site have failed. None of the e-mail addresses supplied on the site work and the real owner of the domain is obscured in publicly available net records. This is not the first attempt to cash in on the outpouring of goodwill that has accompanied appeals for tsunami aid. One e-mail sent out in early January came from someone who claimed that he had lost his parents in the disaster and was asking for help moving an inheritance from a bank account in the Netherlands. The con was very similar to the familiar Nigerian forward fee fraud e-mails that milk money out of people by promising them a cut of a much larger cash pile. Other scam e-mails included a link to a website that supposedly let people donate money but instead loaded spyware on their computers that grabbed confidential information. In a monthly report anti-virus firm Sophos said that two e-mail messages about the tsunami made it to the top 10 hoax list during January. Another tsunami-related e-mail is also circulating that carries the Zar worm which tries to spread via the familiar route of Microsoft's Outlook e-mail program. Anyone opening the attachment of the mail will have their contact list plundered by the worm keen to find new addresses to send itself to.
","She said the spam e-mails directing people to the site started circulating two days ago shortly after the domain name of the site was registered.She said that DEC hoped to get the fake site shut down as soon as possible.The site is just the latest in a long list of scams that try to cash in on the goodwill generated by the tsunami disaster.Patricia Sanders, spokeswoman for the Disaster Emergency Committee said it was aware of the site and had contacted the Computer Crime Unit at Scotland Yard to help get it shut down.Ms Sanders said DEC had contacted US net registrars who handle domain ownership and the net hosting firm that is keeping the site on the web.DEC was going to push for all cash donated via the site to be handed over to the official organisation.None of the e-mail addresses supplied on the site work and the real owner of the domain is obscured in publicly available net records.All attempts by the BBC News website to contact the people behind the site have failed.BT and DEC's hosting company were also making efforts to get the site shut down, she said.The web address of the fake site is decuk.org which could be close enough to the official www.dec.org.uk address to confuse some people keen to donate."
"Piero gives rugby perspective

BBC Sport unveils its new analysis tool Piero at the Wales v England rugby union match on Saturday. But what does it do and how does it work?

Picture the scene - Wales are camped on the England line in the dying seconds of the Six Nations' opening match. A ball is flung out to winger Shane Williams who crosses to score the winning try for Wales. But the England players are incensed - arguing that the pass was forward and the try should not stand. In the past, sports fans would be left debating the validity of the try for days and weeks to come. But BBC Sport's new tool Piero could end discussions in minutes.

Piero, named after the Italian painter and pioneer of perspective Piero della Francesco, creates a virtual stadium in which virtual players can be tracked from almost any angle. Viewers will be able to see precisely how the ball was thrown and by whom, giving a greater depth to the growing wealth of analysis available during sports broadcasts. The technology has been created by BBC Research and Development for BBC Broadcast and BBC Outside Broadcasts. BBC Sport is the first client to start using the system. ""In order to keep audiences growing and growing... we need to work closely with people who create technology and innovation to bring sport to life,"" said Andrew Thompson, the BBC's head of development, new media and sports news. ""We want to appeal to core fans - to give them more analysis, more detail, more definitive answers about key passages of play."" Piero works by taking telemetric data from fixed camera positions and sending that data inside the video signal to a PC which can then render the information into 3D graphics.

The more cameras using Piero, the better the detail possible out the other end when the data is turned into 3D models. ""It allows us to tell the story of a passage of play, tracking individual players across the field, looking at tactics,"" said Andy Townsend, from BBC Broadcast.

An operator can manipulate the information and provide almost real-time replays of incidents, as well as more in-depth analysis. The ""virtual camera"" can focus on virtually any aspect of the pitch, giving viewers an insight into action that the camera normally cannot see. Piero also provides a wealth of statistical detail - from the length of kicks, to the length of a run of an individual player and the height of a lift at any lineout. Mr Townsend said sports performance companies were already showing an interest in the technology. BBC Broadcast hopes the technology can be sold to third parties interested in using it a number of different ways - from sport broadcasting to entertainment and game shows.
","BBC Sport unveils its new analysis tool Piero at the Wales v England rugby union match on Saturday.BBC Sport is the first client to start using the system.But BBC Sport's new tool Piero could end discussions in minutes.The more cameras using Piero, the better the detail possible out the other end when the data is turned into 3D models.The technology has been created by BBC Research and Development for BBC Broadcast and BBC Outside Broadcasts.BBC Broadcast hopes the technology can be sold to third parties interested in using it a number of different ways - from sport broadcasting to entertainment and game shows.""In order to keep audiences growing and growing... we need to work closely with people who create technology and innovation to bring sport to life,"" said Andrew Thompson, the BBC's head of development, new media and sports news.Viewers will be able to see precisely how the ball was thrown and by whom, giving a greater depth to the growing wealth of analysis available during sports broadcasts.""It allows us to tell the story of a passage of play, tracking individual players across the field, looking at tactics,"" said Andy Townsend, from BBC Broadcast."
"Open source leaders slam patents

The war of words between Microsoft and the open source movement heated up this week as Linux founder Linus Torvalds led an attack on software patents.

In a panel discussion at a Linux summit in California Mr Torvalds said software patents were a problem for the open source movement. Mitchell Kapor, chairman of the Mozilla foundation, warned that Microsoft could use patent lawsuits in the future. Linux is a freely-available alternative to Microsoft's Windows. It relies on a community of programmers for its development and is based on open source principles, which allow others to use and modify it without having to pay licence fees. The attack on software patents comes at a time when IBM has made 500 of its patents freely available. Other companies are expected to follow suit.

There are between 150,000 and 300,000 registered software patents in the US and open source developers argue that many should never have been granted. This is a view corroborated by the UK Patent Office. ""Some of the patents have dubious validity and are being wielded by some big companies to force smaller companies to buy licenses in the knowledge that they can't afford to take them to court,"" said Dr Jeremy Philpott of the UK Patent Office. Some panel members are worried that Microsoft would issue a series of patent lawsuits in the future. ""If totally pushed to the wall - because their business model no longer holds up in an era in which open source is an economically superior way to produce software...of course they're going to unleash the WMDs,"" Mr Kapor is reported as saying. Microsoft did not want to comment directly, referring the issue instead to trade body Intellect, of which it is a member. ""As far as Intellect is concerned, open source and patents have co-existed for many years without problems,"" said spokeswoman Jill Sutherland. ""The industry respects the open source movement and in fact many of the members we represent use the open source system to develop software,"" ""We think the important point to make is that companies should be able to choose between patents, copyrights and open source as to the treatment of their intellectual discoveries, and not be forced into using one or the other,"" she added.
","In a panel discussion at a Linux summit in California Mr Torvalds said software patents were a problem for the open source movement.There are between 150,000 and 300,000 registered software patents in the US and open source developers argue that many should never have been granted.""The industry respects the open source movement and in fact many of the members we represent use the open source system to develop software,"" ""We think the important point to make is that companies should be able to choose between patents, copyrights and open source as to the treatment of their intellectual discoveries, and not be forced into using one or the other,"" she added.""As far as Intellect is concerned, open source and patents have co-existed for many years without problems,"" said spokeswoman Jill Sutherland.The war of words between Microsoft and the open source movement heated up this week as Linux founder Linus Torvalds led an attack on software patents.Some panel members are worried that Microsoft would issue a series of patent lawsuits in the future."
"Reboot ordered for EU patent law

A European Parliament committee has ordered a rewrite of the proposals for controversial new European Union rules which govern computer-based inventions.

The Legal Affairs Committee (JURI) said the Commission should re-submit the Computer Implemented Inventions Directive after MEPs failed to back it. It has had vocal critics who say it could favour large over small firms and impact open-source software innovation. Supporters say it would let firms protect their inventions. The directive is intended to offer patent protection to inventions that use software to achieve their effect, in other words, ""computer implemented invention"". The draft law suffered setbacks when Poland, one of the largest EU member states, rejected its adoption twice in two months. Intense lobbying on the issue has started to gain momentum in some national parliaments putting them under immense pressure. Only two MEPs backed the draft law at the JURI meeting, with one voting to abstain.

Opponents of the draft directive welcomed the decision and said a new first reading of the proposals would give the EU a chance to have fuller debates about its implications in all member states. In the US, the patenting of computer programs and internet business methods is permitted. This means that the US-based Amazon.com holds a patent for its ""one-click shopping"" service, for example. Critics are concerned that the directive could lead to a similar model happening in Europe. This, they fear, could hurt small software developers because they do not have the legal and financial might of larger companies if they had to fight patent legal action in court. Supporters say current laws are inefficient and it would serve to even up a playing field without bringing EU laws in line with the US.
","The Legal Affairs Committee (JURI) said the Commission should re-submit the Computer Implemented Inventions Directive after MEPs failed to back it.Opponents of the draft directive welcomed the decision and said a new first reading of the proposals would give the EU a chance to have fuller debates about its implications in all member states.Supporters say current laws are inefficient and it would serve to even up a playing field without bringing EU laws in line with the US.It has had vocal critics who say it could favour large over small firms and impact open-source software innovation.The directive is intended to offer patent protection to inventions that use software to achieve their effect, in other words, ""computer implemented invention"".Supporters say it would let firms protect their inventions."
"Solutions to net security fears

Fake bank e-mails, or phishing, and stories about ID theft are damaging the potential of using the net for online commerce, say e-business experts.

Trust in online security is falling as a result. Almost 70% of those asked in a poll said that net firms are not doing enough to protect people. The survey of more than 1,000 people reported that 43% were not willing to hand over personal information online. It is worrying for shopaholics and firms who want to exploit the net. More people are becoming aware of online security issues but they have little confidence that companies are doing enough to counter the threats, said security firm RSA, which carried out the poll. An estimated 12 million Britons now use the net as a way of managing their financial affairs. Security experts say that scare stories and the vulnerabilities dogging e-commerce and e-banking are being taken seriously - by banks in particular.

""I don't think the threat is overplayed,"" Barry Beal, global security manager for Capgemini, told the BBC News website. He added: ""The challenge for banks is to provide the customer with something that improves security but balances that with usability."" Ensuring extra security measures are in place protects them too, as well as the individual, and it is up to both parties to make sure they do what is necessary to prevent fraud, he said. ""Card issuers will keep us informed of types of attacks and what procedure to take to protect ourselves. If we do that, they will indemnify us,"" he said. Many believe using login details like usernames and passwords are simply not good enough anymore though. One of the biggest challenges to improving security online is how to authenticate an individual's identity. Several security companies have developed methods which complement or replace passwords, which are easily compromised and easy to forget. Last year, a street survey found that more than 70% of people would reveal their password for a bar of chocolate.

On average, people have to remember four different passwords. Some resort to using the same one for all their online accounts. Those who use several passwords often write them down and hide them in a desk or in a document on their computer. In a separate survey by RSA, 80% said they were fed up with passwords and would like a better way to login to work computer systems. For many, the ideal is a single online identity that can be validated once with a series of passwords and questions, or some biometric measurement like a fingerprint or iris scan with a token like a smartcard.

Activcard is just one of the many companies, like RSA Security, which has been trying to come up with just that. RSA has a deal with internet provider AOL that lets people pay monthly for a one-time passcode generation service. Users get a physical token which automatically generates a code which stays active for 60 seconds. Many companies use a token-based method already for employees to access networks securely already. Activcard's method is more complex. It is currently trailing its one-time passcode generation technology with UK banks. Steve Ash, from Activcard, told the BBC News website there are two parts to the process of identification. The most difficult is to ascertain whether an individual is who they say they are when they are online.

""The end solution is to provide a method where you combine something the user knows with something they have and present those both."" The method it has developed makes use of the chip embedded in bank cards and a special card reader which can generate unique codes that are active for a specified amount of time. This can be adjusted at any time and can be active for as little as 30 seconds before it changes. It combines that with usual usernames and passwords, as well as other security questions. ""You take the card, put it in the reader, enter your pin number, and a code is given. ""If you wanted then to transfer funds, for instance, you would have to have the code to authorise the transaction."" The clever bit happens back at the bank's secure servers. The code is validated by the bank's systems, matching the information they expect with the customer's unique key. ""Each individual gets a key which is unique to them. It is a 2048-bit long number that is virtually impossible to crack,"" said Mr Ash. It means that in a typical security attack, explains Mr Ash, even if password information is captured by a scammer using keystroke software or just through spoof websites, they need the passcode. ""By the time they go back [to use the information], the code has expired, so they can't prove who they are,"" according to Mr Ash. In the next few years, Mr Ash predicts that this kind of method will be commonplace before we see biometric authentication that is acceptable for widespread use. ""PCs will have readers built into them, the cost of readers will be very cheap, and more people will have the cards."" The gadgets we carry around, like personal digital assistants (PDAs) and mobiles, could also have integrated card reader technology in them. ""The PDA or phone method is a possible alternative as people are always carrying phones around,"" he said.
","More people are becoming aware of online security issues but they have little confidence that companies are doing enough to counter the threats, said security firm RSA, which carried out the poll.The method it has developed makes use of the chip embedded in bank cards and a special card reader which can generate unique codes that are active for a specified amount of time.Activcard is just one of the many companies, like RSA Security, which has been trying to come up with just that.Almost 70% of those asked in a poll said that net firms are not doing enough to protect people.""By the time they go back [to use the information], the code has expired, so they can't prove who they are,"" according to Mr Ash.Trust in online security is falling as a result.It means that in a typical security attack, explains Mr Ash, even if password information is captured by a scammer using keystroke software or just through spoof websites, they need the passcode.In a separate survey by RSA, 80% said they were fed up with passwords and would like a better way to login to work computer systems.One of the biggest challenges to improving security online is how to authenticate an individual's identity.The survey of more than 1,000 people reported that 43% were not willing to hand over personal information online.Several security companies have developed methods which complement or replace passwords, which are easily compromised and easy to forget.For many, the ideal is a single online identity that can be validated once with a series of passwords and questions, or some biometric measurement like a fingerprint or iris scan with a token like a smartcard.""The PDA or phone method is a possible alternative as people are always carrying phones around,"" he said.It combines that with usual usernames and passwords, as well as other security questions.Ensuring extra security measures are in place protects them too, as well as the individual, and it is up to both parties to make sure they do what is necessary to prevent fraud, he said.The code is validated by the bank's systems, matching the information they expect with the customer's unique key.He added: ""The challenge for banks is to provide the customer with something that improves security but balances that with usability.""It is a 2048-bit long number that is virtually impossible to crack,"" said Mr Ash.""You take the card, put it in the reader, enter your pin number, and a code is given."
"Mobile networks seek turbo boost

Third-generation mobile (3G) networks need to get faster if they are to deliver fast internet surfing on the move and exciting new services.

That was one of the messages from the mobile industry at the 3GSM World Congress in Cannes last week. Fast 3G networks are here but the focus has shifted to their evolution into a higher bandwidth service, says the Global Mobile Suppliers Association. At 3GSM, Siemens showed off a system that transmits faster mobile data. The German company said data could be transmitted at one gigabit a second - up to 20 times faster than current 3G networks. The system is not available commercially yet, but Motorola, the US mobile handset and infrastructure maker, held a clinic for mobile operators on HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Access), a high-speed, high bandwidth technology available now. Early HSDPA systems typically offer around two megabits per second (Mbps) compared with less than 384 kilobits per second (Kbps) on standard 3G networks.

""High-Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) - sometimes called Super 3G - will be vital for profitable services like mobile internet browsing and mobile video clips,"" according to a report published by UK-based research consultancy Analysys. A number of companies are developing the technology. Nokia and Canada-based wireless communication products company Sierra Wireless recently agreed to work together on High Speed Downlink Packet Access. The two companies aim to jointly market the HSDPA solution to global network operator customers.

""While HSDPA theoretically enables data rates up to a maximum of 14Mbps, practical throughputs will be lower than this in wide-area networks,"" said Dr Alastair Brydon, author of the Analysys report: Pushing Beyond the Limits of 3G with HSDPA and Other Enhancements. ""The typical average user rate in a real implementation is likely to be in the region of one megabit per second which, even at this lower rate, will more than double the capacity... when compared to basic WCDMA [3G],"" he added. Motorola has conducted five trials of its technology and says speeds of 2.9Mbps have been recorded at the edge of an outdoor 3G cell using a single HSDPA device. But some mobile operators are opting for a technology called Evolution, Data Optimised (EV-DO).

US operator Sprint ordered a broadband data upgrade to its 3G network at the end of last year. We are ""expanding our network and deploying EV-DO technology to meet customer demand for faster wireless speeds,"" said Oliver Valente, Sprint's vice president for technology development, when the contract was announced. As part of $3bn in multi-year contracts announced late last year, Sprint will spend around $1bn on EV-DO technology from Lucent Technologies, Nortel Networks and Motorola that provides average data speeds of 0.3-0.5 megabits a second, and peak download rates of 2.4Mbps. MMO2, the UK-based operator with services in the UK, Ireland and Germany, has opted for technology based on the High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) standard. Using technology from Lucent, it will offer data speeds of 3.6Mbps from next summer on its Isle of Man 3G network, and will eventually support speeds of up to 14.4Mbps. US operator Cingular Wireless is also adopting HSDPA, using technology from Lucent alongside equipment from Siemens and Ericsson.

Siemens' plans for a one gigabit network may be more than a user needs today, but Christoph Caselitz, president of the mobile networks division at the firm says that: ""By the time the next generation of mobile communication debuts in 2015, the need for transmission capacities for voice, data, image and multimedia is conservatively anticipated to rise by a factor of 10."" Siemens - in collaboration with the Fraunhofer German-Sino Lab for Mobile Communications and the Institute for Applied Radio System Technology - has souped up mobile communications by using three transmitting and four receiving antennae, instead of the usual one. This enables a data transmission, such as sending a big file or video, to be broken up into different flows of data that can be sent simultaneously over one radio frequency band. The speeds offered by3G mobile seemed fast at the time mobile operators were paying huge sums for 3G licences. But today, instead of connecting to the internet by slow, dial-up phone connection, many people are used to broadband networks that offer speeds of 0.5 megabits a second - must faster than 3G. This means users are likely to find 3G disappointing unless the networks are souped up. If they aren't, those lucrative ""power users"", such as computer geeks and busy business people will avoid them for all but the most urgent tasks, reducing the potential revenues available to mobile operators. But one gigabit a second systems will not be available immediately. Siemens says that though the system works in the laboratory, it still has to assess the mobility of multiple-antennae devices and conduct field trials. A commercial system could be as far away as 2012, though Siemens did not rule out an earlier date.
","The system is not available commercially yet, but Motorola, the US mobile handset and infrastructure maker, held a clinic for mobile operators on HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Access), a high-speed, high bandwidth technology available now.Using technology from Lucent, it will offer data speeds of 3.6Mbps from next summer on its Isle of Man 3G network, and will eventually support speeds of up to 14.4Mbps.At 3GSM, Siemens showed off a system that transmits faster mobile data.But some mobile operators are opting for a technology called Evolution, Data Optimised (EV-DO).The speeds offered by3G mobile seemed fast at the time mobile operators were paying huge sums for 3G licences.The German company said data could be transmitted at one gigabit a second - up to 20 times faster than current 3G networks.Siemens' plans for a one gigabit network may be more than a user needs today, but Christoph Caselitz, president of the mobile networks division at the firm says that: ""By the time the next generation of mobile communication debuts in 2015, the need for transmission capacities for voice, data, image and multimedia is conservatively anticipated to rise by a factor of 10.""Siemens - in collaboration with the Fraunhofer German-Sino Lab for Mobile Communications and the Institute for Applied Radio System Technology - has souped up mobile communications by using three transmitting and four receiving antennae, instead of the usual one.Motorola has conducted five trials of its technology and says speeds of 2.9Mbps have been recorded at the edge of an outdoor 3G cell using a single HSDPA device.Fast 3G networks are here but the focus has shifted to their evolution into a higher bandwidth service, says the Global Mobile Suppliers Association.""High-Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) - sometimes called Super 3G - will be vital for profitable services like mobile internet browsing and mobile video clips,"" according to a report published by UK-based research consultancy Analysys.US operator Sprint ordered a broadband data upgrade to its 3G network at the end of last year.MMO2, the UK-based operator with services in the UK, Ireland and Germany, has opted for technology based on the High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) standard."
"Global digital divide 'narrowing'

The ""digital divide"" between rich and poor nations is narrowing fast, according to a World Bank report.

The World Bank questioned a United Nation's campaign to increase usage and access to technology in poorer nations. ""People in the developing world are getting more access at an incredible rate - far faster than... in the past,"" said the report. But a spokesman for the UN's World Summit on the Information Society said the digital divide remained very real. ""The digital divide is rapidly closing,"" the World Bank report said.

Half the world's population now has access to a fixed-line telephone, the report said, and 77% to a mobile network.

The report's figures surpass a WSIS campaign goal that calls for 50% access to telephones by 2015. The UN hopes that widening access to technology such as mobile phones and the net will help eradicate poverty. ""Developing countries are catching up with the rich world in terms of access [to mobile networks],"" the report said. ""Africa is part of a worldwide trend of rapid rollout... this applies to countries rich and poor, reformed or not, African, Asian, European and Latin American.""

A spokesman for the World Summit for the Information Society (WSIS), which is meeting this week in Geneva, told the BBC News website: ""The digital divide is very much real and needs to be addressed. ""Some financing has to be found to help narrow the divide."" On Tuesday, a meeting of the WSIS in Geneva agreed to the creation of a Digital Solitary Fund. ""The fund is voluntary and will help finance local community-based projects,"" said the WSIS spokesman. Under the proposals agreed, voluntary contribution of 1% on contracts obtained by private technology service providers could be made to the Digital Solidarity Fund. The exact financing mechanism of the fund is to be ironed out in the coming days, said the WSIS. Sixty percent of resources collected by the fund will be made available for projects in least developed countries, 30% for projects in developing countries, and 10% for projects in developed countries.
","""The digital divide is rapidly closing,"" the World Bank report said.""Developing countries are catching up with the rich world in terms of access [to mobile networks],"" the report said.But a spokesman for the UN's World Summit on the Information Society said the digital divide remained very real.The ""digital divide"" between rich and poor nations is narrowing fast, according to a World Bank report.""People in the developing world are getting more access at an incredible rate - far faster than... in the past,"" said the report.A spokesman for the World Summit for the Information Society (WSIS), which is meeting this week in Geneva, told the BBC News website: ""The digital divide is very much real and needs to be addressed.""The fund is voluntary and will help finance local community-based projects,"" said the WSIS spokesman."
"UK gets official virus alert site

A rapid alerting service that tells home computer users about serious internet security problems is being launched by the UK government.

The service, IT Safe, will issue warnings about damaging viruses, software vulnerabilities and weaknesses on devices such as mobile phones. Alerts tell people how the threats affect them and what they can do to avoid trouble and protect themselves. The service will be free and those who sign up can get e-mail or text alerts. The scheme is aimed at home users and small businesses. The government estimates it will issue security alerts about six to 10 times a year, based on previous experience of virus outbreaks. ""There is a clear need for easy-to-understand and simple independent advice for non-technically minded people who use computers either at home or at work,"" said Home Office Minister Hazel Blears. ""The purpose of this new government service is to ensure computer users are aware of the risks involved and how to deal with them easily and effectively without causing alarm."" Those signing up will only be told about the most serious security threats that have the potential to affect millions of people.

Full-time staff are being employed to comb through the many hundreds of alerts issued each year by computer security firms to spot which ones have the potential to catch out a large number of people Between alerts the service will occasionally send messages giving people advice about safe ways to use their computers and phones. ""IT Safe will take our technical expertise and use it to help home users understand the risks and keep their computer systems, mobile phones and a range of related consumer electronic items, safe,"" said Roger Cumming, director of the National Infrastructure Security Coordination Centre (NISCC).

The NISCC, which is running the service, also stressed that those signing up would still need to use anti-virus software, firewalls, and software updates to stay secure. Warnings about security problems will tell people what the problem is, how it affects them and what they can do to avoid trouble. Alerts will not be issued unless users can do something to protect themselves against the threat. This might include downloading an update from an anti-virus vendor or updating software to close loopholes and fix vulnerabilities. However no software patches or programs will actually be dispensed through the site. The alerts will tell people how to go about getting hold of patches from security firms. The NISCC spokesman said the site and alerting service would stay in existence for as long as there were security bugs on home computers and other gadgets.

Government statistics show that more than half of all UK households own a home computer. It was estimated that almost 13 million of these were able to access the internet in 2004. The launch comes as the number of viruses and other malicious programs in existence is reaching unprecedented numbers. In September 2004, the number of malicious programs circulating topped the 100,000 mark. Some fear that this figure could hit 150,000 by September 2005. The creation of the national alert service follows similar efforts in the Netherlands and US. The National Alerting Service for the Netherlands (aka De Waarschuwingsdienst) and the US National Cyber Alerting Service also tell citizens of serious security threats.
","A rapid alerting service that tells home computer users about serious internet security problems is being launched by the UK government.The NISCC spokesman said the site and alerting service would stay in existence for as long as there were security bugs on home computers and other gadgets.Full-time staff are being employed to comb through the many hundreds of alerts issued each year by computer security firms to spot which ones have the potential to catch out a large number of people Between alerts the service will occasionally send messages giving people advice about safe ways to use their computers and phones.The National Alerting Service for the Netherlands (aka De Waarschuwingsdienst) and the US National Cyber Alerting Service also tell citizens of serious security threats.Those signing up will only be told about the most serious security threats that have the potential to affect millions of people.Alerts tell people how the threats affect them and what they can do to avoid trouble and protect themselves.The alerts will tell people how to go about getting hold of patches from security firms.Warnings about security problems will tell people what the problem is, how it affects them and what they can do to avoid trouble.""IT Safe will take our technical expertise and use it to help home users understand the risks and keep their computer systems, mobile phones and a range of related consumer electronic items, safe,"" said Roger Cumming, director of the National Infrastructure Security Coordination Centre (NISCC).The NISCC, which is running the service, also stressed that those signing up would still need to use anti-virus software, firewalls, and software updates to stay secure."
"Iran jails blogger for 14 years

An Iranian weblogger has been jailed for 14 years on charges of spying and aiding foreign counter-revolutionaries.

Arash Sigarchi was arrested last month after using his blog to criticise the arrest of other online journalists. Mr Sigarchi, who also edits a newspaper in northern Iran, was sentenced by a revolutionary court in the Gilan area. His sentence, criticised by human rights watchdog Reporters Without Borders, comes a day after an online ""day of action"" to secure his release. Iranian authorities have recently clamped down on the growing popularity of weblogs, restricting access to major blogging sites from within Iran. A second Iranian blogger, Motjaba Saminejad, who also used his website to report on bloggers' arrests, is still being held.

A spokesman for Reporters Without Borders, which tracks press freedom across the globe, described Mr Sigarchi's sentence as ""harsh"" and called on Iranian President Mohammed Khatami to work to secure his immediate release. ""The authorities are trying to make an example of him,"" the organisation said in a statement.

""By handing down this harsh sentence against a weblogger, their aim is to dissuade journalists and internet-users from expressing themselves online or contacting foreign media."" In the days before his arrest Mr Sigarchi gave interviews to the BBC Persian Service and the US-funded Radio Farda. Iranian authorities have arrested about 20 online journalists during the current crackdown. They accused Mr Sigarchi of a string of crimes against Iranian state, including espionage, insulting the founder of Iran's Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomenei, and current Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Mr Sigarchi's lawyer labelled the revolutionary court ""illegal and incompetent"" and called for a retrial in a public court.

Mr Sigarchi was sentenced one day after an online campaign highlighted his case in a day of action in defence of bloggers around the world.

The Committee to Protect Bloggers designated 22 February 2005 as Free Mojtaba and Arash Day. Around 10,000 people visited the campaign's website during the day. About 12% of users were based in Iran, the campaign's director told the BBC News website. Curt Hopkins said Mr Sigarchi's sentence would not dent the resolve of bloggers joining the campaign to help highlight the case. ""The eyes of 8 million bloggers are going to be more focused on Iran since Sigarchi's sentence, not less. ""The mullahs won't be able to make a move without it be spread across the blogosphere.""
","Mr Sigarchi was sentenced one day after an online campaign highlighted his case in a day of action in defence of bloggers around the world.His sentence, criticised by human rights watchdog Reporters Without Borders, comes a day after an online ""day of action"" to secure his release.A spokesman for Reporters Without Borders, which tracks press freedom across the globe, described Mr Sigarchi's sentence as ""harsh"" and called on Iranian President Mohammed Khatami to work to secure his immediate release.Iranian authorities have arrested about 20 online journalists during the current crackdown.Mr Sigarchi, who also edits a newspaper in northern Iran, was sentenced by a revolutionary court in the Gilan area.In the days before his arrest Mr Sigarchi gave interviews to the BBC Persian Service and the US-funded Radio Farda.Curt Hopkins said Mr Sigarchi's sentence would not dent the resolve of bloggers joining the campaign to help highlight the case.Around 10,000 people visited the campaign's website during the day."
"Microsoft seeking spyware trojan

Microsoft is investigating a trojan program that attempts to switch off the firm's anti-spyware software.

The spyware tool was only released by Microsoft in the last few weeks and has been downloaded by six million people. Stephen Toulouse, a security manager at Microsoft, said the malicious program was called Bankash-A Trojan and was being sent as an e-mail attachment. Microsoft said it did not believe the program was widespread and recommended users to use an anti-virus program. The program attempts to disable or delete Microsoft's anti-spyware tool and suppress warning messages given to users.

It may also try to steal online banking passwords or other personal information by tracking users' keystrokes.

Microsoft said in a statement it is investigating what it called a criminal attack on its software. Earlier this week, Microsoft said it would buy anti-virus software maker Sybari Software to improve its security in its Windows and e-mail software. Microsoft has said it plans to offer its own paid-for anti-virus software but it has not yet set a date for its release. The anti-spyware program being targeted is currently only in beta form and aims to help users find and remove spyware - programs which monitor internet use, causes advert pop-ups and slow a PC's performance.
","Microsoft is investigating a trojan program that attempts to switch off the firm's anti-spyware software.Microsoft said it did not believe the program was widespread and recommended users to use an anti-virus program.Stephen Toulouse, a security manager at Microsoft, said the malicious program was called Bankash-A Trojan and was being sent as an e-mail attachment.Microsoft said in a statement it is investigating what it called a criminal attack on its software."
"US woman sues over cartridges

A US woman is suing Hewlett Packard (HP), saying its printer ink cartridges are secretly programmed to expire on a certain date.

The unnamed woman from Georgia says that a chip inside the cartridge tells the printer that it needs re-filling even when it does not. The lawsuit seeks to represent anyone in the US who has purchased an HP inkjet printer since February 2001. HP, the world's biggest printer firm, declined to comment on the lawsuit. HP ink cartridges use a chip technology to sense when they are low on ink and advise the user to make a change.

But the suit claims the chips also shut down the cartridges at a predetermined date regardless of whether they are empty. ""The smart chip is dually engineered to prematurely register ink depletion and to render a cartridge unusable through the use of a built-in expiration date that is not revealed to the consumer,"" the suit said. The lawsuit is asking for restitution, damages and other compensation. The cost of printer cartridges has been a contentious issue in Europe for the last 18 months. The price of inkjet printers has come down to as little as £34 but it could cost up to £1,700 in running costs over an 18-month period due to cartridge, a study by Computeractive Magazine revealed last year. The inkjet printer market has been the subject of an investigation by the UK's Office of Fair Trading (OFT), which concluded in a 2002 report that retailers and manufacturers needed to make pricing more transparent for consumers.
","A US woman is suing Hewlett Packard (HP), saying its printer ink cartridges are secretly programmed to expire on a certain date.The cost of printer cartridges has been a contentious issue in Europe for the last 18 months.The lawsuit seeks to represent anyone in the US who has purchased an HP inkjet printer since February 2001.The price of inkjet printers has come down to as little as £34 but it could cost up to £1,700 in running costs over an 18-month period due to cartridge, a study by Computeractive Magazine revealed last year.HP ink cartridges use a chip technology to sense when they are low on ink and advise the user to make a change."
"Movie body hits peer-to-peer nets

The movie industry has struck out at file-sharing networks with another round of lawsuits in the US.

The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) also said it had succeeded in getting a network called LokiTorrent closed down. It is the latest network which uses the peer-to-peer system called BitTorrent to be hit by the MPAA. The MPAA began its legal campaign against operators of similar networks across four continents in December. A Dallas court agreed that Hollywood lawyers would be allowed access to LokiTorrent's server records which could let them single out those who were sharing files illegally. In October 2004, the site had provided links to more than 30,000 files. The action came after the operators of LokiTorrent agreed a settlement with the MPAA. A stark message has appeared on the site from the MPAA warning ""You can click, but you can't hide"". In BitTorrent systems, server sites do not host the files being shared. They host links, called ""trackers"" that direct people to others that have it instead.

As well as filing an unspecified number of file suits across the US, the MPAA said it had given operators that host eDonkey servers ""take down"" notices. Hollywood studios are aggressively clamping down on file-sharers who it says infringe copyright laws by copying films and TV programmes then share the files online. But it is now targeting the operators of BitTorrent networks themselves. It has filed 100 lawsuits against operators of BitTorrent server sites since December. The strategy of hitting those who run the servers which link to copyrighted material is intended to stunt file-sharers' ability to swap content using BitTorrent systems. The film industry says the black market for illegally copied videos and DVDs already costs them billions every year and it is worried that illegal file-sharing is adding to their losses. In December, the legal action claimed its most high-profile victim. The popular Suprnova.org website was forced to close, and others like Phoenix Torrent followed soon after.
","It has filed 100 lawsuits against operators of BitTorrent server sites since December.In BitTorrent systems, server sites do not host the files being shared.It is the latest network which uses the peer-to-peer system called BitTorrent to be hit by the MPAA.But it is now targeting the operators of BitTorrent networks themselves.As well as filing an unspecified number of file suits across the US, the MPAA said it had given operators that host eDonkey servers ""take down"" notices.The MPAA began its legal campaign against operators of similar networks across four continents in December.The action came after the operators of LokiTorrent agreed a settlement with the MPAA.The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) also said it had succeeded in getting a network called LokiTorrent closed down."
"Security warning over 'FBI virus'

The US Federal Bureau of Investigation is warning that a computer virus is being spread via e-mails that purport to be from the FBI.

The e-mails show that they have come from an fbi.gov address and tell recipients that they have accessed illegal websites. The messages warn that their internet use has been monitored by the FBI's Internet Fraud Complaint Center. An attachment in the e-mail contains the virus, the FBI said. The message asks recipients to click on the attachment and answer some questions about their internet use. But rather than being a questionnaire, the attachment contains a virus that infects the recipient's computer, according to the agency. It is not clear what the virus does once it has infected a computer. Users are warned never to open attachment from unsolicited e-mails or from people they do not know.

""Recipients of this or similar solicitations should know that the FBI does not engage in the practice of sending unsolicited e-mails to the public in this manner,"" the FBI said in a statement. The bureau is investigating the phoney e-mails. The agency earlier this month shut down fbi.gov accounts, used to communicate with the public, because of a security breach. A spokeswoman said the two incidents appear to be unrelated.
","An attachment in the e-mail contains the virus, the FBI said.The US Federal Bureau of Investigation is warning that a computer virus is being spread via e-mails that purport to be from the FBI.""Recipients of this or similar solicitations should know that the FBI does not engage in the practice of sending unsolicited e-mails to the public in this manner,"" the FBI said in a statement.But rather than being a questionnaire, the attachment contains a virus that infects the recipient's computer, according to the agency.Users are warned never to open attachment from unsolicited e-mails or from people they do not know."
"Apple iPod family expands market

Apple has expanded its iPod family with the release of its next generation of the digital music players.

Its latest challenges to the growing digital music gadget market include an iPod mini model which can hold 6GB compared to a previous 4GB. The company, which hopes to keep its dominant place in the digital music market, also said the gold coloured version of the mini would be dropped. A 30GB version has also been added to the iPod Photo family. The latest models have a longer battery life and their prices have been cut by an average of £40. The original iPod took an early lead in the digital music player market thanks to its large storage capacity and simple design.

During 2004 about 25 million portable players were sold, 10 million of which were Apple iPods. But analysts agree that the success is also down to its integration with the iTunes online store, which has given the company a 70% share of the legal download music market. Mike McGuire, a research director at analyst Gartner, told the BBC News website that Apple had done a good job in ""sealing off the market from competition"" so far. ""They have created a very seamless package which I think is the idea of the product - the design, function and the software are very impressive,"" he said. He added that the threat from others was always present, however. ""Creative, other Microsoft-partnered devices, Real, Sony and so on, are ratcheting up the marketing message and advertising,"" he said. Creative was very upbeat about how many of its Creative Zen players it had shipped by the end of last year, he said. Its second-generation models, like the Creative Zen Micro Photo, is due out in the summer. It will have 5GB of memory on board.

Digital music players are now the gadget of choice among young Americans, according to recent research by the Pew Internet and American Life Project. One in 10 US adults - 22 million people - now owns a digital music player of some sort. Sales of legally downloaded songs also rose more than tenfold in 2004, according to the record industry, with 200 million tracks bought online in the US and Europe in 12 months. The IFPI industry body said that the popularity of portable music players was behind the growth. Analysts say that the ease of use and growth of music services available on the net will continue to drive the trend towards portable music players.

People are also starting to use them in novel ways. Some are combining automatic syncing functions many of them have with other net functions to automatically distribute DIY radio shows, called podcasts. But 2005 will also see more competition from mobile phone operators who are keen to offer streaming services on much more powerful and sophisticated handsets. According to Mr McGuire, research suggests that people like the idea of building up huge libraries of music, which they can do with high-capacity storage devices, like iPods and Creative Zens. Mobiles do not yet have this capacity though, and there are issues about the ease of portability of mobile music. Mr McGuire said Apple was ensuring it kept a foot in the mobile music door with its recent deal with Motorola to produce a version of iTunes for Motorola phones.
","The IFPI industry body said that the popularity of portable music players was behind the growth.The company, which hopes to keep its dominant place in the digital music market, also said the gold coloured version of the mini would be dropped.Its latest challenges to the growing digital music gadget market include an iPod mini model which can hold 6GB compared to a previous 4GB.One in 10 US adults - 22 million people - now owns a digital music player of some sort.The original iPod took an early lead in the digital music player market thanks to its large storage capacity and simple design.Apple has expanded its iPod family with the release of its next generation of the digital music players.A 30GB version has also been added to the iPod Photo family.Analysts say that the ease of use and growth of music services available on the net will continue to drive the trend towards portable music players.Mr McGuire said Apple was ensuring it kept a foot in the mobile music door with its recent deal with Motorola to produce a version of iTunes for Motorola phones.According to Mr McGuire, research suggests that people like the idea of building up huge libraries of music, which they can do with high-capacity storage devices, like iPods and Creative Zens.Digital music players are now the gadget of choice among young Americans, according to recent research by the Pew Internet and American Life Project."
"T-Mobile bets on 'pocket office'

T-Mobile has launched its latest ""pocket office"" third-generation (3G) device which also has built-in wi-fi - high-speed wireless net access.

Unlike other devices where the user has to check which high-speed network is available to transfer data, the device selects the fastest one itself. The MDA IV, released in the summer, is an upgrade to the company's existing smartphone, the 2.5G/wi-fi MDA III. It reflects the push by mobile firms for devices that are like mini laptops. The device has a display that can be swivelled and angled so it can be used like a small computer, or as a conventional clamshell phone. The Microsoft Mobile phone, with two cameras and a Qwerty keyboard, reflects the design of similar all-in-one models released this year, such as Motorola's MPx. ""One in five European workers are already mobile - meaning they spend significant time travelling and out of the office,"" Rene Obermann, T-Mobile's chief executive, told a press conference at the 3GSM trade show in Cannes. He added: ""What they need is their office when they are out of the office."" T-Mobile said it was seeing increasing take up for what it calls ""Office in a Pocket"" devices, with 100,000 MDAs sold in Europe already.

In response to demand, T-Mobile also said it would be adding the latest phone-shaped Blackberry to its mobile range. Reflecting the growing need to be connected outside the office, it announced it would introduce a flat-fee £20 ($38) a month wi-fi tariff for people in the UK using its wi-fi hotspots. It said it would nearly double the number of its hotspots - places where wi-fi access is available - globally from 12,300 to 20,000.

It also announced it was installing high-speed wi-fi on certain train services, such as the UK's London to Brighton service, to provide commuters a fast net connection too. The service, which has been developed with Southern trains, Nomad Digital (who provide the technology), begins with a free trial on 16 trains on the route from early March to the end of April. A full service is set to follow in the summer. Wi-fi access points will be connected to a Wimax wireless network - faster than wi-fi - running alongside the train tracks. Brian McBride, managing director of T-Mobile in the UK, said: ""We see a growing trend for business users needing to access e-mail securely on the move.

""We are able to offer this by maintaining a constant data session for the entire journey."" He said this was something other similar in-train wi-fi services, such as that offered on GNER trains, did not offer yet. Mr Obermann added that the mobile industry in general was still growing, with many more opportunities for more services which would bear fruit for mobile companies in future. Thousands of mobile industry experts are gathered in Cannes, France, for the 3GSM which runs from 14 to 17 February.
","T-Mobile has launched its latest ""pocket office"" third-generation (3G) device which also has built-in wi-fi - high-speed wireless net access.Mr Obermann added that the mobile industry in general was still growing, with many more opportunities for more services which would bear fruit for mobile companies in future.Reflecting the growing need to be connected outside the office, it announced it would introduce a flat-fee £20 ($38) a month wi-fi tariff for people in the UK using its wi-fi hotspots.It also announced it was installing high-speed wi-fi on certain train services, such as the UK's London to Brighton service, to provide commuters a fast net connection too.In response to demand, T-Mobile also said it would be adding the latest phone-shaped Blackberry to its mobile range.He said this was something other similar in-train wi-fi services, such as that offered on GNER trains, did not offer yet.It said it would nearly double the number of its hotspots - places where wi-fi access is available - globally from 12,300 to 20,000.Wi-fi access points will be connected to a Wimax wireless network - faster than wi-fi - running alongside the train tracks.Unlike other devices where the user has to check which high-speed network is available to transfer data, the device selects the fastest one itself."
"Hotspot users gain free net calls

People using wireless net hotspots will soon be able to make free phone calls as well as surf the net.

Wireless provider Broadreach and net telephony firm Skype are rolling out a service at 350 hotspots around the UK this week. Users will need a Skype account - downloadable for free - and they will then be able to make net calls via wi-fi without paying for net access. Skype allows people to make free PC-based calls to other Skype users.

Users of the system can also make calls to landlines and mobiles for a fee. The system is gaining in popularity and now has 28 million users around the world. Its paid service - dubbed Skype Out - has so far attracted 940,000 users. It plans to add more paid services with forthcoming launches of video conferencing, voice mail and Skype In, a service which would allow users to receive phone calls from landlines and mobiles. London-based software developer Connectotel has unveiled software that will expand the SMS functions of Skype, allowing users to send text messages to mobile phones from the service. Broadreach Networks has around two million users and hotspots in places such as Virgin Megastores, the Travelodge chain of hotels and all London's major rail terminals. The company is due to launch wi-fi on Virgin Trains later in the year. ""Skype's success at spreading the world about internet telephony is well-known and we are delighted to be offering free access to Skype users in our hotspots,"" commented Broadreach chief executive Magnus McEwen-King.
","Skype allows people to make free PC-based calls to other Skype users.Users will need a Skype account - downloadable for free - and they will then be able to make net calls via wi-fi without paying for net access.Its paid service - dubbed Skype Out - has so far attracted 940,000 users.Wireless provider Broadreach and net telephony firm Skype are rolling out a service at 350 hotspots around the UK this week.It plans to add more paid services with forthcoming launches of video conferencing, voice mail and Skype In, a service which would allow users to receive phone calls from landlines and mobiles."
"DVD copy protection strengthened

DVDs will be harder to copy thanks to new anti-piracy measures devised by copy protection firm Macrovision.

The pirated DVD market is enormous because current copy protection was hacked more than five years ago. Macrovision says its new RipGuard technology will thwart most, but not all, of the current DVD ripping (copying) programs used to pirate DVDs. ""RipGuard is designed to... reduce DVD ripping and the resulting supply of illegal peer to peer,"" said the firm. Macrovision said the new technology will work in ""nearly all"" current DVD players when applied to the discs, but it did not specify how many machines could have a problem with RipGuard. The new technology will be welcomed by Hollywood film studios which are increasingly relying on revenue from DVD sales.

The film industry has stepped up efforts to fight DVD piracy in the last 12 months, taking legal action against websites which offer pirated copies of DVD movies for download.

""Ultimately, we see RipGuard DVD... evolving beyond anti-piracy, and towards enablement of legitimate online transactions, interoperability in tomorrow's digital home, and the upcoming high-definition formats,"" said Steve Weinstein, executive vice president and general manager of Macrovision's Entertainment Technologies Group. Macrovision said RipGuard was designed to plug the ""digital hole"" that was created by so-called DeCSS ripper software. It circumvents Content Scrambling System measures placed on DVDs and let people make perfect digital copies of copyrighted DVDs in minutes. Those copies could then be burned onto a blank DVD or uploaded for exchange to a peer-to-peer network. Macrovision said RipGuard would also prevent against ""rent, rip and return"" - where people would rent a DVD, copy it and then return the original. RipGuard is expected to be rolled out on DVDs from the middle of 2005, the company said. The new system works specifically to block most ripping programs - if used, those programs will now most likely crash, the company said. Macrovision has said that Rip Guard can be updated if hackers find a way around the new anti-copying measures.
","Macrovision says its new RipGuard technology will thwart most, but not all, of the current DVD ripping (copying) programs used to pirate DVDs.Macrovision said the new technology will work in ""nearly all"" current DVD players when applied to the discs, but it did not specify how many machines could have a problem with RipGuard.Macrovision said RipGuard would also prevent against ""rent, rip and return"" - where people would rent a DVD, copy it and then return the original.DVDs will be harder to copy thanks to new anti-piracy measures devised by copy protection firm Macrovision.""RipGuard is designed to... reduce DVD ripping and the resulting supply of illegal peer to peer,"" said the firm.RipGuard is expected to be rolled out on DVDs from the middle of 2005, the company said."
"Apple attacked over sources row

Civil liberties group the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has joined a legal fight between three US online journalists and Apple.

Apple wants the reporters to reveal 20 sources used for stories which leaked information about forthcoming products, including the Mac Mini. The EFF, representing the reporters, has asked California's Superior court to stop Apple pursuing the sources. It argues that the journalists are protected by the American constitution. The EFF says the case threatens the basic freedoms of the press.

Apple is particularly keen to find the source for information about an unreleased product code-named Asteroid and has asked the journalists' e-mail providers to hand over communications relevant to that. ""Rather than confronting the issue of reporter's privilege head-on, Apple is going to the journalist's ISPs for his e-mails,"" said EFF lawyer Kurt Opsahl. ""This undermines a fundamental First Amendment right that protects all reporters. ""If the court lets Apple get away with this, and exposes the confidences gained by these reporters, potential confidential sources will be deterred from providing information to the media and the public will lose a vital outlet for independent news, analysis and commentary,"" he said. The case began in December 2004 when Apple asked a local Californian court to get the journalists to reveal their sources for articles published on websites AppleInsider.com and PowerPage.org.

Apple also sent requested information from the Nfox.com, the internet service provider of PowerPage's publisher Jason O-Grady. As well as looking at how far corporations can go in preventing information from being published, the case will also examine whether online journalists have the same privileges and protections as those writing for newspapers and magazines. The EFF has gained some powerful allies in its legal battle with Apple, including Professor Tom Goldstein, former dean of the Journalism School at the University of California and Dan Gillmor, a well-known Silicon Valley journalist. Apple was not immediately available for comment.
","The EFF, representing the reporters, has asked California's Superior court to stop Apple pursuing the sources.The case began in December 2004 when Apple asked a local Californian court to get the journalists to reveal their sources for articles published on websites AppleInsider.com and PowerPage.org.Civil liberties group the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has joined a legal fight between three US online journalists and Apple.Apple is particularly keen to find the source for information about an unreleased product code-named Asteroid and has asked the journalists' e-mail providers to hand over communications relevant to that.""Rather than confronting the issue of reporter's privilege head-on, Apple is going to the journalist's ISPs for his e-mails,"" said EFF lawyer Kurt Opsahl.The EFF has gained some powerful allies in its legal battle with Apple, including Professor Tom Goldstein, former dean of the Journalism School at the University of California and Dan Gillmor, a well-known Silicon Valley journalist."
"Sony PSP tipped as a 'must-have'

Sony's Playstation Portable is the top gadget for 2005, according to a round-up of ultimate gizmos compiled by Stuff Magazine.

It beats the iPod into second place in the Top Ten Essentials list which predicts what gadget-lovers are likely to covet this year. Owning all 10 gadgets will set the gadget lover back £7,455. That is £1,000 cheaper than last year's list due to falling manufacturing costs making gadgets more affordable.

Portable gadgets dominate the list, including Sharp's 902 3G mobile phone, the Pentax Optio SV digital camera and Samsung's Yepp YH-999 video jukebox.

""What this year's Essentials shows is that gadgets are now cheaper, sexier and more indispensable than ever. We've got to the point where we can't live our lives without certain technology,"" said Adam Vaughan, editor of Stuff Essentials. The proliferation of gadgets in our homes is inexorably altering the role of the high street in our lives thinks Mr Vaughan. ""Take digital cameras, who would now pay to develop an entire film of photos? Or legitimate downloads, who would travel miles to a record shop when they could download the song in minutes for 70p?"" he asks. Next year will see a new set of technologies capturing the imaginations of gadget lovers, Stuff predicts. The Xbox 2, high-definition TV and MP3 mobiles will be among the list of must-haves that will dominate 2006, it says. The spring launch of the PSP in the UK is eagerly awaited by gaming fans.
","Owning all 10 gadgets will set the gadget lover back £7,455.Portable gadgets dominate the list, including Sharp's 902 3G mobile phone, the Pentax Optio SV digital camera and Samsung's Yepp YH-999 video jukebox.""What this year's Essentials shows is that gadgets are now cheaper, sexier and more indispensable than ever.That is £1,000 cheaper than last year's list due to falling manufacturing costs making gadgets more affordable.Next year will see a new set of technologies capturing the imaginations of gadget lovers, Stuff predicts.Sony's Playstation Portable is the top gadget for 2005, according to a round-up of ultimate gizmos compiled by Stuff Magazine."
"BBC leads interactive Bafta wins

The BBC and the National Theatre have led the field at this year's Interactive Bafta awards.

The National Theatre's Stagework website picked up the prize for best learning as well as top factual site. The BBC collected three awards, including best online entertainment for the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Adventure Game. Spooks Interactive took the best interactive TV prize. The annual awards recognise the best in digital media. BBC Sport Interactive fought off competition from CBBC Newsround and the Guardian to take home the best news and sport trophy for its coverage of England's exit from Euro 2004. It was recognised for its ""groundbreaking"" use of animation. Bafta's Grant Dean, chair of Bafta's Interactive Entertainment committee, said all the entrants had been of ""outstanding quality"" and that judging had been ""enormously difficult"". ""Without a doubt, 2005 has been a landmark year for the Bafta Interactive Awards,"" he added.

""Many of the top awards this year have gone to the companies we most commonly associate with traditional entertainment, showing how the gap between new media, film and television is closing.""

Awards were given out in 12 different categories, including interactive TV, film, music, design, as well as technical and social innovation, at a London ceremony. The top music award was given to SSEYO miniMIXA, a mobile music sequencer designed to let people write, edit and share compositions. Warner Bros was given two prizes for its ""inspiring"" efforts in film and DVD interactivity. The Chaplin Collection beat Oasis, Really Bend It Like Beckham, Shaun of the Dead and The Day Today in the DVD category, and Trauma won best film. Elsewhere, fashionista and clothes designer Alexander McQueen took the accolade for the best-designed website. The awards have been running since 1997, but in 2002 the British Academy of Film and Television decided to split them into separate games and interactive ceremonies. On Tuesday Half-Life 2 dominated the games prizes. It collected six Baftas, including best game and best online game.
","Spooks Interactive took the best interactive TV prize.It collected six Baftas, including best game and best online game.The BBC collected three awards, including best online entertainment for the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Adventure Game.Awards were given out in 12 different categories, including interactive TV, film, music, design, as well as technical and social innovation, at a London ceremony.The awards have been running since 1997, but in 2002 the British Academy of Film and Television decided to split them into separate games and interactive ceremonies.The BBC and the National Theatre have led the field at this year's Interactive Bafta awards.The National Theatre's Stagework website picked up the prize for best learning as well as top factual site.The annual awards recognise the best in digital media."
"Millions buy MP3 players in US

One in 10 adult Americans - equivalent to 22 million people - owns an MP3 player, according to a survey.

A study by the Pew Internet and American Life Project found that MP3 players are the gadget of choice among affluent young Americans. The survey did not interview teenagers but it is likely that millions of under-18s also have MP3 players. The American love affair with digital music players has been made possible as more and more homes get broadband.

Of the 22 million Americans who own MP3 players, 59% are men compared to 41% of women. Those on high income - judged to be $75,000 (£39,000) or above - are four times more likely to have players than those earning less than $30, 000 ( £15,000). Broadband access plays a big part in ownership too. Almost a quarter of those with broadband at home have players, compared to 9% of those who have dial-up access. MP3 players are still the gadget of choice for younger adults. Almost one in five US citizens aged under 30 have one. This compares to 14% of those aged 30-39 and 14% of those aged 40-48. The influence of children also plays a part. Sixteen percent of parents living with children under 18 have digital players compared to 9% of those who don't. The ease of use and growth of music available on the net are the main factors for the upsurge in ownership, the survey found. People are beginning to use them as instruments of social activity - sharing songs and taking part in podcasting - the survey found. ""IPods and MP3 players are becoming a mainstream technology for consumers"" said Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Internet and American Life Project. ""More growth in the market is inevitable as new devices become available, as new players enter the market, and as new social uses for iPods/MP3 players become popular,"" he added.
","One in 10 adult Americans - equivalent to 22 million people - owns an MP3 player, according to a survey.A study by the Pew Internet and American Life Project found that MP3 players are the gadget of choice among affluent young Americans.The survey did not interview teenagers but it is likely that millions of under-18s also have MP3 players.MP3 players are still the gadget of choice for younger adults.Of the 22 million Americans who own MP3 players, 59% are men compared to 41% of women.""IPods and MP3 players are becoming a mainstream technology for consumers"" said Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Internet and American Life Project.The American love affair with digital music players has been made possible as more and more homes get broadband."
"'No re-draft' for EU patent law

A proposed European law on software patents will not be re-drafted by the European Commission (EC) despite requests by MEPs.

The law is proving controversial and has been in limbo for a year. Some major tech firms say it is needed to protect inventions, while others fear it will hurt smaller tech firms The EC says the Council of Ministers will adopt a draft version that was agreed upon last May but said it would review ""all aspects of the directive"". The directive is intended to offer patent protection to inventions that use software to achieve their effect, in other words, ""computer implemented invention"".

In a letter, EC President José Manuel Barroso told the President of the European Parliament, Josep Borrell, that the Commission ""did not intend to refer a new proposal to the Parliament and the Council (of ministers)"" as it had supported the agreement reached by ministers in May 2004.

If the European Council agrees on the draft directive it will then return for a second reading at the European Parliament. But that will not guarantee that the directive will become law - instead it will probably mean further delays and controversy over the directive. Most EU legislation now needs the approval of both parliament and the Council of Ministers before it becomes law. French Green MEP Alain Lipietz warned two weeks ago that if the Commission ignored the Parliament's request it would be an ""insult"" to the assembly. He said that the parliament would then reject the Council's version of the legislation as part of the final or conciliation stage of the decision procedure. In the US, the patenting of computer programs and internet business methods is permitted.

This means that the US-based Amazon.com holds a patent for its ""one-click shopping"" service, for example. Critics are concerned that the directive could lead to a similar model happening in Europe. This, they fear, could hurt small software developers because they do not have the legal and financial might of larger companies if they had to fight patent legal action in court. Supporters say current laws are inefficient and it would serve to even up a playing field without bringing EU laws in line with the US.
","A proposed European law on software patents will not be re-drafted by the European Commission (EC) despite requests by MEPs.But that will not guarantee that the directive will become law - instead it will probably mean further delays and controversy over the directive.Supporters say current laws are inefficient and it would serve to even up a playing field without bringing EU laws in line with the US.If the European Council agrees on the draft directive it will then return for a second reading at the European Parliament.Most EU legislation now needs the approval of both parliament and the Council of Ministers before it becomes law.Some major tech firms say it is needed to protect inventions, while others fear it will hurt smaller tech firms The EC says the Council of Ministers will adopt a draft version that was agreed upon last May but said it would review ""all aspects of the directive""."
"Domain system scam fear

A system to make it easier to create website addresses using alphabets like Cyrillic could open a back door for scammers, a trade body has warned.

The Internationalised Domain Names system has been a work in progress for years and has recently been approved by the Internet Electronic Task Force. But the UK Internet Forum (UKIF) is concerned that the system will let scammers create fake sites more easily. The problem lies in the computer codes used to represent language.

Registering names that look like that of legitimate companies but lead users to fake sites designed to steal passwords and credit card details could become a whole lot easier for determined scammers, says Stephen Dyer, director of UKIF. Domain names are the ""real language"" addresses of websites, rather than their internet protocol address, which is a series of numbers. They are used so people can more easily navigate the web. So-called ASCII codes are used to represent European languages but for other languages a hybrid of a system called Unicode is used. So, for example, website PayPal could now be coded using a mixture of the Latin alphabet and the Russian alphabet. The resulting domain as displayed to the users would look identical to the real site as a Russian 'a' look just like an English 'a'. But the computer code would be different, and the site it would lead users to could be a fake. This is more than just a theory. A fake Paypal.com has already been registered with net domain giant Verisign by someone who has followed the debate around the Internationalised Domain Name (IDN) system, said Mr Dyer. As the idea was to prove a point rather than be malicious the fake domain has now been handed back to Paypal but it sets a worrying precedent, Mr Dyer said. ""Although the IDN problem is well known in technical circles, the commercial world is totally unaware how easily their websites can be faked,"" said Mr Dyer.

""It is important to alert users that there is a new and invisible and almost undetectable way of diverting them to what looks like a perfectly genuine site,"" he added. There are solutions. For instance, browsers could spot domains that use mixed characters and display them in different colours as a warning to users. Mr Dyer acknowledged that it would be a huge undertaking to update all the world's browsers. Another solution, to introduce IDN-disabled browsers could be a case of ""throwing out the baby with the bath water,"" he said. CENTR, the Council of European National Top Level Domain Registries, agrees. ""A rush to introduce IDN-disabled browsers into the marketplace is an overly-zealous step that will harm public confidence in IDNs - a technology that is desperately needed in the non-English speaking world,"" the organisation said in a statement.
","A fake Paypal.com has already been registered with net domain giant Verisign by someone who has followed the debate around the Internationalised Domain Name (IDN) system, said Mr Dyer.But the computer code would be different, and the site it would lead users to could be a fake.As the idea was to prove a point rather than be malicious the fake domain has now been handed back to Paypal but it sets a worrying precedent, Mr Dyer said.The resulting domain as displayed to the users would look identical to the real site as a Russian 'a' look just like an English 'a'.A system to make it easier to create website addresses using alphabets like Cyrillic could open a back door for scammers, a trade body has warned.Registering names that look like that of legitimate companies but lead users to fake sites designed to steal passwords and credit card details could become a whole lot easier for determined scammers, says Stephen Dyer, director of UKIF.So-called ASCII codes are used to represent European languages but for other languages a hybrid of a system called Unicode is used.But the UK Internet Forum (UKIF) is concerned that the system will let scammers create fake sites more easily.The Internationalised Domain Names system has been a work in progress for years and has recently been approved by the Internet Electronic Task Force."
"Cheaper chip for mobiles

A mobile phone chip which combines a modem and a computer processor on one bit of silicon instead of two could make phones cheaper and more powerful.

The specially-designed chip, developed by Texas Instruments, could drive down the cost of making mobiles capable of 3D gaming and 30-frame-a-second video. Currently, rich multimedia features tend to be on more expensive handsets. The technology, OMAP-Vox, is being tested by firms in Europe and Asia and could appear by the end of the year. Texas, which makes computer chips for more than half the world's mobile phones, said it was keen to make multimedia functions like video and gaming more affordable. ""We're going to drive them down into meat-and-potatoes phones that have the largest market share,"" said Doug Rasor, a marketing vice president at Texas. The chip also uses much less power than conventional chips, said Texas, which means less strain on mobile battery life.

More than 50 million people own a mobile in the UK, but mobile operators are keen to encourage people to move onto more sophisticated handsets that can do more. Texas is keen to cash in on the third generation (3G) of mobile technology, which offers high-speed networks for video streaming and other multimedia functions. But it faces stiff competition from the likes of Intel which is also looking to provide better chips for high-end mobiles.

Competition to get people using 3G mobiles will grow in the next year as almost all of the UK's operators have now launched third generation networks. A recent survey by Sony Ericsson predicted that the number of 3G handsets sold in 2005 would double from 2004 to account for 10% of all phones sold. Many consumers are still to be convinced though. A further recent survey said that only 4% of mobile owners were thinking of upgrading to 3G phones. Many said they were confused about the different ways to pay for phones and the vast array of features most have onboard.

But there will be continued demand for better chips as the industry continues to develop new standards and future networks. Earlier in January, NTT DoCoMo and Vodafone joined forces to develop the next generation of high-speed networks, known as ""super 3G"", intended to be 10 times faster than 3G services. The first stage of development is to be completed by 2007, but no date has been set for a commercial launch The newly-designed OMAP-Vox chip set was announced ahead of the start of a major mobile industry conference, 3GSM, which takes place in Cannes, France this week.
","Texas, which makes computer chips for more than half the world's mobile phones, said it was keen to make multimedia functions like video and gaming more affordable.Texas is keen to cash in on the third generation (3G) of mobile technology, which offers high-speed networks for video streaming and other multimedia functions.A further recent survey said that only 4% of mobile owners were thinking of upgrading to 3G phones.The specially-designed chip, developed by Texas Instruments, could drive down the cost of making mobiles capable of 3D gaming and 30-frame-a-second video.Competition to get people using 3G mobiles will grow in the next year as almost all of the UK's operators have now launched third generation networks.A mobile phone chip which combines a modem and a computer processor on one bit of silicon instead of two could make phones cheaper and more powerful.The chip also uses much less power than conventional chips, said Texas, which means less strain on mobile battery life.More than 50 million people own a mobile in the UK, but mobile operators are keen to encourage people to move onto more sophisticated handsets that can do more."
"Blind student 'hears in colour'

A blind student has developed software that turns colours into musical notes so that he can read weather maps.

Victor Wong, a graduate student from Hong Kong studying at Cornell University in New York State, had to read coloured maps of the upper atmosphere as part of his research. To study ""space weather"" Mr Wong needed to explore minute fluctuations in order to create mathematical models. A number of solutions were tried, including having a colleague describe the maps and attempting to print them in Braille. Mr Wong eventually hit upon the idea of translating individual colours into music, and enlisted the help of a computer graphics specialist and another student to do the programming work.

""The images have three dimensions and I had to find a way of reading them myself,"" Mr Wong told the BBC News website. ""For the sake of my own study - and for the sake of blind scientists generally - I felt it would be good to develop software that could help us to read colour images."" He tried a prototype version of the software to explore a photograph of a parrot. In order to have an exact reference to the screen, a pen and tablet device is used. The software then assigns one of 88 piano notes to individually coloured pixels - ranging from blue at the lower end of this scale to red at the upper end. Mr Wong says the application is still very much in its infancy and is only useful for reading images that have been created digitally. ""If I took a random picture and scanned it and then used my software to recognise it, it wouldn't work that well.""

Mr Wong has been blind from the age of seven and he thinks that having a ""colour memory"" makes the software more useful than it would be to a scientist who had never had any vision. ""As the notes increase in pitch I know the colour's getting redder and redder, and in my mind's eye a patch of red appears."" The colour to music software has not yet been made available commercially, and Mr Wong believes that several people would have to work together to make it viable. But he hopes that one day it can be developed to give blind people access to photographs and other images.
","Mr Wong has been blind from the age of seven and he thinks that having a ""colour memory"" makes the software more useful than it would be to a scientist who had never had any vision.The colour to music software has not yet been made available commercially, and Mr Wong believes that several people would have to work together to make it viable.A blind student has developed software that turns colours into musical notes so that he can read weather maps.""For the sake of my own study - and for the sake of blind scientists generally - I felt it would be good to develop software that could help us to read colour images.""Mr Wong eventually hit upon the idea of translating individual colours into music, and enlisted the help of a computer graphics specialist and another student to do the programming work.To study ""space weather"" Mr Wong needed to explore minute fluctuations in order to create mathematical models.He tried a prototype version of the software to explore a photograph of a parrot."
"Xbox 2 may be unveiled in summer

Details of the next generation of Microsoft's Xbox games console - codenamed Xenon - will most likely be unveiled in May, according to reports.

It was widely expected that gamers would get a sneak preview of Xbox's successor at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) in March. But a Microsoft spokeswoman confirmed that it would not be at GDC. Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo are all expected to release their more powerful machines in the next 18 months. The next Xbox console is expected to go on sale at the end of the year, but very few details about it have been released. It is thought that the machine may be unveiled at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) in Los Angeles, which takes place in May, according to a Reuters news agency report. E3 concentrates on showing off the latest in gaming to publishers, marketers and retailers. The GDC is aimed more at game developers. Microsoft chief, Bill Gates, used the GDC event to unveil the original Xbox five years ago. Since its launch, Microsoft has sold 19.9 million units worldwide.

At the Consumer Electronics Show earlier this year, there was very little mention of the next generation gaming machine. In his keynote speech, Mr Gates only referred to it as playing an essential part of his vision of the digital lifestyle.

But the battle between the rival consoles to win gamers' hearts and thumbs will be extremely hard-fought. Sony has traditionally dominated the console market with its PlayStation 2. But earlier this year, Microsoft said it had reached a European milestone, selling five million consoles since its European launch in March 2002. Hit games like Halo 2, which was released in November, helped to buoy the sales figures.

Gamers are looking forward to the next generation of machines because they will have much more processing and graphical power.

They are also likely to pack in more features and technologies that make them more central as entertainment and communications hubs. Although details of PlayStation 3, Xenon, and Nintendo's so-called Revolution, are yet to be finalised, developers are already working on titles. Rory Armes, studio general manager for games giant Electronic Arts (EA) in Europe, recently told the BBC News website in an interview that EA was beginning to get a sense of the capabilities of the new machines. Microsoft had delivered development kits to EA, but he said the company was still waiting on Sony and Nintendo's kits. But, he added, the PlayStation 3 was rumoured to have ""a little more under the hood [than Xbox 2]"".
","Details of the next generation of Microsoft's Xbox games console - codenamed Xenon - will most likely be unveiled in May, according to reports.The next Xbox console is expected to go on sale at the end of the year, but very few details about it have been released.At the Consumer Electronics Show earlier this year, there was very little mention of the next generation gaming machine.It was widely expected that gamers would get a sneak preview of Xbox's successor at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) in March.Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo are all expected to release their more powerful machines in the next 18 months.Microsoft chief, Bill Gates, used the GDC event to unveil the original Xbox five years ago.But earlier this year, Microsoft said it had reached a European milestone, selling five million consoles since its European launch in March 2002.Microsoft had delivered development kits to EA, but he said the company was still waiting on Sony and Nintendo's kits.But a Microsoft spokeswoman confirmed that it would not be at GDC."
"Microsoft launches its own search

Microsoft has unveiled the finished version of its home-grown search engine.

The now formally launched MSN search site takes the training wheels off the test version unveiled in November 2003. The revamped engine indexes more pages than before, can give direct answers to factual questions, and features tools to help people create detailed queries. Microsoft faces challenges establishing itself as a serious search site because of the intense competition for queries.

Google still reigns supreme as the site people turn to most often when they go online to answer a query, keep up with news or search for images. But in the last year Google has faced greater competition than ever for users as old rivals, such as Yahoo and Microsoft, and new entrants such as Amazon and Blinkx, try to grab some of the searching audience for themselves. This renewed interest has come about because of the realisation that many of the things people do online begin with a search for information - be it for a particular web page, recipe, book, gadget, news story, image or anything else. Microsoft is keen to make its home-grown search engine a significant rival to Google. To generate its corpus of data, Microsoft has indexed 5 billion webpages and claims to update its document index every two days - more often than rivals. The Microsoft search engine can also answer specific queries directly rather than send people to a page that might contain the answer.

For its direct answer feature, Microsoft is calling on its Encarta encyclopaedia to provide answers to questions about definitions, facts, calculations, conversions and solutions to equations. Tony Macklin, director of product at Ask Jeeves, pointed out that its search engine has been answering specific queries this way since April 2003. ""The major search providers have moved beyond delivering only algorithmic search, so in many ways Microsoft is following the market,"" he said. Tools sitting alongside the MSN search engine allow users to refine results to specific websites, countries, regions or languages. Microsoft is also using so-called ""graphic equalisers"" that let people adjust the relevance of terms to get results that are more up-to-date or more popular. The company said that user feedback from earlier test versions had been used to refine the workings of the finished system. The test, or beta, version of the MSN search engine unveiled in November had a few teething troubles. On its first day many new users keen to try it were greeted with a page that said the site had been overwhelmed.
","Microsoft has unveiled the finished version of its home-grown search engine.The Microsoft search engine can also answer specific queries directly rather than send people to a page that might contain the answer.Microsoft is keen to make its home-grown search engine a significant rival to Google.The test, or beta, version of the MSN search engine unveiled in November had a few teething troubles.""The major search providers have moved beyond delivering only algorithmic search, so in many ways Microsoft is following the market,"" he said.Microsoft faces challenges establishing itself as a serious search site because of the intense competition for queries.The now formally launched MSN search site takes the training wheels off the test version unveiled in November 2003.Google still reigns supreme as the site people turn to most often when they go online to answer a query, keep up with news or search for images."
"Moving mobile improves golf swing

A mobile phone that recognises and responds to movements has been launched in Japan.

The motion-sensitive phone - officially titled the V603SH - was developed by Sharp and launched by Vodafone's Japanese division. Devised mainly for mobile gaming, users can also access other phone functions using a pre-set pattern of arm movements. The phone will allow golf fans to improve their swing via a golfing game.

Those who prefer shoot-'em-ups will be able to use the phone like a gun to shoot the zombies in the mobile version of Sega's House of the Dead. The phone comes with a tiny motion-control sensor, a computer chip that responds to movement.

Other features include a display screen that allows users to watch TV and can rotate 180 degrees. It also doubles up as an electronic musical instrument. Users have to select a sound from a menu that includes clapping, tambourine and maracas and shake their phone to create a beat. It is being recommended for the karaoke market. The phone will initially be available in Japan only and is due to go on sale in mid-February. The new gadget could make for interesting people-watching among Japanese commuters, who are able to access their mobiles on the subway. Fishing afficiandos in South Korea are already using a phone that allows them to simulate the movement of a rod. The PH-S6500 phone, dubbed a sports-leisure gadget, was developed by Korean phone giant Pantech and can also be used by runners to measure calorie consumption and distance run.
","A mobile phone that recognises and responds to movements has been launched in Japan.The PH-S6500 phone, dubbed a sports-leisure gadget, was developed by Korean phone giant Pantech and can also be used by runners to measure calorie consumption and distance run.Devised mainly for mobile gaming, users can also access other phone functions using a pre-set pattern of arm movements.Fishing afficiandos in South Korea are already using a phone that allows them to simulate the movement of a rod.The phone comes with a tiny motion-control sensor, a computer chip that responds to movement.The motion-sensitive phone - officially titled the V603SH - was developed by Sharp and launched by Vodafone's Japanese division."
"Junk e-mails on relentless rise

Spam traffic is up by 40%, putting the total amount of e-mail that is junk up to an astonishing 90%.

The figures, from e-mail management firm Email Systems, will alarm firms attempting to cope with the amount of spam in their in-boxes. While virus traffic has slowed down, denial of service attacks are on the increase according to the firm. Virus mail accounts for just over 15% of all e-mail traffic analysis by the firm has found.

It is no longer just multi-nationals that are in danger of so-called denial of service attacks, in which websites are bombarded by requests for information and rendered inaccessible. Email Systems refers to a small UK-based engineering firm, which received a staggering 12 million e-mails in January. The type of spam currently being sent has subtlety altered in the last few months, according to Email Systems analysis. Half of spam received since Christmas has been health-related with gambling and porn also on the increase. Scam mails, offering ways to make a quick buck, have declined by 40%. ""January is clearly a month when consumers are less motivated to purchase financial products or put money into dubious financial opportunities,"" said Neil Hammerton, managing director of Email Systems. ""Spammers seem to have adapted their output to reflect this, focussing instead on medically motivated and pornographic offers, presumably intentionally intended to coincide with what is traditionally considered to be the bleakest month in the calendar,"" he said.
","The figures, from e-mail management firm Email Systems, will alarm firms attempting to cope with the amount of spam in their in-boxes.Virus mail accounts for just over 15% of all e-mail traffic analysis by the firm has found.Email Systems refers to a small UK-based engineering firm, which received a staggering 12 million e-mails in January.While virus traffic has slowed down, denial of service attacks are on the increase according to the firm.The type of spam currently being sent has subtlety altered in the last few months, according to Email Systems analysis."
"Sporting rivals go to extra time

The current slew of sports games offers unparalleled opportunities for fans who like to emulate on-field action without ever moving from the couch.

The two giants in the field - ESPN and EA Sports - have been locked in a heavyweight battle for years. The latter is the world's largest games manufacturer. Years of experience mean that the titles in their steady flow of sport sims are finely honed, massively entertaining and ooze flair. Sports broadcaster ESPN, meanwhile, has leant its name to a series of games that are similarly classy but lower in profile and price. But that status quo was changed forever - or for the next 15 years at least - by a deal earlier this year when ESPN sold EA the rights to its TV branding and on-air talent, meaning the ESPN games presently developed by Sega will have to come to and end in their present form.

It was a massive-money deal that not only raised eyebrows but stirred active indignation in many quarters, with fans concerned that it is set to enable EA to monopolise the sports gaming landscape to an unhealthy degree. Some particularly disgruntled fans set up an online petition that notched more than 18,000 virtual signatures. Many of those clicking to complain were already rankled, for the ESPN coup happened just weeks after EA had pulled off another enormous licensing deal, controversially giving them exclusive rights to teams and personnel from America¿s National Football League (NFL). So, will the Sega - ESPN range be missed? A key reason for answering ""yes"" is that liking or disliking a sports game regularly comes down to personal taste, and having some options available always proves hugely handy. Online soccer fans will testify to that, between bouts of arguing over which high-profile title rules supreme out of the similar-yet-hugely-different FIFA 2005 and Pro Evolution Soccer 4. On the same note, the ESPN 2k5 and EA sports games have so little to choose between them that picking favourites will come down to players' personal preferences and spending budget rather than any technical elements. Taking hockey and basketball as examples, both publishers' efforts are phenomenally entertaining and fairly accessible. They also both look awesome, with the Sega / ESPN versions perhaps shading things on a graphical front.

In terms of gameplay, I marginally preferred EA's NBA Live 2005 for basketball, and was more satisfied ice hockey-wise by ESPN's NHL 2K5. The ESPN games are a touch more arcade-like in look and feel and are slightly easier to get into, although like their rivals, they also offer a dizzyingly-extensive array of in-game tricks and overall challenge modes that should be enough to quench thirsts of even the most die-hard of sports fans. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the ESPN deal will be seeing how it affects the presentation of EA's future titles. The front-end decoration of EA's games has become something of an art-form in itself, loaded with slick visuals and oodles of licensed music. They are also immediately identifiable as coming from the EA stable, and the inevitable compulsion to add an ESPN look will no doubt change that in various ways. What is a shame is that the ESPN titles took similar care about framing the gameplay with an authentic setting - their preambles look and sound much like they would on TV. They are neat and excellent-value games in their current form, and combining them with EA's own established brand should produce a truly formidable beast.
","But that status quo was changed forever - or for the next 15 years at least - by a deal earlier this year when ESPN sold EA the rights to its TV branding and on-air talent, meaning the ESPN games presently developed by Sega will have to come to and end in their present form.On the same note, the ESPN 2k5 and EA sports games have so little to choose between them that picking favourites will come down to players' personal preferences and spending budget rather than any technical elements.The ESPN games are a touch more arcade-like in look and feel and are slightly easier to get into, although like their rivals, they also offer a dizzyingly-extensive array of in-game tricks and overall challenge modes that should be enough to quench thirsts of even the most die-hard of sports fans.Sports broadcaster ESPN, meanwhile, has leant its name to a series of games that are similarly classy but lower in profile and price.So, will the Sega - ESPN range be missed?They also both look awesome, with the Sega / ESPN versions perhaps shading things on a graphical front.The current slew of sports games offers unparalleled opportunities for fans who like to emulate on-field action without ever moving from the couch.The two giants in the field - ESPN and EA Sports - have been locked in a heavyweight battle for years.Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the ESPN deal will be seeing how it affects the presentation of EA's future titles."
"Half-Life 2 sweeps Bafta awards

PC first person shooter Half-Life 2 has won six Bafta Awards, including best game and best online game.

The title, developed by Valve, was released last year to universal acclaim - receiving special praise for its immersive plot and physics engine. The game also won Baftas for best action adventure, best PC game, art direction and animation. Burnout 3 won three awards in the categories for racing, technical direction and best PlayStation 2 game. Grant Dean, chairman of the Bafta games awards, said at a ceremony in London on Tuesday: ""The last year has been a great year for the interactive entertainment industry.

""These awards reflect the enormous achievements, progress and diversity that we have seen in that time."" Halo 2 won the best Xbox game category, while Prince of Persia: Warrior Within was adjudged the best GameCube title. The sports award went to Konami's Pro Evolution Soccer 4. Bafta said the ""significant feature"" of this year's awards was the number of ""non-traditional games"". The originality award was won by PlayStation 2 title Singstar while the children's award went to GameCube bongo rhythm game Donkey Konga. The Handheld Award went to Colin McRae Rally 2005 while the mobile category was won by Blue Tooth Byplanes. The audio award was won by Call of Duty: Finest Hour and Hitman: Contracts won the music award.
","The originality award was won by PlayStation 2 title Singstar while the children's award went to GameCube bongo rhythm game Donkey Konga.Burnout 3 won three awards in the categories for racing, technical direction and best PlayStation 2 game.Halo 2 won the best Xbox game category, while Prince of Persia: Warrior Within was adjudged the best GameCube title.The audio award was won by Call of Duty: Finest Hour and Hitman: Contracts won the music award.PC first person shooter Half-Life 2 has won six Bafta Awards, including best game and best online game."
"BT boosts its broadband packages

British Telecom has said it will double the broadband speeds of most of its home and business customers.

The increased speeds will come at no extra charge and follows a similar move by internet service provider AOL. Many BT customers will now have download speeds of 2Mbps, although there are usage allowances of between one gigabyte and 30 gigabytes a month. The new speeds start to come into effect on 17 February for home customers and 1 April for businesses. ""Britain is now broadband Britain,"" said Duncan Ingram, BT's managing director, broadband and internet services. He added: ""Ninety percent of our customers will see real increases in speed.

""These speed increases will give people the opportunity to do a lot more with their broadband connections,"" he said. Upload speeds - the speed at which information is sent from a PC via broadband - will remain at the same speed, said Mr Ingram. Despite the increases, BT will continue to have usage allowances for home customers. ""The allowances are extremely generous,"" said Mr Ingram ""For what we are seeing in the market place - they are really not an issue."" BT will begin enforcing the allowances in the summer. Customers who exceed the amounts will either be able to pay for a bigger allowance or see their download speeds reduced. BT now has a 36% share of the broadband market - down from 39% - which is becoming increasingly competitive. In the last few months, many rival ISPs have begun to offer 2Mbps services, including AOL, Plusnet and UK Online.

But Britain continues to lag behind some countries - especially Japan and South Korea - which offer broadband speeds of up to 40Mbps. But Mr Ingram said it was important to ""separate hype from reality"". He said that a limited number of people with those connections consistently received speeds of 40Mbps. Customers will not see their connections double immediately on 17 February. Mr Ingram said there would be a roll out across the network in order to prevent any problems.
","Upload speeds - the speed at which information is sent from a PC via broadband - will remain at the same speed, said Mr Ingram.British Telecom has said it will double the broadband speeds of most of its home and business customers.""These speed increases will give people the opportunity to do a lot more with their broadband connections,"" he said.He said that a limited number of people with those connections consistently received speeds of 40Mbps.Many BT customers will now have download speeds of 2Mbps, although there are usage allowances of between one gigabyte and 30 gigabytes a month.Customers who exceed the amounts will either be able to pay for a bigger allowance or see their download speeds reduced.""Britain is now broadband Britain,"" said Duncan Ingram, BT's managing director, broadband and internet services.But Britain continues to lag behind some countries - especially Japan and South Korea - which offer broadband speeds of up to 40Mbps."
"Mobiles 'not media players yet'

Mobiles are not yet ready to be all-singing, all-dancing multimedia devices which will replace portable media players, say two reports.

Despite moves to bring music download services to mobiles, people do not want to trade multimedia services with size and battery life, said Jupiter. A separate study by Gartner has also said real-time TV broadcasts to mobiles is ""unlikely"" in Europe until 2007. Technical issues and standards must be resolved first, said the report. Batteries already have to cope with other services that operators offer, like video playback, video messaging, megapixel cameras and games amongst others. Bringing music download services based on the success of computer-based download services will put more demands on battery life.

Fifty percent of Europeans said the size of a mobile was the most important factor when it came to choosing their phone, but more power demands tend to mean larger handsets. ""Mobile phone music services must not be positioned to compete with the PC music experience as the handsets are not yet ready,"" said Thomas Husson, mobile analyst at Jupiter research. ""Mobile music services should be new and different, and enable operators to differentiate their brands and support third generation network launches."" Other problems facing mobile music include limited storage on phones, compared to portable players which can hold up to 40GB of music. The mobile industry is keen to get into music downloading, after the success of Apple's iTunes, Napster and other net music download services.

With phones getting smarter and more powerful, there are also demands to be able to watch TV on the move. In the US, services like TiVo To Go let people transfer pre-recorded TV content onto their phones. But, the Gartner report on mobile TV broadcasting in Europe suggests direct broadcasting will have to wait. Currently, TV-like services, where clips are downloaded, are offered by several European operators, like Italy's TIM and 3. Mobile TV will have to overcome several barriers before it is widely taken up though, said the report.

Various standards and ways of getting TV signals to mobiles are being worked on globally. In Europe, trials in Berlin and Helsinki are making use of terrestrial TV masts to broadcast compressed signals to handsets with extra receivers. A service from the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation lets people watch TV programmes on their mobiles 24 hours a day. The service uses 3GP technology, one of the standards for mobile TV. But at the end of 2004, the European Telecommunications Institute (Etsi) formally adopted Digital Video Broadcasting Handheld (DVB-H) as the mobile TV broadcasting standard for Europe. Operators will be working on the standard as a way to bring real-time broadcasts to mobiles, as well as trying to overcome several other barriers. The cost and infrastructure needs to set up the services will need to be addressed. Handsets also need to be able to work with the DVB-H standard. TV services will have to live up to the expectations of the digital TV generation too, which expects good quality images at low prices, according to analysts. People are also likely to be put off watching TV on such small screens, said Gartner. Digital video recorders, like Europe's Sky+ box, and video-on-demand services mean people have much more control over what TV they watch. As a result, people may see broadcasting straight to mobiles as taking away that control. More powerful smartphones like the XDA II, Nokia 6600, SonyEricsson P900 and the Orange E200, offering web access, text and multimedia messaging, e-mail, calendar and gaming are becoming increasingly common. A report by analysts InStat/MDR has predicted that smartphone shipments will grow by 44% over the next five years. It says that smartphones will make up 117 million out of 833 million handsets shipped globally by 2009.
","The service uses 3GP technology, one of the standards for mobile TV.A service from the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation lets people watch TV programmes on their mobiles 24 hours a day.""Mobile phone music services must not be positioned to compete with the PC music experience as the handsets are not yet ready,"" said Thomas Husson, mobile analyst at Jupiter research.A separate study by Gartner has also said real-time TV broadcasts to mobiles is ""unlikely"" in Europe until 2007.Mobile TV will have to overcome several barriers before it is widely taken up though, said the report.Despite moves to bring music download services to mobiles, people do not want to trade multimedia services with size and battery life, said Jupiter.Various standards and ways of getting TV signals to mobiles are being worked on globally.But, the Gartner report on mobile TV broadcasting in Europe suggests direct broadcasting will have to wait.But at the end of 2004, the European Telecommunications Institute (Etsi) formally adopted Digital Video Broadcasting Handheld (DVB-H) as the mobile TV broadcasting standard for Europe.Digital video recorders, like Europe's Sky+ box, and video-on-demand services mean people have much more control over what TV they watch.In the US, services like TiVo To Go let people transfer pre-recorded TV content onto their phones.People are also likely to be put off watching TV on such small screens, said Gartner.TV services will have to live up to the expectations of the digital TV generation too, which expects good quality images at low prices, according to analysts."
"Microsoft releases patches

Microsoft has warned PC users to update their systems with the latest security fixes for flaws in Windows programs.

In its monthly security bulletin, it flagged up eight ""critical"" security holes which could leave PCs open to attack if left unpatched. The number of holes considered ""critical"" is more than usual. They affect Windows programs, including Internet Explorer (IE), media player and instant messaging. Four other important fixes were also released. These were considered to be less critical, however. If not updated, either automatically or manually, PC users running the programs could be vulnerable to viruses or other malicious attacks designed to exploit the holes. Many of the flaws could be used by virus writers to take over computers remotely, install programs, change, and delete or see data.

One of the critical patches Microsoft has made available is an important one that fixes some IE flaws. Stephen Toulouse, a Microsoft security manager, said the flaws were known about, and although the firm had not seen any attacks exploiting the flaw, he did not rule them out. Often, when a critical flaw is announced, spates of viruses follow because home users and businesses leave the flaw unpatched. A further patch fixes a hole in Media Player, Windows Messenger and MSN Messenger which an attacker could use to take control of unprotected machines through .png files. Microsoft announces any vulnerabilities in its software every month. The most important ones are those which are classed as ""critical"". Its latest releases came the week that the company announced it was to buy security software maker Sybari Software as part of Microsoft's plans to make its own security programs.
","Microsoft has warned PC users to update their systems with the latest security fixes for flaws in Windows programs.One of the critical patches Microsoft has made available is an important one that fixes some IE flaws.In its monthly security bulletin, it flagged up eight ""critical"" security holes which could leave PCs open to attack if left unpatched.Often, when a critical flaw is announced, spates of viruses follow because home users and businesses leave the flaw unpatched.The most important ones are those which are classed as ""critical"".The number of holes considered ""critical"" is more than usual."
"Concern over RFID tags

Consumers are very concerned about the use of radio frequency ID (RFID) tags in shops, a survey says.

More than half of 2,000 people surveyed said they had privacy worries about the tags, which can be used to monitor stock on shelves or in warehouses. Some consumer groups have expressed concern that the tags could be used to monitor shoppers once they had left shops with their purchases. The survey showed that awareness of tags among consumers in Europe was low. The survey of consumers in the UK, France, Germany and the Netherlands was carried out by consultancy group Capgemini. The firm works on behalf of more than 30 firms who are seeking to promote the growth of RFID technology. The tags are a combination of computer chip and antenna which can be read by a scanner - each item contains a unique identification number.

More than half (55%) of the respondents said they were either concerned or very concerned that RFID tags would allow businesses to track consumers via product purchases. Fifty nine percent of people said they were worried that RFID tags would allow data to be used more freely by third parties. Ard Jan Vetham, Capgemini's principal consultant on RFID, said the survey showed that retailers needed to inform and educate people about RFID before it would become accepted technology. ""Acceptance of new technologies always has a tipping point at which consumers believe that benefits outweigh concerns. ""With the right RFID approach and ongoing communication with consumers, the industry can reach this point."" He said that the survey also showed people would accept RFID if they felt that the technology could mean a reduction in car theft or faster recovery of stolen items. The tags are currently being used at one Tesco distribution centre in the UK - the tags allow the rapid inventory of bulk items. They are also in use as a passcard for the M6 Toll in the Midlands, in the UK. Mr Vetham said the majority of people surveyed (52%) believed that RFID tags could be read from a distance. He said that was a misconception based on a lack of awareness of the technology. At least once consumer group - Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering (Caspian) - has claimed that RFID chips could be used to secretly identify people and the things they are carrying or wearing. All kinds of personal belongings, including clothes, could constantly broadcast messages about their whereabouts and their owners, it warned.
","Mr Vetham said the majority of people surveyed (52%) believed that RFID tags could be read from a distance.He said that the survey also showed people would accept RFID if they felt that the technology could mean a reduction in car theft or faster recovery of stolen items.Fifty nine percent of people said they were worried that RFID tags would allow data to be used more freely by third parties.Ard Jan Vetham, Capgemini's principal consultant on RFID, said the survey showed that retailers needed to inform and educate people about RFID before it would become accepted technology.More than half (55%) of the respondents said they were either concerned or very concerned that RFID tags would allow businesses to track consumers via product purchases.Consumers are very concerned about the use of radio frequency ID (RFID) tags in shops, a survey says.At least once consumer group - Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering (Caspian) - has claimed that RFID chips could be used to secretly identify people and the things they are carrying or wearing.The survey showed that awareness of tags among consumers in Europe was low."
"Ask Jeeves joins web log market

Ask Jeeves has bought the Bloglines website to improve the way it handles content from web journals or blogs.

The Bloglines site has become hugely popular as it gives users one place in which to read, search and share all the blogs they are interested in. Ask Jeeves said it was not planning to change Bloglines but would use the 300 million articles it has archived to round out its index of the web. How much Ask Jeeves paid for Bloglines was not revealed.

Bloglines has become popular because it lets users build a list of the blogs they want to follow without having to visit each journal site individually. To do this it makes use of a technology known as Really Simple Syndication (RSS) that many blogs have adopted to let other sites know when new entries are made on their journals. The acquisition follows similar moves by other search sites. Google acquired Pyra Labs, makers of the Blogger software, in 2003. In 2004 MSN introduced its own blog system and Yahoo has tweaked its technology to do a better job of handling blog entries. Jim Lanzone, vice president of search properties at Ask Jeeves in the US, said it did not acquire Bloglines just to get a foothold in the blog publishing world. He said Ask Jeeves was much more interested in helping people find information they were looking for rather than helping them write it.

""The universe of readers is vastly larger than the universe of writers,"" he said. Mr Lanzone said the acquisition would sit well with Ask's My Jeeves service which lets people customise their own web experience and build up a personal collection of useful links. ""Search engines are about discovering information for the first time and RSS is the ideal way to keep track of and monitor those sites,"" he said. It would also help drive information and entries from blogs to the portals that Ask Jeeves operates. There would be no instant sweeping changes to Bloglines, said Mr Lanzone. ""Our intent is to take our time to figure out the right business model not to try to monetise it right away,"" he said. Though Mr Lanzone added that Ask Jeeves would be helping organise the database of 300m blog entries Bloglines holds with its own net indexing technology. ""Being able to search the blogosphere as one corpus of information will be very useful in its own right,"" said Mr Lanzone. Rumours about the acquisition were broken by the Napsterization weblog which said it got the hint from Ask Jeeves insiders.
","Jim Lanzone, vice president of search properties at Ask Jeeves in the US, said it did not acquire Bloglines just to get a foothold in the blog publishing world.Ask Jeeves said it was not planning to change Bloglines but would use the 300 million articles it has archived to round out its index of the web.Though Mr Lanzone added that Ask Jeeves would be helping organise the database of 300m blog entries Bloglines holds with its own net indexing technology.There would be no instant sweeping changes to Bloglines, said Mr Lanzone.It would also help drive information and entries from blogs to the portals that Ask Jeeves operates.How much Ask Jeeves paid for Bloglines was not revealed.He said Ask Jeeves was much more interested in helping people find information they were looking for rather than helping them write it.Mr Lanzone said the acquisition would sit well with Ask's My Jeeves service which lets people customise their own web experience and build up a personal collection of useful links."
"Digital guru floats sub-$100 PC

Nicholas Negroponte, chairman and founder of MIT's Media Labs, says he is developing a laptop PC that will go on sale for less than $100 (£53).

He told the BBC World Service programme Go Digital he hoped it would become an education tool in developing countries. He said one laptop per child could be "" very important to the development of not just that child but now the whole family, village and neighbourhood"". He said the child could use the laptop like a text book. He described the device as a stripped down laptop, which would run a Linux-based operating system, ""We have to get the display down to below $20, to do this we need to rear project the image rather than using an ordinary flat panel.

""The second trick is to get rid of the fat , if you can skinny it down you can gain speed and the ability to use smaller processors and slower memory."" The device will probably be exported as a kit of parts to be assembled locally to keep costs down. Mr Negroponte said this was a not for profit venture, though he recognised that the manufacturers of the components would be making money. In 1995 Mr Negroponte published the bestselling Being Digital, now widely seen as predicting the digital age. The concept is based on experiments in the US state of Maine, where children were given laptop computers to take home and do their work on.

While the idea was popular amongst the children, it initially received some resistance from the teachers and there were problems with laptops getting broken. However, Mr Negroponte has adapted the idea to his own work in Cambodia where he set up two schools together with his wife and gave the children laptops. ""We put in 25 laptops three years ago , only one has been broken, the kids cherish these things, it's also a TV a telephone and a games machine, not just a textbook."" Mr Negroponte wants the laptops to become more common than mobile phones but conceded this was ambitious. ""Nokia make 200 million cell phones a year, so for us to claim we're going to make 200 million laptops is a big number, but we're not talking about doing it in three or five years, we're talking about months."" He plans to be distributing them by the end of 2006 and is already in discussion with the Chinese education ministry who are expected to make a large order. ""In China they spend $17 per child per year on textbooks. That's for five or six years, so if we can distribute and sell laptops in quantities of one million or more to ministries of education that's cheaper and the marketing overheads go away.""
","He said one laptop per child could be "" very important to the development of not just that child but now the whole family, village and neighbourhood"".He said the child could use the laptop like a text book.Mr Negroponte wants the laptops to become more common than mobile phones but conceded this was ambitious.That's for five or six years, so if we can distribute and sell laptops in quantities of one million or more to ministries of education that's cheaper and the marketing overheads go away.""Nicholas Negroponte, chairman and founder of MIT's Media Labs, says he is developing a laptop PC that will go on sale for less than $100 (£53).The concept is based on experiments in the US state of Maine, where children were given laptop computers to take home and do their work on.However, Mr Negroponte has adapted the idea to his own work in Cambodia where he set up two schools together with his wife and gave the children laptops.""Nokia make 200 million cell phones a year, so for us to claim we're going to make 200 million laptops is a big number, but we're not talking about doing it in three or five years, we're talking about months."""
"Looks and music to drive mobiles

Mobile phones are still enjoying a boom time in sales, according to research from technology analysts Gartner.

More than 674 million mobiles were sold last year globally, said the report, the highest total sold to date. The figure was 30% more than in 2003 and surpassed even the most optimistic predictions, Gartner said. Good design and the look of a mobile, as well as new services such as music downloads, could go some way to pushing up sales in 2005, said analysts. Although people were still looking for better replacement phones, there was evidence, according to Gartner, that some markets were seeing a slow-down in replacement sales.

""All the markets grew apart from Japan which shows that replacement sales are continuing in western Europe,"" mobile analyst Carolina Milanesi told the BBC News website. ""Japan is where north America and western European markets can be in a couple of years' time. ""They already have TV, music, ringtones, cameras, and all that we can think of on mobiles, so people have stopped buying replacement phones.""

But there could be a slight slowdown in sales in European and US markets too, according to Gartner, as people wait to see what comes next in mobile technology. This means mobile companies have to think carefully about what they are offering in new models so that people see a compelling reason to upgrade, said Gartner. Third generation mobiles (3G) with the ability to handle large amounts of data transfer, like video, could drive people into upgrading their phones, but Ms Milanesi said it was difficult to say how quickly that would happen. ""At the end of the day, people have cameras and colour screens on mobiles and for the majority of people out there who don't really care about technology the speed of data to a phone is not critical."" Nor would the rush to produce two or three megapixel camera phones be a reason for mobile owners to upgrade on its own. The majority of camera phone models are not at the stage where they can compete with digital cameras which also have flashes and zooms.

More likely to drive sales in 2005 would be the attention to design and aesthetics, as well as music services. The Motorola Razr V3 phone was typical of the attention to design that would be more commonplace in 2005, she added. This was not a ""women's thing"", she said, but a desire from men and women to have a gadget that is a form of self-expression too. It was not just about how the phone functioned, but about what it said about its owner. ""Western Europe has always been a market which is quite attentive to design,"" said Ms Milanesi.

""People are after something that is nice-looking, and together with that, there is the entertainment side. ""This year music will have a part to play in this."" The market for full-track music downloads was worth just $20 million (£10.5 million) in 2004, but is set to be worth $1.8 billion (£9.4 million) by 2009, according to Jupiter Research. Sony Ericsson just released its Walkman branded mobile phone, the W800, which combines a digital music player with up to 30 hours' battery life, and a two megapixel camera. In July last year, Motorola and Apple announced a version of iTunes online music downloading service would be released which would be compatible with Motorola mobile phones. Apple said the new iTunes music player would become Motorola's standard music application for its music phones. But the challenge will be balancing storage capacity with battery life if mobile music hopes to compete with digital music players like the iPod. Ms Milanesi said more models would likely be released in the coming year with hard drives. But they would be more likely to compete with the smaller capacity music players that have around four gigabyte storage capacity, which would not put too much strain on battery life.
","Apple said the new iTunes music player would become Motorola's standard music application for its music phones.Third generation mobiles (3G) with the ability to handle large amounts of data transfer, like video, could drive people into upgrading their phones, but Ms Milanesi said it was difficult to say how quickly that would happen.Good design and the look of a mobile, as well as new services such as music downloads, could go some way to pushing up sales in 2005, said analysts.In July last year, Motorola and Apple announced a version of iTunes online music downloading service would be released which would be compatible with Motorola mobile phones.But the challenge will be balancing storage capacity with battery life if mobile music hopes to compete with digital music players like the iPod.Sony Ericsson just released its Walkman branded mobile phone, the W800, which combines a digital music player with up to 30 hours' battery life, and a two megapixel camera.This means mobile companies have to think carefully about what they are offering in new models so that people see a compelling reason to upgrade, said Gartner.It was not just about how the phone functioned, but about what it said about its owner.But there could be a slight slowdown in sales in European and US markets too, according to Gartner, as people wait to see what comes next in mobile technology.Nor would the rush to produce two or three megapixel camera phones be a reason for mobile owners to upgrade on its own.Ms Milanesi said more models would likely be released in the coming year with hard drives.More likely to drive sales in 2005 would be the attention to design and aesthetics, as well as music services."
"Yahoo celebrates a decade online

Yahoo, one of the net's most iconic companies, is celebrating its 10th anniversary this week.

The web portal has undergone remarkable change since it was set up by Stanford University students David Filo and Jerry Yang in a campus trailer. The students wanted a way of keeping track of their web-based interests. The categories lists they devised soon became popular to hundreds of people and the two saw business potential in their idea.

Originally dubbed ""Jerry's Guide to the World Wide Web"" the firm adopted the moniker Yahoo because the founders liked the dictionary definition of a yahoo as a rude, unsophisticated, uncouth person. The term was popularised by the 18th Century satirist Jonathan Swift in his classic novel, Gulliver's Travels. ""We were certainly not sophisticated or civilised,"" Mr Yang told reporters ahead of the anniversary, which will be officially recognised on 2 March.

They did have business brains however, and in April 1995 persuaded venture capitalists Sequoia Capital, which also invested in Apple Computer and Cisco Systems, to fund Yahoo to the tune of $2m (£1.04m). A second round of funding followed in the autumn and the company floated in April 1996 with less than 50 employees. Now the firm employs 7,600 workers and insists its dot com culture of ""work hard, play hard"" still remains. It is one of just a handful of survivors of the dot-com crash although it now faces intense rivalry from firms such as Google, MSN and AOL. Jerry Yang, who remains the firm's ""Chief Yahoo"", is proud of what the company has achieved. ""In just one decade, the internet has changed the way consumers do just about everything - and it's been a remarkable and wonderful experience,"" he said. Through it all, we wanted to build products that satisfied our users wants and needs, but it's even more than that - it's to help every one of us to discover, get more done, share and interact.""
","Jerry Yang, who remains the firm's ""Chief Yahoo"", is proud of what the company has achieved.Yahoo, one of the net's most iconic companies, is celebrating its 10th anniversary this week.The web portal has undergone remarkable change since it was set up by Stanford University students David Filo and Jerry Yang in a campus trailer.""In just one decade, the internet has changed the way consumers do just about everything - and it's been a remarkable and wonderful experience,"" he said.Originally dubbed ""Jerry's Guide to the World Wide Web"" the firm adopted the moniker Yahoo because the founders liked the dictionary definition of a yahoo as a rude, unsophisticated, uncouth person.They did have business brains however, and in April 1995 persuaded venture capitalists Sequoia Capital, which also invested in Apple Computer and Cisco Systems, to fund Yahoo to the tune of $2m (£1.04m)."
"Kenyan school turns to handhelds

At the Mbita Point primary school in western Kenya students click away at a handheld computer with a stylus.

They are doing exercises in their school textbooks which have been digitised. It is a pilot project run by EduVision, which is looking at ways to use low cost computer systems to get up-to-date information to students who are currently stuck with ancient textbooks. Matthew Herren from EduVision told the BBC programme Go Digital how the non-governmental organisation uses a combination of satellite radio and handheld computers called E-slates. ""The E-slates connect via a wireless connection to a base station in the school. This in turn is connected to a satellite radio receiver. The data is transmitted alongside audio signals."" The base station processes the information from the satellite transmission and turns it into a form that can be read by the handheld E-slates. ""It downloads from the satellite and every day processes the stream, sorts through content for the material destined for the users connected to it. It also stores this on its hard disc.""

The system is cheaper than installing and maintaining an internet connection and conventional computer network. But Mr Herren says there are both pros and cons to the project. ""It's very simple to set up, just a satellite antenna on the roof of the school, but it's also a one-way connection, so getting feedback or specific requests from end users is difficult.""

The project is still at the pilot stage and EduVision staff are on the ground to attend to teething problems with the Linux-based system. ""The content is divided into visual information, textual information and questions. Users can scroll through these sections independently of each other."" EduVision is planning to include audio and video files as the system develops and add more content. Mr Herren says this would vastly increase the opportunities available to the students. He is currently in negotiations to take advantage of a project being organised by search site Google to digitise some of the world's largest university libraries. ""All books in the public domain, something like 15 million, could be put on the base stations as we manufacture them. Then every rural school in Africa would have access to the same libraries as the students in Oxford and Harvard"" Currently the project is operating in an area where there is mains electricity. But Mr Herren says EduVision already has plans to extend it to more remote regions. ""We plan to put a solar panel at the school with the base station, have the E-slates charge during the day when the children are in school, then they can take them home at night and continue working."" Maciej Sundra, who designed the user interface for the E-slates, says the project's ultimate goal is levelling access to knowledge around the world. ""Why in this age when most people do most research using the internet are students still using textbooks? The fact that we are doing this in a rural developing country is very exciting - as they need it most.""
","The base station processes the information from the satellite transmission and turns it into a form that can be read by the handheld E-slates.""The E-slates connect via a wireless connection to a base station in the school.It is a pilot project run by EduVision, which is looking at ways to use low cost computer systems to get up-to-date information to students who are currently stuck with ancient textbooks.""We plan to put a solar panel at the school with the base station, have the E-slates charge during the day when the children are in school, then they can take them home at night and continue working.""Then every rural school in Africa would have access to the same libraries as the students in Oxford and Harvard"" Currently the project is operating in an area where there is mains electricity.Matthew Herren from EduVision told the BBC programme Go Digital how the non-governmental organisation uses a combination of satellite radio and handheld computers called E-slates.But Mr Herren says there are both pros and cons to the project.""It's very simple to set up, just a satellite antenna on the roof of the school, but it's also a one-way connection, so getting feedback or specific requests from end users is difficult.""But Mr Herren says EduVision already has plans to extend it to more remote regions.At the Mbita Point primary school in western Kenya students click away at a handheld computer with a stylus.EduVision is planning to include audio and video files as the system develops and add more content."
"Tough rules for ringtone sellers

Firms that flout rules on how ringtones and other mobile extras are sold could be cut off from all UK phone networks.

The rules allow offenders to be cut off if they do not let consumers know exactly what they get for their money and how to turn off the services. The first month under the new rules has seen at least ten firms suspended while they clean up the way they work. The rules have been brought in to ensure that the problems plaguing net users do not spread to mobile phones.

In the last couple of years ringtones, wallpapers, screensavers and lots of other extras for phones have become hugely popular. But fierce competition is making it difficult for firms to get their wares in front of consumers, said Jeremy Flynn, head of third party services at Vodafone.

""If you are not on the operator's portal you are going to have quite heavy marketing costs because it's a problem of how people discover your services,"" he said. To combat this many ringtone and other mobile content sellers started using a new tactic to squeeze more cash out of customers. This tactic involved signing people up for a subscription to give them, for instance, several ringtones per week or month instead of the single track they thought they were getting. Mr Flynn said that the move to using subscriptions happened over the space of a few weeks at the end of 2004. Websites such as grumbletext.co.uk started getting reports from customers who were racking up large bills for phone content they did not know they had signed up for. ""What made us uncomfortable was that these services were not being marketed transparently,"" said Mr Flynn. ""People did not know they were being offered a subscription service."" ""We saw potential for substantial consumer harm here,"" he added.

The swift adoption of subscription services led to the creation of a new code of conduct for firms that want to sell content for mobile phones. The drafting of the new rules was led by the Mobile Entertainment Forum and the UK's phone firms. ""Everyone is required to conform to this code of conduct,"" said Andrew Bud, regulatory head of the MEF and executive chairman of messaging firm MBlox.

""It's all about transparency,"" he said. ""Consumers have to be told what they have got themselves into and how to get out of it."" ""The consumer has a right to be protected,"" he said. Christian Harris, partnership manager of mobile content firm Zed, said the new system was essential if consumers were to trust companies that sell ringtones and other downloads. ""The groundrules must be applied across the whole industry and if that's done effectively we will see the cowboys driven out,"" he said. The new rules came in to force on 15 January and the first month under the new regime has seen many firms cautioned for not honouring them. Some have been told to revamp websites so customers know what they get for their money and what they are signing up for, said Mr Flynn. Also, said Mr Flynn, Vodafone has briefly cut off between eight and ten content sellers flouting the rules. ""We have quite draconian contracts with firms,"" he said. ""We do not have to say why. We can just cut them off."" Under the rules consumers must be able to switch off the services by using a universal ""stop"" command sent via text message. He said the system had been designed to limit how much a consumer will pay if they inadvertently signed up for a service. ""The mobile is so personal that people really resent the abuse of what is effectively part of their personality,"" said Mr Flynn.
","Christian Harris, partnership manager of mobile content firm Zed, said the new system was essential if consumers were to trust companies that sell ringtones and other downloads.Some have been told to revamp websites so customers know what they get for their money and what they are signing up for, said Mr Flynn.Also, said Mr Flynn, Vodafone has briefly cut off between eight and ten content sellers flouting the rules.""The consumer has a right to be protected,"" he said.""The mobile is so personal that people really resent the abuse of what is effectively part of their personality,"" said Mr Flynn.""What made us uncomfortable was that these services were not being marketed transparently,"" said Mr Flynn.""It's all about transparency,"" he said.Mr Flynn said that the move to using subscriptions happened over the space of a few weeks at the end of 2004.But fierce competition is making it difficult for firms to get their wares in front of consumers, said Jeremy Flynn, head of third party services at Vodafone.He said the system had been designed to limit how much a consumer will pay if they inadvertently signed up for a service.The swift adoption of subscription services led to the creation of a new code of conduct for firms that want to sell content for mobile phones.Firms that flout rules on how ringtones and other mobile extras are sold could be cut off from all UK phone networks.The rules allow offenders to be cut off if they do not let consumers know exactly what they get for their money and how to turn off the services."
"Creator of first Apple Mac dies

Jef Raskin, head of the team behind the first Macintosh computer, has died.

Mr Raskin was one of the first employees at Apple and made many of the design decisions that made the Mac so distinctive when it was first released. He led the team that decided to use a graphical interface and mouse that let people navigate around the computer by pointing and clicking. The 1984 release of the Mac reflected Mr Raskin's belief that good design should make computers easy to use.

Mr Raskin joined Apple in 1978 as employee number 31, initially to lead the company's publications department. However, in 1979 he was put in charge of a small team to design a computer that lived up to his idea of a machine that was cheap, aimed at consumers rather than computer professionals and was very easy to use.

The result was the 1984 Macintosh that did away with the then common text-based interface in favour of one based around graphics that resembled a virtual desktop and used folders and documents. Users navigated around the machine using a mouse and by pointing, clicking and dragging. Although now in common use in almost all computers, these methods were pioneering when first used in the Macintosh. The GUI was developed by Xerox PARC, and used in its Star machine. But the acceptance of the interface did not truly begin until the concept was developed for use by Apple in its pioneering Lisa computer. ""His role on the Macintosh was the initiator of the project, so it wouldn't be here if it weren't for him,"" said Andy Hertzfeld, an early Macintosh team member. Although Mr Raskin drove the team that created the Macintosh he did not stay at Apple to see it released. In 1981 he was removed from the project following a dispute with Apple's mercurial boss Steve Jobs. In 1982, Mr Raskin left Apple entirely. The Macintosh was reputedly named after Mr Raskin's favourite apple, though the name was changed slightly following a trademark dispute with another company. After leaving Apple, Mr Raskin founded another company called Information Appliance and continued to work on better ways to interface with computers. He was also an accomplished musician, played three instruments and conducted San Francisco's Chamber Opera Society. Mr Raskin was diagnosed in December 2004 with pancreatic cancer and died on 26 February at his home in California.
","Mr Raskin was one of the first employees at Apple and made many of the design decisions that made the Mac so distinctive when it was first released.The Macintosh was reputedly named after Mr Raskin's favourite apple, though the name was changed slightly following a trademark dispute with another company.However, in 1979 he was put in charge of a small team to design a computer that lived up to his idea of a machine that was cheap, aimed at consumers rather than computer professionals and was very easy to use.Although Mr Raskin drove the team that created the Macintosh he did not stay at Apple to see it released.But the acceptance of the interface did not truly begin until the concept was developed for use by Apple in its pioneering Lisa computer.In 1982, Mr Raskin left Apple entirely.Mr Raskin was diagnosed in December 2004 with pancreatic cancer and died on 26 February at his home in California.Jef Raskin, head of the team behind the first Macintosh computer, has died."
"'Friends fear' with lost mobiles

People are becoming so dependent on their mobile phones that one in three are concerned that losing their phone would mean they lose their friends.

More than 50% of mobile owners reported they had had their phone stolen or lost in the last three years. More than half (54%) of those asked in a poll for mobile firm Intervoice said that they do not have another address book. A fifth rely entirely on mobiles. About 80% of UK adults own at least one mobile, according to official figures. It is estimated that 53% of over 65s own a mobile, according to Intervoice, but the figures are higher for those aged between 15 and 34.

Most 15 to 24-year-olds (94%), and 25 to 34-year-olds (92%), own at least one. Nineteen percent of mobile owners were more concerned about how long it would take to find their contacts' information again if the phone was lost, stolen or replaced.

The survey showed that extent to which people have become reliant on their phones as address book. Many mobile owners do not bother to make back-ups of their contact details, and with people changing their phones once a year on average, it becomes a problem. They also are becoming less likely to remember numbers by heart, relying on the mobile phone book instead. ""We're a nation of lazy so-and-sos,"" David Noone from Intervoice said. ""We put the numbers in our phones so we can call a friend at the touch of just one or two buttons and we certainly can't be bothered to write them down in an old fashioned address book. ""The mobile phone plays such a key role in modern relationships; take the phone away and the way we manage these relationships falls apart."" One in three women, the survey said, thought if they lost their phones, it would mean they would lose touch with people altogether. Most (62%) said they had no idea what their partner's number was. Mr Noone said it should be up to mobile operators to provide back-up services on the network itself, instead of relying on mobile owners to find ways themselves.

Generally, information from Sim cards can be backed up on physical memory cards, or can be copied onto computers via cables if the phone is a smartphone model with the right software. Sim back-up devices can be bought from phone shops for just a few pounds.

But some operators offer customers free web-based back-up services too. Orange told the BBC News website that those with Orange Smartphones could use the My Phone syncing service which means back-ups of address books and other data are created online. For non-smartphone users, a Memory Mate card could be used to back up data on the phone. O2 also offers a free, web-based syncing service which works over GPRS and GSM. Neither Vodafone or T-Mobile currently offer a free network service for back-ups, but encourage people to use Sim back-up devices. It is thought that about 10,000 phones are lost or stolen every month and 50% of total street crime involves a mobile. Mobile phone sales are expected to continue growing over the next year. Globally, more than 167 million mobile phones were sold in the third quarter of 2004, 26% more than the previous year, according to analysts. It is predicted that there will be two billion handsets in use worldwide by the end of 2005.
","People are becoming so dependent on their mobile phones that one in three are concerned that losing their phone would mean they lose their friends.More than 50% of mobile owners reported they had had their phone stolen or lost in the last three years.Mr Noone said it should be up to mobile operators to provide back-up services on the network itself, instead of relying on mobile owners to find ways themselves.They also are becoming less likely to remember numbers by heart, relying on the mobile phone book instead.""The mobile phone plays such a key role in modern relationships; take the phone away and the way we manage these relationships falls apart.""Nineteen percent of mobile owners were more concerned about how long it would take to find their contacts' information again if the phone was lost, stolen or replaced.Mobile phone sales are expected to continue growing over the next year.It is thought that about 10,000 phones are lost or stolen every month and 50% of total street crime involves a mobile.Many mobile owners do not bother to make back-ups of their contact details, and with people changing their phones once a year on average, it becomes a problem.Globally, more than 167 million mobile phones were sold in the third quarter of 2004, 26% more than the previous year, according to analysts.More than half (54%) of those asked in a poll for mobile firm Intervoice said that they do not have another address book.The survey showed that extent to which people have become reliant on their phones as address book."
"Telewest to challenge Sky Plus

Cable firm Telewest is to offer a personal video recorder (PVR) in a set -top box to challenge Sky Plus.

Sky Plus is the market leader in the field of digital video recorders in the UK, with 474,000 subscribers. PVRs record TV programmes to a hard drive, letting viewers pause, and rewind live television and effectively ""time shift"" the viewing experience. A number of PVRs incorporating Freeview digital terrestrial TV are also on the market but their success is limited. Telewest's PVR will offer a 160GB hard drive, which has storage for up to 80 hours of programmes. The box has three tuners, which means viewers can record two channels simultaneously while watching a third channel.

Sky Plus boxes come in two versions - a 20GB version for £99 and a 160GB version for £399. Sky also charges a £10 subscription fee to the service, unless viewers have a subscription to one of its premium packages. Telewest has yet to reveal pricing for the new box or if it will be charging a subscription fee for the service.

Eric Tveter, president and chief operating officer at Telewest Broadband, said: ""We will make our PVR set-top box available later this year, putting a stop to missed soaps, interrupted films and arguments over which programmes to record."" PVRs and recordable DVD players are set to replace video recorders as the standard method of recording and saving favourite TV programmes. Last year, high street retailer Dixons said it was going to stop selling VHS machines in favour of PVRs and recordable DVD machines. Sky has said it aims to have 25% of its subscribers using Sky Plus by 2010 - it is predicting 10 million total subscribers by that date. It currently has 7.4 million subscribers, while Telewest provides digital cable to 1.7 million customers.
","Cable firm Telewest is to offer a personal video recorder (PVR) in a set -top box to challenge Sky Plus.Sky Plus is the market leader in the field of digital video recorders in the UK, with 474,000 subscribers.Sky has said it aims to have 25% of its subscribers using Sky Plus by 2010 - it is predicting 10 million total subscribers by that date.Telewest has yet to reveal pricing for the new box or if it will be charging a subscription fee for the service.It currently has 7.4 million subscribers, while Telewest provides digital cable to 1.7 million customers.Telewest's PVR will offer a 160GB hard drive, which has storage for up to 80 hours of programmes."
"Games enter the classroom

Video games could soon be transplanted from their natural habitat to the more academic atmosphere of the classroom.

With violent titles continuing to top the charts, gaming and learning have not always sat well together but the tide could be beginning to turn. Recent research by the London Institute of Education concluded that games have a valid place in the classroom. ""Games teach life skills such as decision making, problem solving,"" said Martin Owen, at Futurelab. Mr Owen said games could also help children make quick assessments of situations and learning by trial and error.

Futurelab is a non-profit organisation looking at ways of using technology for innovative learning. Most game firms are too busy turning a profit in the lucrative commercial market to consider developing games for use in schools but Liverpool-based games firm Lateral Visions saw a gap in the market. ""Learning games were somewhat old-fashioned and we didn't see anyone else doing what we wanted to do,"" said Dr Carl Gavin, managing director of Lateral Visions. The company set out to write something that had all the look and feel of a commercial game but with an educational and learning element. The result is Racing Academy, a massively multiplayer car racing game, which requires not only a thirst for speed but a working knowledge of physics and engineering as well.

It is being used by Futurelab to test the viability of using gaming in the classroom. ""We are keen to find out whether alongside learning a game, we can also learn something that the rest of the world can understand as being educational,"" said Mr Owen. Players will have to understand how a car works in order to win races and the knowledge of physics and engineering that they gather along the way will be done in a way that no text book can teach. The game requires users to build and maintain their vehicles and to monitor and analyse performance using data from a variety of outputs, before and after racing. Teamwork is essential and a chat area allows students to exchange information and data, work collaboratively and review their own performances. This fusion of chatrooms and gaming is of special interest to Futurelab as it is through talking to others that much of the learning can be achieved, thinks Mr Owen.

The game has been trialled in two secondary schools in Bristol and feedback from students has been positive. ""Pupils used the statistics to work out the best way to build their cars and the online message board to share ideas and support each other,"" said Ben Williamson, a researcher at Futurelab charged with testing the game in real schools. Dr Gavin thinks the game satisfies both teachers' need for learning outcomes and the children's desire to rise to a challenge. ""Games in the classroom need to support the teacher. It is not about giving children free rein to play game but recognising that games attract attention and offer a challenge,"" he said. Professor Angela MacFarlane, based at Bristol University, has spent several years researching how games can be incorporated into classrooms.

Use of games in schools has been patchy she found, with Sim City proving the most popular. Traditionally schools have eschewed mainstream games in favour of used so-called edu-tainment software in a belief that such packages help to make learning fun, she found in her research. ""It is perhaps in a compromise between edutainment and mainstream games that the greatest potential for classroom useable games lies,"" she wrote in a paper entitled Games and Learning. 'Lite' versions of existing games could be the way forward and would overcome one of the biggest hurdles - persuading developers to write for the educational market. This would appeal to developers because of the low costs involved in adapting them as well as offering a new opportunity for marketing. Already there are games on the market, such as Civilisation and Age of Empire, that have educational elements said Mr Owen. ""Even in Grand Theft Auto it is not just the violence that engages people,"" he said. It could be some time until that particular game makes it into the classroom though.
","""It is perhaps in a compromise between edutainment and mainstream games that the greatest potential for classroom useable games lies,"" she wrote in a paper entitled Games and Learning.Mr Owen said games could also help children make quick assessments of situations and learning by trial and error.It is not about giving children free rein to play game but recognising that games attract attention and offer a challenge,"" he said.Most game firms are too busy turning a profit in the lucrative commercial market to consider developing games for use in schools but Liverpool-based games firm Lateral Visions saw a gap in the market.""We are keen to find out whether alongside learning a game, we can also learn something that the rest of the world can understand as being educational,"" said Mr Owen.It could be some time until that particular game makes it into the classroom though.Already there are games on the market, such as Civilisation and Age of Empire, that have educational elements said Mr Owen.The company set out to write something that had all the look and feel of a commercial game but with an educational and learning element.Video games could soon be transplanted from their natural habitat to the more academic atmosphere of the classroom.""Pupils used the statistics to work out the best way to build their cars and the online message board to share ideas and support each other,"" said Ben Williamson, a researcher at Futurelab charged with testing the game in real schools.Traditionally schools have eschewed mainstream games in favour of used so-called edu-tainment software in a belief that such packages help to make learning fun, she found in her research.'Lite' versions of existing games could be the way forward and would overcome one of the biggest hurdles - persuading developers to write for the educational market."
"Gadget growth fuels eco concerns

Technology firms and gadget lovers are being urged to think more about the environment when buying and disposing of the latest hi-tech products.

At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas earlier this month, several hi-tech firms were recognised for their strategies to help the environment. Ebay also announced the Rethink project bringing together Intel, Apple, and IBM among others to promote recycling. The US consumer electronics market is set to grow by over 11% in 2005. But more awareness is needed about how and where old gadgets can be recycled as well as how to be more energy efficient, said the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Of particular growing concern is how much energy it takes to recharge portable devices, one of the fastest growing markets in technology. The Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) has predicted that shipments of consumer technologies in 2005 will reach more than $125.73 billion (nearly £68 billion).

Ebay's initiative pulls together major technology firms, environment groups, government agencies and eBay users to give information about what to do with old computers and where to send them. The online auction house thinks that its already-established community of loyal users could be influential. ""We really became aware of the e-waste issue and we saw that our 125 million users can be a powerful force for good,"" eBay's David Stern told the BBC News website.

""We saw the opportunity to meet the additional demand we have on the site for used computers and saw the opportunity too to good some good for the environment."" But it is not just computers that cause a problem for the environment. Teenagers get a new mobile every 11 months, adults every 18 months and a 15 million handsets are replaced in total each year. Yet, only 15% are actually recycled. This year, a predicted two billion people worldwide will own a mobile, according to a Deloitte report. Schemes in the US, like RIPMobile, could help in targeting younger generations with recycling messages. The initiative, which was also launched at CES, rewards 10 to 28-year-olds for returning unused phones. ""This system allows for the transformation of a drawer full of unused mobile phones into anything from music to clothes to electronics or games,"" said Seth Heine from RIPMobile.

One group of students collected 1,000 mobiles for recycling in just three months. Mr Heine told the BBC News website that what was important was to raise awareness amongst the young so that recycling becomes ""learned behaviour"". Europe is undoubtedly more advanced than the US in terms of recycling awareness and robust ""end of life"" programmes, although there is a tide change happening in the rest of the world too. Intel showcased some its motherboards and chips at CES which are entirely lead free.

""There is more and more awareness on the consumer side, but the whole industry is moving towards being lead free,"" Intel's Allen Wilson told the BBC News website. ""There is still low-level awareness right now, but it is on the rise - the highest level of awareness is in Europe."" A European Union (EU) directive, WEEE (Waste Electronic and Electrical Equipment), comes into effect in August. It puts the responsibility on electrical manufacturers to recycle items that are returned to them. But developments are also being made to design better technologies which are more energy efficient and which do not contain harmful substances. Elements like chromium, lead, and cadmium - common in consumer electronics goods - will be prohibited in all products in the EU by 2006.

But it is not just about recycling either. The predicted huge growth in the gadget market means the amount of energy used to power them up is on the rise too. The biggest culprit, according to the EPA, is the innocuous power adaptor, nicknamed ""energy vampires"". They provide vital juice for billions of mobile phones, PDAs (personal digital assistants), digital cameras, camcorders, and digital music players.

Although there is a focus on developing efficient and improved circuits in the devices themselves, the technologies inside rechargers are still outdated and so eat up more energy than is needed to power a gadget. On 1 January, new efficiency standards for external power supplies came into effect as part of the European Commission Code of Conduct. But at CES, the EPA also unveiled new guidelines for its latest Energy Star initiative which targets external power adapters. These map out the framework for developing better adaptors that can be labelled with an Energy Star logo, meaning they are about 35% more efficient. The initiative is a global effort and more manufacturers' adaptors are being brought on board. Most are made in China. About two billion are shipped global every year, and about three billion are in use in the US alone. The EPA is already working with several companies which make more than 22% of power supplies on the market. ""We are increasingly finding companies that not only want to provide neat, hi-tech devices, but also bundle with it a hi-tech, efficient power supply,"" the EPA's Andrew Fanara said. Initiatives like this are critical; if power adaptors continue to be made and used as they are now, consumer electronics and other small appliances will be responsible for more than 40% of electricity used in US homes, said the EPA.
","But more awareness is needed about how and where old gadgets can be recycled as well as how to be more energy efficient, said the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).Initiatives like this are critical; if power adaptors continue to be made and used as they are now, consumer electronics and other small appliances will be responsible for more than 40% of electricity used in US homes, said the EPA.But at CES, the EPA also unveiled new guidelines for its latest Energy Star initiative which targets external power adapters.The predicted huge growth in the gadget market means the amount of energy used to power them up is on the rise too.The Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) has predicted that shipments of consumer technologies in 2005 will reach more than $125.73 billion (nearly £68 billion).The US consumer electronics market is set to grow by over 11% in 2005.But developments are also being made to design better technologies which are more energy efficient and which do not contain harmful substances.Although there is a focus on developing efficient and improved circuits in the devices themselves, the technologies inside rechargers are still outdated and so eat up more energy than is needed to power a gadget.The biggest culprit, according to the EPA, is the innocuous power adaptor, nicknamed ""energy vampires"".At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas earlier this month, several hi-tech firms were recognised for their strategies to help the environment.""We are increasingly finding companies that not only want to provide neat, hi-tech devices, but also bundle with it a hi-tech, efficient power supply,"" the EPA's Andrew Fanara said.Elements like chromium, lead, and cadmium - common in consumer electronics goods - will be prohibited in all products in the EU by 2006.About two billion are shipped global every year, and about three billion are in use in the US alone.Ebay's initiative pulls together major technology firms, environment groups, government agencies and eBay users to give information about what to do with old computers and where to send them.The EPA is already working with several companies which make more than 22% of power supplies on the market.""There is more and more awareness on the consumer side, but the whole industry is moving towards being lead free,"" Intel's Allen Wilson told the BBC News website.Mr Heine told the BBC News website that what was important was to raise awareness amongst the young so that recycling becomes ""learned behaviour""."
"'Evil twin' fear for wireless net

People using wireless high-speed net (wi-fi) are being warned about fake hotspots, or access points.

The latest threat, nicknamed evil twins, pose as real hotspots but are actually unauthorised base stations, say Cranfield University experts. Once logged onto an Evil Twin, sensitive data can be intercepted. Wi-fi is becoming popular as more devices come with wireless capability. London leads the global wi-fi hotspots league, with more than 1,000. The number of hotspots is expected to reach 200,000 by 2008, according to analysts. ""Users need to be wary of using their wi-fi enabled laptops or other portable devices in order to conduct financial transactions or anything that is of a sensitive or personal nature,"" said Professor Brian Collins, head of information systems at Cranfield University.

""Users can also protect themselves by ensuring that their wi-fi device has its security measures activated,"" he added. BT Openzone, which operates a vast proportion of public hotspots in the UK, told the BBC News website that it made every effort to make its wi-fi secure. ""Naturally, people may have security concerns,"" said Chris Clark, chief executive for BT's wireless broadband.

""But wi-fi networks are no more or less vulnerable than any other means of accessing the internet, like broadband or dial-up."" He said BT Openzone, as well as others, have sophisticated encryption from the start of the login process to the service at a hotspot. ""This means that users' personal information and data, logon usernames and passwords are protected and secure,"" said Mr Clark.

In the vast majority of cases, base stations straight out of the box from the manufacturers are automatically set up with the least secure mode possible, said Dr Nobles. Cybercriminals who try to glean personal information using the scam, jam connections to a legitimate base station by sending a stronger signal near to the wireless client. Anyone with the right gear can find a real hotspot and substitute it with an evil twin. ""Cybercriminals don't have to be that clever to carry out such an attack,"" said Dr Phil Nobles, a wireless net and cybercrime expert at Cranfield. ""Because wireless networks are based on radio signals they can be easily detected by unauthorised users tuning into the same frequency.""

Although wi-fi is increasing in popularity as more people want to use high-speed net on the move, there have been fears over how secure it is. Some companies have been reluctant to use them in large numbers because of fears about security. A wireless network that is not protected can provide a backdoor into a company's computer system. Public wi-fi hotspots offered by companies like BT Openzone and The Cloud, are accessible after users sign up and pay for use. But many home and company wi-fi networks are left unprotected and can be ""sniffed out"" and hi-jacked by anyone with the correct equipment. ""BT advises that customers should change all default settings, make sure that their security settings on all equipment are configured correctly,"" said Mr Clark. ""We also advocate the use of personal firewalls to ensure that only authorised users can have access and that data cannot be intercepted."" Dr Nobles is due to speak about wireless cybercrime at the Science Museum's Dana Centre in London on Thursday.
","Public wi-fi hotspots offered by companies like BT Openzone and The Cloud, are accessible after users sign up and pay for use.People using wireless high-speed net (wi-fi) are being warned about fake hotspots, or access points.Wi-fi is becoming popular as more devices come with wireless capability.London leads the global wi-fi hotspots league, with more than 1,000.BT Openzone, which operates a vast proportion of public hotspots in the UK, told the BBC News website that it made every effort to make its wi-fi secure.""Users need to be wary of using their wi-fi enabled laptops or other portable devices in order to conduct financial transactions or anything that is of a sensitive or personal nature,"" said Professor Brian Collins, head of information systems at Cranfield University.Although wi-fi is increasing in popularity as more people want to use high-speed net on the move, there have been fears over how secure it is.""This means that users' personal information and data, logon usernames and passwords are protected and secure,"" said Mr Clark.""Cybercriminals don't have to be that clever to carry out such an attack,"" said Dr Phil Nobles, a wireless net and cybercrime expert at Cranfield.""Naturally, people may have security concerns,"" said Chris Clark, chief executive for BT's wireless broadband.""Users can also protect themselves by ensuring that their wi-fi device has its security measures activated,"" he added."
"China 'to overtake US net use'

The Chinese net-using population looks set to exceed that of the US in less than three years, says a report.

China's net users number 100m but this represents less than 8% of the country's 1.3 billion people. Market analysts Panlogic predicts that net users in China will exceed the 137 million US users of the net by 2008. The report says that the country's culture will mean that Chinese people will use the net for very different ends than in many other nations.

Already net use in China has a very different character than in many Western nations, said William Makower, chief executive of Panlogic. In many Western nations desktop computers that can access the net are hard to escape at work. By contrast in China workplace machines are relatively rare. This, combined with the relatively high cost of PCs in China and the time it takes to get phone lines installed, helps to explains the huge number of net cafes in China. Only 36% of Chinese homes have telephones according to reports. ""Net usage tends to happen in the evening,"" said Mr Makower, ""they get access only when they go home and go off to the internet café."" ""Its fundamentally different usage to what we have here,"" he said.

Net use in China was still very much an urban phenomenon with most users living on the country's eastern seaboard or in its three biggest cities. The net is key to helping Chinese people keep in touch with friends, said Mr Makower. Many people use it in preference to the phone or arrange to meet up with friends at net cafes. What people can do on the net is also limited by aspects of Chinese life. For instance, said Mr Makower, credit cards are rare in China partly because of fears people have about getting in to debt. ""The most popular way to pay is Cash-On-Delivery,"" he said, ""and that's quite a brake to the development of e-commerce."" The arrival of foreign banks in China, due in 2006, could mean greater use of credit cards but for the moment they are rare, said Mr Makower. But if Chinese people are not spending cash online they are interested in the news they can get via the net and the view it gives them on Western ways of living. ""A large part of the attraction of the internet is that it goes below the radar,"" he said. ""Generally it's more difficult for the government to be able to control it."" ""Its real value is as an open window onto what's happening elsewhere in the world,"" he said. Government restrictions on how much advertising can appear on television means that the net is a source of many commercial messages Chinese people would not see anywhere else. Familiarity with the net also has a certain social cachet. ""It's a sign of them having made it that they can use the internet and navigate around it,"" said Mr Makower.
","The net is key to helping Chinese people keep in touch with friends, said Mr Makower.Already net use in China has a very different character than in many Western nations, said William Makower, chief executive of Panlogic.The report says that the country's culture will mean that Chinese people will use the net for very different ends than in many other nations.What people can do on the net is also limited by aspects of Chinese life.For instance, said Mr Makower, credit cards are rare in China partly because of fears people have about getting in to debt.Market analysts Panlogic predicts that net users in China will exceed the 137 million US users of the net by 2008.Government restrictions on how much advertising can appear on television means that the net is a source of many commercial messages Chinese people would not see anywhere else.Many people use it in preference to the phone or arrange to meet up with friends at net cafes.The arrival of foreign banks in China, due in 2006, could mean greater use of credit cards but for the moment they are rare, said Mr Makower.China's net users number 100m but this represents less than 8% of the country's 1.3 billion people."
"US peer-to-peer pirates convicted

The first convictions for piracy over peer-to-peer networks have been handed down in the US.

New Yorker William Trowbridge and Texan Michael Chicoine have pleaded guilty to charges that they infringed copyright by illegally sharing music, movies and software. The two men faced charges following raids in August on suspected pirates by the FBI. The pair face jail terms of up to five years and a $250,000 (£130,000) fine.

In a statement the US Department of Justice said the two men operated the central hubs in a piracy community organised across the Direct Connect peer-to-peer network. The piracy group called itself the Underground Network and membership of it demanded that users share between one and 100 gigabytes of files. Direct Connect allows users to set themselves up as central servers that act as co-ordinating spots for sharers. Users would swap files, such as films and music, by exchanging data over the network. During its investigation FBI agents reportedly downloaded 84 movies, 40 software programs, 13 games and 178 ""sound recordings"" from the five hubs that made up the larger piracy group. The raids were organised under the umbrella of Operation Digital Gridlock which was aimed at fighting ""criminal copyright theft on peer-to-peer networks"". In total, six raids were carried out in August. Five were on the homes of suspected copyright thieves and one on a net service firm. The Department of Justice said that both men pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit felony copyright infringement. They also pleaded guilty to acting for commercial advantage. The two men are due to be sentenced on 29 April.
",In a statement the US Department of Justice said the two men operated the central hubs in a piracy community organised across the Direct Connect peer-to-peer network.The Department of Justice said that both men pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit felony copyright infringement.The two men faced charges following raids in August on suspected pirates by the FBI.The piracy group called itself the Underground Network and membership of it demanded that users share between one and 100 gigabytes of files.The first convictions for piracy over peer-to-peer networks have been handed down in the US.Five were on the homes of suspected copyright thieves and one on a net service firm.
"Google launches TV search service

The net search giant Google has launched a search service that lets people look for TV programmes.

The service, Google Video beta, searches closed caption information that comes with programmes. It only searches US channel content currently. Results list programmes with still images and text from the point where the search phrase was spoken. It should expand over time to include content from more channels, said a Google spokesperson. The first version of the service is part of Google's expanding efforts to be a ubiquitous search engine for people to find what they want on the web and beyond. ""We think TV is a big part of people's lives,"" said Jonathan Rosenberg, Google's vice president of product management. ""Ultimately, we would like to have all TV programming indexed.""

Google Video has been indexing US-based programmes from PBS, the NBA, Fox News, and C-SPAN since December. But there were few clues from Google about when more global broadcasters would be included. ""Over time, we plan to increase the number of television channels and video content available via Google Video but don't have more product details to share with you today,"" a Google spokesperson told the BBC News website.

The results thrown up by the search will also include programme and episode information like channel, date and time. It also lets people find the next time and channel where a programme will aired locally using a US zip code search function. Rival search engine Yahoo has been developing a similar type of video search for webcasts and TV clips which it promotes from its homepage. It offers direct links to websites with movies or other clips relevant to the search query, but does not pinpoint when the search query occurred. A spokeswoman told the Financial Times on Monday that Yahoo was adding captioning for Bloomberg, BBC and BSkyB broadcasts. A smaller service, blinkx.tv, was launched last month. It searches for and links to TV news, film trailers, and other video and audio clips.
","The net search giant Google has launched a search service that lets people look for TV programmes.Rival search engine Yahoo has been developing a similar type of video search for webcasts and TV clips which it promotes from its homepage.The service, Google Video beta, searches closed caption information that comes with programmes.It searches for and links to TV news, film trailers, and other video and audio clips.It only searches US channel content currently.The results thrown up by the search will also include programme and episode information like channel, date and time.""Over time, we plan to increase the number of television channels and video content available via Google Video but don't have more product details to share with you today,"" a Google spokesperson told the BBC News website.It also lets people find the next time and channel where a programme will aired locally using a US zip code search function."
"Rich pickings for hi-tech thieves

Viruses, trojans and other malicious programs sent on to the net to catch you out are undergoing a subtle change.

The shift is happening as tech savvy criminals turn to technology to help them con people out of cash, steal valuable data or take over home PCs. Viruses written to make headlines by infecting millions are getting rarer. Instead programs are now crafted for directly criminal ends and firms are tightening up networks with defences to combat the new wave of malicious code.

The growing criminal use of malware has meant the end of the neat categorisation of different sorts of viruses and malicious programs. Before now it has been broadly possible to name and categorise viruses by the method they use to spread and how they infect machines. But many of the viruses written by criminals roll lots of technical tricks together into one nasty package.

""You cannot put them in to the neat little box that you used to,"" said Pete Simpson, head of the threat laboratory at security firm Clearswift. Now viruses are just as likely to spread by themselves like worms, or to exploit loopholes in browsers or hide in e-mail message attachments. ""It's about outright criminality now,"" said Mr Simpson, explaining why this change has come about. He said many of the criminal programs came from Eastern Europe where cash-rich organised gangs can find a ready supply of technical experts that will crank out code to order. Former virus writer Marek Strihavka, aka Benny from the 29A virus writing group, recently quit the malware scene partly because it was being taken over by spyware writers, phishing gangs, and spammers who are more interested in money rather than the technology. No longer do virus writers produce programs to show off their technical prowess to rivals in the underground world of malware authors. Not least, said Paul King, principal security consultant at Cisco, because the defences against such attacks are so common. ""In many ways the least likely way to do it is e-mail because most of us have got anti-virus and firewalls now,"" he said. Few of the malicious programs written by hi-tech thieves are cleverly written, many are much more pragmatic and use tried and tested techniques to infect machines or to trick users into installing a program or handing over important data. ""If you think of criminals they do not do clever,"" said Mr King, ""they just do what works.""

As the tactics used by malicious programs change, said Mr King, so many firms were changing the way they defend themselves. Now many scan machines that connect to the corporate networks to ensure they have not been compromised while off the core network.

Many will not let a machine connect and a worker get on with their job before the latest patches and settings have been uploaded. As well as using different tactics, criminals also use technology for reasons that are much more transparent. ""The main motivation now is money,"" said Gary Stowell, spokesman for St Bernard software. Mr Stowell said organised crime gangs were turning to computer crime because the risks of being caught were low and the rates of return were very high. With almost any phishing or spyware attack, criminals are guaranteed to catch some people out and have the contacts to exploit what they recover. So-called spyware was proving very popular with criminals because it allowed them to take over machines for their own ends, to steal key data from users or to hijack web browsing sessions to point people at particular sites. In some cases spyware was being written that searched for rival malicious programs on PCs it infects and then trying to erase them so it has sole ownership of that machine.
","As the tactics used by malicious programs change, said Mr King, so many firms were changing the way they defend themselves.Few of the malicious programs written by hi-tech thieves are cleverly written, many are much more pragmatic and use tried and tested techniques to infect machines or to trick users into installing a program or handing over important data.He said many of the criminal programs came from Eastern Europe where cash-rich organised gangs can find a ready supply of technical experts that will crank out code to order.""If you think of criminals they do not do clever,"" said Mr King, ""they just do what works.""The growing criminal use of malware has meant the end of the neat categorisation of different sorts of viruses and malicious programs.But many of the viruses written by criminals roll lots of technical tricks together into one nasty package.In some cases spyware was being written that searched for rival malicious programs on PCs it infects and then trying to erase them so it has sole ownership of that machine.Instead programs are now crafted for directly criminal ends and firms are tightening up networks with defences to combat the new wave of malicious code.""It's about outright criminality now,"" said Mr Simpson, explaining why this change has come about.""In many ways the least likely way to do it is e-mail because most of us have got anti-virus and firewalls now,"" he said.With almost any phishing or spyware attack, criminals are guaranteed to catch some people out and have the contacts to exploit what they recover."
"Blog reading explodes in America

Americans are becoming avid blog readers, with 32 million getting hooked in 2004, according to new research.

The survey, conducted by the Pew Internet and American Life Project, showed that blog readership has shot up by 58% in the last year. Some of this growth is attributable to political blogs written and read during the US presidential campaign. Despite the explosive growth, more than 60% of online Americans have still never heard of blogs, the survey found. Blogs, or web logs, are online spaces in which people can publish their thoughts, opinions or spread news events in their own words. Companies such as Google and Microsoft provide users with the tools to publish their own blogs.

The rise of blogs has spawned a new desire for immediate news and information, with six million Americans now using RSS aggregators. RSS aggregators are downloaded to PCs and are programmed to subscribe to feeds from blogs, news sites and other websites. The aggregators automatically compile the latest information published online from the blogs or news sites. Reading blogs remains far more popular than writing them, the survey found. Only 7% of the 120 million US adults who use the internet had created a blog or web-based diary. Getting involved is becoming more popular though, with 12% saying they had posted material or comments on other people's blogs.

Just under one in 10 of the US's internet users read political blogs such as the Daily Kos or Instapundit during the US presidential campaign. Kerry voters were slightly more likely to read them than Bush voters. Blog creators were likely to be young, well-educated, net-savvy males with good incomes and college educations, the survey found. This was also true of the average blog reader, although the survey found there was a greater than average growth in blog readership among women and those in minorities. The survey was conducted during November and involved telephone surveys of 1,324 internet users.
","This was also true of the average blog reader, although the survey found there was a greater than average growth in blog readership among women and those in minorities.Reading blogs remains far more popular than writing them, the survey found.Just under one in 10 of the US's internet users read political blogs such as the Daily Kos or Instapundit during the US presidential campaign.Some of this growth is attributable to political blogs written and read during the US presidential campaign.Despite the explosive growth, more than 60% of online Americans have still never heard of blogs, the survey found.The survey, conducted by the Pew Internet and American Life Project, showed that blog readership has shot up by 58% in the last year.The rise of blogs has spawned a new desire for immediate news and information, with six million Americans now using RSS aggregators."
"Software watching while you work

Software that can not only monitor every keystroke and action performed at a PC but also be used as legally binding evidence of wrong-doing has been unveiled.

Worries about cyber-crime and sabotage have prompted many employers to consider monitoring employees. The developers behind the system claim it is a break-through in the way data is monitored and stored. But privacy advocates are concerned by the invasive nature of such software.

The system is a joint venture between security firm 3ami and storage specialists BridgeHead Software. They have joined forces to create a system which can monitor computer activity, store it and retrieve disputed files within minutes. More and more firms are finding themselves in deep water as a result of data misuse. Sabotage and data theft are most commonly committed from within an organisation according to the National Hi-Tech Crime Unit (NHTCU) A survey conducted on its behalf by NOP found evidence that more than 80% of medium and large companies have been victims of some form of cyber-crime. BridgeHead Software has come up with techniques to prove, to a legal standard, that any stored file on a PC has not been tampered with. Ironically the impetus for developing the system came as a result of the Freedom of Information Act, which requires companies to store all data for a certain amount of time.

The storage system has been incorporated into an application developed by security firm 3ami which allows every action on a computer to be logged. Potentially it could help employers to follow the trail of stolen files and pinpoint whether they had been emailed to a third party, copied, printed, deleted or saved to CD, floppy disk, memory stick or flash card. Other activities the system can monitor include the downloading of pornography, the use of racist or bullying language or the copying of applications for personal use. Increasingly organisations that handle sensitive data, such as governments, are using biometric log-ins such as fingerprinting to provide conclusive proof of who was using a particular machine at any given time. Privacy advocates are concerned that monitoring at work is not only damaging to employee's privacy but also to the relationship between employers and their staff. ""That is not the case,"" said Tim Ellsmore, managing director of 3ami. ""It is not about replacing dialogue but there are issues that you can talk through but you still need proof,"" he said. ""People need to recognise that you are using a PC as a representative of a company and that employers have a legal requirement to store data,"" he added.
","The storage system has been incorporated into an application developed by security firm 3ami which allows every action on a computer to be logged.""People need to recognise that you are using a PC as a representative of a company and that employers have a legal requirement to store data,"" he added.The system is a joint venture between security firm 3ami and storage specialists BridgeHead Software.Ironically the impetus for developing the system came as a result of the Freedom of Information Act, which requires companies to store all data for a certain amount of time.BridgeHead Software has come up with techniques to prove, to a legal standard, that any stored file on a PC has not been tampered with.They have joined forces to create a system which can monitor computer activity, store it and retrieve disputed files within minutes.The developers behind the system claim it is a break-through in the way data is monitored and stored.Software that can not only monitor every keystroke and action performed at a PC but also be used as legally binding evidence of wrong-doing has been unveiled."
"New delay hits EU software laws

A fresh delay has hit controversial new European Union rules which govern computer-based inventions.

The draft law was not adopted by EU ministers as planned at a Brussels meeting on Monday during which it was supposed to have been discussed. The fresh delay came after Polish officials had raised concerns about the law for the second time in two months. Critics say the law would favour large companies over small ones and could impact open-source software innovation. ""There was at one point the intention to put the item on today's agenda. But in the end we could not put it on,"" an EU spokesman told the Reuters agency. He added that no date had been chosen for more discussion of the law.

In December, Poland requested more time to consider the issue because it was concerned that the law could lead to the patenting of pure computer software. Its ministers want to see the phrasing of the text of the Directive on the Patentability of Computer-Implemented Inventions changed so that it excludes software patenting. Poland is a large EU member, so its backing for the legislation is vital. The EU says the law would bring Europe more in line with how such laws work in the US, but this has caused some angry debate amongst critics and supporters. In the US, the patenting of computer programs and internet business methods is permitted. This means that the US-based Amazon.com holds a patent for its ""one-click shopping"" service. Critics say a similar model in Europe would hurt small software developers which do not have the legal and financial might of larger companies. But supporters say current law does not let big companies protect inventions which they have spent years developing.
","Critics say the law would favour large companies over small ones and could impact open-source software innovation.In December, Poland requested more time to consider the issue because it was concerned that the law could lead to the patenting of pure computer software.The EU says the law would bring Europe more in line with how such laws work in the US, but this has caused some angry debate amongst critics and supporters.The draft law was not adopted by EU ministers as planned at a Brussels meeting on Monday during which it was supposed to have been discussed.The fresh delay came after Polish officials had raised concerns about the law for the second time in two months.But supporters say current law does not let big companies protect inventions which they have spent years developing."
"Savvy searchers fail to spot ads

Internet search engine users are an odd mix of naive and sophisticated, suggests a report into search habits.

The report by the US Pew Research Center reveals that 87% of searchers usually find what they were looking for when using a search engine. It also shows that few can spot the difference between paid-for results and organic ones. The report reveals that 84% of net users say they regularly use Google, Ask Jeeves, MSN and Yahoo when online.

Almost 50% of those questioned said they would trust search engines much less, if they knew information about who paid for results was being hidden. According to figures gathered by the Pew researchers the average users spends about 43 minutes per month carrying out 34 separate searches and looks at 1.9 webpages for each hunt. A significant chunk of net users, 36%, carry out a search at least weekly and 29% of those asked only look every few weeks. For 44% of those questioned, the information they are looking for is critical to what they are doing and is information they simply have to find.

Search engine users also tend to be very loyal and once they have found a site they feel they can trust tend to stick with it. According to Pew Research 44% of searchers use just a single search engine, 48% use two or three and a small number, 7%, consult more than three sites. Tony Macklin, spokesman for Ask Jeeves, said the results reflected its own research which showed that people use different search engines because the way the sites gather information means they can provide different results for the same query. Despite this liking for search sites half of those questioned said they could get the same information via other routes. A small number, 17%, said they wouldn't really miss search engines if they did not exist. The remaining 33% said they could not live without search sites. More than two-thirds of those questioned, 68%, said they thought that the results they were presented with were a fair and unbiased selection of the information on a topic that can be found on the net. Alongside the growing sophistication of net users is a lack of awareness about paid-for results that many search engines provide alongside lists of websites found by indexing the web. Of those asked, 62% were unaware that someone has paid for some of the results they see when they carry out a search. Only 18% of all searchers say they can tell which results are paid for and which are not. Said the Pew report: ""This finding is ironic, since nearly half of all users say they would stop using search engines if they thought engines were not being clear about how they presented paid results."" Commenting Mr Macklin said sponsored results must be clearly marked and though they might help with some queries user testing showed that people need to be able to spot the difference.
","Almost 50% of those questioned said they would trust search engines much less, if they knew information about who paid for results was being hidden.Said the Pew report: ""This finding is ironic, since nearly half of all users say they would stop using search engines if they thought engines were not being clear about how they presented paid results.""Tony Macklin, spokesman for Ask Jeeves, said the results reflected its own research which showed that people use different search engines because the way the sites gather information means they can provide different results for the same query.Internet search engine users are an odd mix of naive and sophisticated, suggests a report into search habits.The report by the US Pew Research Center reveals that 87% of searchers usually find what they were looking for when using a search engine.A small number, 17%, said they wouldn't really miss search engines if they did not exist.Alongside the growing sophistication of net users is a lack of awareness about paid-for results that many search engines provide alongside lists of websites found by indexing the web.Despite this liking for search sites half of those questioned said they could get the same information via other routes."
"Games firms 'face tough future'

UK video game firms face a testing time as they prepare for the next round of games consoles, the industry warns.

Fred Hasson, head of Tiga, which represents independent developers, said that more UK firms would go under due to greater risks in making new titles. Three leading UK video game companies also predicted that more firms would close as they struggled to adapt. Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo are expected to release new consoles in the next 18 months. Microsoft has said repeatedly that it wants to be first to the market and some analysts predict that Xbox 2 will be released in the US before the end of 2005.

The new machines will all have much greater processing and graphical power which will have a huge impact on development of next generation games. Mr Hasson said: ""In the last four years we have probably lost a third of independent developers."" He said there were about 150 independent developers left in the industry and more were likely to close. ""Once the cull has finished its likely to present those still standing with great opportunities,"" he said.

Mr Hasson said the industry was predicting that developments costs and teams were likely to need to double in order to cope with the demands of the new machines. That figure was endorsed by three independent companies contacted by the BBC News website - Codemasters, Climax and Rebellion.

""As consoles get more powerful, the content gets more detailed and that means more cost,"" said Gary Dunn, development director at Codemasters, which develops games in house and also publishes titles. Jason Kingsley, chief executive of Rebellion, said the transition from the current generation of consoles to the new machines was difficult because ""the production quality expected by consumers will be that much bigger"". He added: ""We have been through five technology transitions and survived so far. ""Each one has involved the death of some people. All companies said they were investing in new tools - called middleware - in order to try and avoid staff numbers spiralling out of control.

Simon Gardner, president of Climax's Action studio, said: ""We are investing in superior tools and editors. We are investing upfront to generate this content without the need for huge teams. ""It's vital we avoid huge teams."" He said Climax was already directing about 20% of its resources to preparation for next generation titles. Mr Dunn warned that companies could face a short supply of programming, development and artistic talent. ""If companies are hiring bigger and bigger teams, at some point the talent is going to run out."" Mr Hasson said games developers were beginning to realise that they had to be more ""business-like"". ""There are still some developers who were involved in games from the bedroom coding days. ""Some of them are still making games for peer group approval - that has to stop.""
","Mr Hasson said games developers were beginning to realise that they had to be more ""business-like"".Mr Hasson said the industry was predicting that developments costs and teams were likely to need to double in order to cope with the demands of the new machines.Jason Kingsley, chief executive of Rebellion, said the transition from the current generation of consoles to the new machines was difficult because ""the production quality expected by consumers will be that much bigger"".He said there were about 150 independent developers left in the industry and more were likely to close.Fred Hasson, head of Tiga, which represents independent developers, said that more UK firms would go under due to greater risks in making new titles.All companies said they were investing in new tools - called middleware - in order to try and avoid staff numbers spiralling out of control.He said Climax was already directing about 20% of its resources to preparation for next generation titles.""As consoles get more powerful, the content gets more detailed and that means more cost,"" said Gary Dunn, development director at Codemasters, which develops games in house and also publishes titles.""Once the cull has finished its likely to present those still standing with great opportunities,"" he said.Mr Hasson said: ""In the last four years we have probably lost a third of independent developers."""
"Microsoft makes anti-piracy move

Microsoft says it is clamping down on people running pirated versions of its Windows operating system by restricting their access to security features.

The Windows Genuine Advantage scheme means people will have to prove their software is genuine from mid-2005. It will still allow those with unauthorised copies to get some crucial security fixes via automatic updates, but their options would be ""limited"". Microsoft releases regular security updates to its software to protect PCs. Either PCs detect updates automatically or users manually download fixes through Microsoft's site. Those running pirated Windows programs would not have access to other downloads and ""add-ons"" that the software giant offers.

People who try to manually download security patches will have to let Microsoft run an automated checking procedure on their computer or give an identification number.

Microsoft's regular patches which it releases for newly-found security flaws are important because they stop worms, viruses and other threats penetrating PCs. Some security experts are concerned that restricting access to such patches could mean a rise in such attacks and threats, with more PCs left unprotected. But Graham Cluley, senior consultant at security firm Sophos, told the BBC News website that it was a positive decision. ""It sounds like their decision to allow critical security patches to remain available to both legitimate and illegitimate users of Windows is good news for everyone who uses the net,"" he said. Windows Genuine Advantage was first introduced as a pilot scheme in September 2004 for English-language versions of Windows.

Microsoft's Windows operating system is heavily exploited by virus writers because it is so widespread and they are constantly seeking out new security loopholes to take advantage of. The company is trying to tackle security threats whilst cracking down on pirated software at the same time. Software piracy has cost the company billions, it says. The company announced earlier in January that it was releasing security tools to clean up PCs harbouring viruses and spyware, which 90% of PCs are infected with. The virus-fighting program, updated monthly, is a precursor to Microsoft's dedicated anti-virus software. Last year it introduced the Windows XP Counterfeit Project, a UK-based pilot scheme, which ran from November to December. The scheme meant that anyone with pre-installed copies of the operating system in PCs bought before November could replace counterfeit versions of Windows XP with legal ones for free. It is also increasing efforts to squash software piracy in China, Norway and the Czech Republic, where pirated software is a huge problem, by offering discounts on legitimate software to users of pirated copies Windows. ""China in particular is a problem, with piracy estimated at 92%,"" said Mr Cluley.
","Microsoft releases regular security updates to its software to protect PCs.Microsoft says it is clamping down on people running pirated versions of its Windows operating system by restricting their access to security features.It is also increasing efforts to squash software piracy in China, Norway and the Czech Republic, where pirated software is a huge problem, by offering discounts on legitimate software to users of pirated copies Windows.The company is trying to tackle security threats whilst cracking down on pirated software at the same time.Those running pirated Windows programs would not have access to other downloads and ""add-ons"" that the software giant offers.The Windows Genuine Advantage scheme means people will have to prove their software is genuine from mid-2005.Microsoft's regular patches which it releases for newly-found security flaws are important because they stop worms, viruses and other threats penetrating PCs.Windows Genuine Advantage was first introduced as a pilot scheme in September 2004 for English-language versions of Windows.Microsoft's Windows operating system is heavily exploited by virus writers because it is so widespread and they are constantly seeking out new security loopholes to take advantage of."
"Nintendo handheld given Euro date

Nintendo's new handheld console, the DS, will launch in Europe on 11 March, the company has announced.

The portable games machine, which features touch-screen control, will retail for £99 in the UK (149 euros). Nintendo said 15 games would be available in the UK at launch, with prices ranging from £19 to £29. More than 2.8 million DS consoles have been sold since it first appeared in the US and Japan at the end of 2004. Rival Sony has said it will launch its first handheld console, the PSP, in the US and Europe before the end of March. The PSP is expected to compete for a large part of the same handheld market, despite Sony's assertion that the machines are aimed at different consumers.

The 15 games available on the European launch date will include Nintendo's Super Mario 64 DS, as well as titles from third-party developers such as Ubisoft's Rayman DS.

More than 120 games are in development for the new console, Nintendo has said. The DS is backwards compatible with the Game Boy Advance, allowing the earlier machine's back catalogue of 700 games to be played. Additionally, a short-range wireless link for multiplayer gaming is built in to the DS, with a ""download play"" option which allows a group to play against each other, even if just one person owns a copy. Other features include a short-range messaging application called Pictochat, and a built-in microphone which is used in Sega's launch title Project Rub. Nintendo has also announced a media adapter, which will allow the console to play music and video on the move.

The launch price of £99 (149 euros) compares favourably with the US price of $149, according to John Houlihan, editor of the Computerandvideogames.com magazine. ""It's a very, very competitive price point. There are some innovative features, and Nintendo has created quite a buzz,"" he says. ""However, the line-up of games could have been stronger. Everyone wanted to see the eight-player Mario Kart DS, for example.""

Mr Houlihan believes that there is likely to be an audience for both the Nintendo DS and Sony's new PSP, with the former aimed largely at a younger audience and the latter expected to be marketed as a multimedia device. ""The PSP is a sexy bit of kit, but Sony's attitude to the PSP has been very understated in Europe, so far,"" Mr Houlihan said. The worldwide handheld software market had an estimated worth of $2.6bn at the end of 2004, according to industry analysts Screen Digest.

In the past, games consoles and handhelds have generally launched much later in Europe than in other parts of the world. However Nintendo president Satoru Iwata said the company was ""pleased to have offered such a short period of time between the US and European launch"". ""Europe is an extremely important market for Nintendo,"" Mr Iwata added. Nintendo raised its sales targets for the DS console last December after selling a million in the US and Japan in just a few weeks.
","More than 120 games are in development for the new console, Nintendo has said.Nintendo's new handheld console, the DS, will launch in Europe on 11 March, the company has announced.Rival Sony has said it will launch its first handheld console, the PSP, in the US and Europe before the end of March.Nintendo said 15 games would be available in the UK at launch, with prices ranging from £19 to £29.The 15 games available on the European launch date will include Nintendo's Super Mario 64 DS, as well as titles from third-party developers such as Ubisoft's Rayman DS.Nintendo raised its sales targets for the DS console last December after selling a million in the US and Japan in just a few weeks.More than 2.8 million DS consoles have been sold since it first appeared in the US and Japan at the end of 2004.However Nintendo president Satoru Iwata said the company was ""pleased to have offered such a short period of time between the US and European launch"".Mr Houlihan believes that there is likely to be an audience for both the Nintendo DS and Sony's new PSP, with the former aimed largely at a younger audience and the latter expected to be marketed as a multimedia device.Nintendo has also announced a media adapter, which will allow the console to play music and video on the move."
"Smart search lets art fans browse

If you don't know art but know what you like, new search technology could prove a useful gateway to painting.

ArtGarden, developed by BT's research unit, is being tested by the Tate as a new way of browsing its online collection of paintings. Rather than search by the name of an artist or painting, users are shown a selection of pictures. Clicking on their favourite will change the gallery in front of them to a selection of similar works.

The technology uses a system dubbed smart serendipity, which is a combination of artificial intelligence and random selection. It 'chooses' a selection of pictures, by scoring paintings based on a selection of keywords associated with them. So, for instance a Whistler painting of a bridge may have the obvious keywords such as bridge and Whistler associated to it but will also widen the search net with terms such as aesthetic movement, 19th century and water. A variety of paintings will then be shown to the user, based partly on the keywords and partly on luck. ""It is much more akin to wandering through the gallery,"" said Jemima Rellie, head of the Tate's digital programme. For Richard Tateson, who worked on the ArtGarden project, the need for a new way to search grew out of personal frustration. ""I went to an online clothes store to find something to buy my wife for Christmas but I didn't have a clue what I wanted,"" he said. The text-based search was restricted to looking either by type of garment or designer, neither of which he found helpful. He ended up doing his present shopping on the high street instead.

He thinks the dominance of text-based searching is not necessarily appealing to the majority of online shoppers. Similarly, with art, browsing is often more important than finding a particular object. ""You don't arrive at Tate Britain and tell people what you want to see. One of the skills of showing off the collection is to introduce people to things they wouldn't have asked for,"" he said. The Tate is committed to making its art more accessible and technology such as ArtGarden can help with that, said Ms Rellie. She hopes the technology can be incorporated on to the website in the near future. BT research is looking at extending the technology to other searching, such as for music and films.
","The Tate is committed to making its art more accessible and technology such as ArtGarden can help with that, said Ms Rellie.If you don't know art but know what you like, new search technology could prove a useful gateway to painting.Rather than search by the name of an artist or painting, users are shown a selection of pictures.It 'chooses' a selection of pictures, by scoring paintings based on a selection of keywords associated with them.ArtGarden, developed by BT's research unit, is being tested by the Tate as a new way of browsing its online collection of paintings.BT research is looking at extending the technology to other searching, such as for music and films.The technology uses a system dubbed smart serendipity, which is a combination of artificial intelligence and random selection.For Richard Tateson, who worked on the ArtGarden project, the need for a new way to search grew out of personal frustration."
"Warning over Windows Word files

Writing a Microsoft Word document can be a dangerous business, according to document security firm Workshare.

Up to 75% of all business documents contained sensitive information most firms would not want exposed, a survey by the firm revealed. To make matters worse 90% of those companies questioned had no idea that confidential information was leaking. The report warns firms to do a better job of policing documents as corporate compliance becomes more binding.

Sensitive information inadvertently leaked in documents includes confidential contractual terms, competitive information that rivals would be keen to see and special deals for key customers, said Andrew Pearson, European boss of Workshare which commissioned the research. ""The efficiencies the internet has brought in such as instant access to information have also created security and control issues too,"" he said. The problem is particularly acute with documents prepared using Microsoft Word because of the way it maintains hidden records about editing changes. As documents get passed around, worked on and amended by different staff members the sensitive information finds its way into documents. Poor control over the editing and amending process can mean that information that should be expunged survives final edits. Microsoft, however, does provide an add-on tool for Windows PCs that fixes the problem. ""The Remove Hidden Data add-in is a tool that you can use to remove personal or hidden data that might not be immediately apparent when you view the document in your Microsoft Office application,"" says the instructions on Microsoft's website. Microsoft recommends that the tool is used before people publish any Word document. A tool for Apple machines running Word is not available. Workshare surveyed firms around the world and found that, on average, 31% of documents contained legally sensitive information but in many firms up to three-quarters fell in to the high risk category. Often, said Mr Pearson, this sensitive information was invisible because it got deleted and changed as different drafts were prepared.

However, the way that Windows works means that earlier versions can be recalled and reconstructed by those keen to see how a document has evolved. Few firms have any knowledge of the existence of this so-called metadata about the changes that a document has gone through or that it can be reconstructed. The discovery of this hidden information could prove embarrassing for companies if, for instance, those tendering for contracts found out about the changes to terms of a deal being negotiated. The research revealed that a document's metadata could be substantial as, on average, only 40% of contributors' changes to a document make it to the final draft. Problems with documents could mean trouble for firms as regulatory bodies step up scrutiny and compliance laws start to bite, said Mr Pearson.
","Writing a Microsoft Word document can be a dangerous business, according to document security firm Workshare.Up to 75% of all business documents contained sensitive information most firms would not want exposed, a survey by the firm revealed.Workshare surveyed firms around the world and found that, on average, 31% of documents contained legally sensitive information but in many firms up to three-quarters fell in to the high risk category.Sensitive information inadvertently leaked in documents includes confidential contractual terms, competitive information that rivals would be keen to see and special deals for key customers, said Andrew Pearson, European boss of Workshare which commissioned the research.Microsoft recommends that the tool is used before people publish any Word document.As documents get passed around, worked on and amended by different staff members the sensitive information finds its way into documents.Few firms have any knowledge of the existence of this so-called metadata about the changes that a document has gone through or that it can be reconstructed.The problem is particularly acute with documents prepared using Microsoft Word because of the way it maintains hidden records about editing changes."
"Net regulation 'still possible'

The blurring of boundaries between TV and the internet raises questions of regulation, watchdog Ofcom has said.

Content on TV and the internet is set to move closer this year as TV-quality video online becomes a norm. At a debate in Westminster, the net industry considered the options. Lord Currie, chairman of super-regulator Ofcom, told the panel that protecting audiences would always have to be a primary concern for the watchdog. Despite having no remit for the regulation of net content, disquiet has increased among internet service providers as speeches made by Ofcom in recent months hinted that regulation might be an option. At the debate, organised by the Internet Service Providers' Association (ISPA), Lord Currie did not rule out the possibility of regulation.

""The challenge will arise when boundaries between TV and the internet truly blur and then there is a balance to be struck between protecting consumers and allowing them to assess the risks themselves,"" he said. Adopting the rules that currently exist to regulate TV content or self-regulation, which is currently the practice of the net industry, will be up for discussion.

Some studies suggest that as many as eight million households in the UK could have adopted broadband by the end of 2005, and the technology opens the door to TV content delivered over the net. More and more internet service providers and media companies are streaming video content on the web. BT has already set up an entertainment division to create and distribute content that could come from sources such as BSkyB, ITV and the BBC. Head of the division, Andrew Burke, spoke about the possibility of creating content for all platforms. ""How risque can I be in this new age? With celebrity chefs serving up more expletives than hot dinners, surely I can push it to the limit,"" he said.

In fact, he said, if content has been requested by consumers and they have gone to lengths to download it, then maybe it should be entirely regulation free. Internet service providers have long claimed no responsibility for the content they carry on their servers since the Law Commission dubbed them ""mere conduits"" back in 2002. This defence does not apply if they have actual knowledge of illegal content and have failed to remove it. The level of responsibility they have has been tested in several high-profile legal cases. Richard Ayers, portal director at Tiscali, said there was little point trying to regulate the internet because it would be impossible. Huge changes are afoot in 2005, he predicted, as companies such as the BBC offer TV content over the net. The BBC's planned interactive media player which will give surfers the chance to download programmes such as EastEnders and Top Gear will make net TV mainstream and raise a whole new set of questions, he said.

One of these will be about the vast sums of money involved in maintaining the network to supply such a huge quantity of data and could herald a new digital licence fee, said Mr Ayers. As inappropriate net content, most obviously pornography viewed by children, continues to dominate the headlines, internet regulation remains a political issue said MP Richard Allan, Liberal Democrat spokesman on IT. Mr Allan thinks that the answer could lie somewhere between the cries of ""impossible to regulate"" and ""just apply offline laws online"". In fact, instead of seeing regulation brought online, the future could bring an end to regulation as we know it for all TV content. After Lord Currie departed, the panel agreed that this could be a reality and that for the internet people power is likely to reign. ""If content is on-demand, consumers have pulled it up rather than had pushed to them, then it is the consumers' choice to watch it. There is no watershed on the net,"" said Mr Burke.
","The blurring of boundaries between TV and the internet raises questions of regulation, watchdog Ofcom has said.Despite having no remit for the regulation of net content, disquiet has increased among internet service providers as speeches made by Ofcom in recent months hinted that regulation might be an option.As inappropriate net content, most obviously pornography viewed by children, continues to dominate the headlines, internet regulation remains a political issue said MP Richard Allan, Liberal Democrat spokesman on IT.In fact, he said, if content has been requested by consumers and they have gone to lengths to download it, then maybe it should be entirely regulation free.In fact, instead of seeing regulation brought online, the future could bring an end to regulation as we know it for all TV content.Content on TV and the internet is set to move closer this year as TV-quality video online becomes a norm.More and more internet service providers and media companies are streaming video content on the web.Huge changes are afoot in 2005, he predicted, as companies such as the BBC offer TV content over the net.Adopting the rules that currently exist to regulate TV content or self-regulation, which is currently the practice of the net industry, will be up for discussion.There is no watershed on the net,"" said Mr Burke.Some studies suggest that as many as eight million households in the UK could have adopted broadband by the end of 2005, and the technology opens the door to TV content delivered over the net.At the debate, organised by the Internet Service Providers' Association (ISPA), Lord Currie did not rule out the possibility of regulation."
"Voters flock to blog awards site

Voting is under way for the annual Bloggies which recognise the best web blogs - online spaces where people publish their thoughts - of the year.

Nominations were announced on Sunday, but traffic to the official site was so heavy that the website was temporarily closed because of too many visitors. Weblogs have been nominated in 30 categories, from the top regional blog, to the best-kept-secret blog. Blogs had a huge year, with a top US dictionary naming ""blog"" word of 2004. Technorati, a blog search engine, tracks about six million blogs and says that more than 12,000 are added daily. A blog is created every 5.8 seconds, according to US research think-tank Pew Internet and American Life, but less than 40% of the total are updated at least once every two months.

Nikolai Nolan, who has run the Bloggies for the past five years, told the BBC News website he was not too surprised by the amount of voters who crowded the site. ""The awards always get a lot of traffic; this was just my first year on a server with a bandwidth limit, so I had to guess how much I'd need,"" he said. There were many new finalists this year, he added, and a few that had won Bloggies before. Several entries reflected specific news events. ""There are four nominations for the South-East Asia Earthquake and Tsunami Blog, which is a pretty timely one for 2005,"" said Mr Nolan.

The big Bloggies battle will be for the ultimate prize of blog of the year. The nominated blogs are wide-ranging covering what is in the news to quirky sites of interest. Fighting it out for the coveted award are Gawker, This Fish Needs a Bicycle, Wonkette, Boing Boing, and Gothamist. In a sign that blogs are playing an increasingly key part in spreading news and current affairs, The South-East Asia Earthquake and Tsunami Blog is also nominated in the best overall category. GreenFairyDotcom, Londonist, Hicksdesign, PlasticBag and London Underground Tube Blog are the nominees in the best British or Irish weblog.

Included in the other categories is best ""meme"". This is for the top ""replicating idea that spread about weblogs"". Nominations include Flickr, a web photo album which lets people upload, tag, share and publish their images to blogs. Podcasting has also made an appearance in the category. It is an increasingly popular idea that makes use of RSS (really simple syndication) and audio technology to let people easily make their own radio shows, and distribute them automatically onto portable devices.

Many are done by those who already have text-based blogs, so they are almost like audio blogs. Three new categories have been added to the list this year, including best food, best entertainment, and best writing of a weblog. One of the categories that was scrapped though was best music blog. The winners of the fifth annual Bloggies are chosen by the public. Public voting closes on 3 February and the winners will be announced sometime between 13 and 15 March.
","In a sign that blogs are playing an increasingly key part in spreading news and current affairs, The South-East Asia Earthquake and Tsunami Blog is also nominated in the best overall category.Voting is under way for the annual Bloggies which recognise the best web blogs - online spaces where people publish their thoughts - of the year.One of the categories that was scrapped though was best music blog.Weblogs have been nominated in 30 categories, from the top regional blog, to the best-kept-secret blog.Blogs had a huge year, with a top US dictionary naming ""blog"" word of 2004.The big Bloggies battle will be for the ultimate prize of blog of the year.Technorati, a blog search engine, tracks about six million blogs and says that more than 12,000 are added daily.Three new categories have been added to the list this year, including best food, best entertainment, and best writing of a weblog.The nominated blogs are wide-ranging covering what is in the news to quirky sites of interest.There were many new finalists this year, he added, and a few that had won Bloggies before.GreenFairyDotcom, Londonist, Hicksdesign, PlasticBag and London Underground Tube Blog are the nominees in the best British or Irish weblog."
"Latest Opera browser gets vocal

Net browser Opera 8.0, due for official release at the end of next month, will be ""the most accessible browser on the market"", according to its authors.

The latest version of the net browser can be controlled by voice command and will read pages aloud. The voice features, based on IBM technology, are currently only available in the Windows version. Opera can also magnify text by up to 10 times and users can create ""style sheets"", its developers say. This will enable them to view pages with colours and fonts that they prefer. But the browser does not yet work well with screen reader software often used by blind people, so its accessibility features are more likely to appeal to those with some residual vision. ""Our mission was always to provide the best internet experience for everyone,"" said Opera spokeswoman, Berit Hanson. ""So we would obviously not want to exclude disabled computer users.""

Another feature likely to appeal to people with low vision is the ability to make pages fit to the screen width, which eliminates the need for horizontal scrolling.

The company points out that this will also appeal to anyone using Opera with a handheld device. The company says that features like voice activation are not solely aimed at visually impaired people. ""Our idea was to take a first step in making human-computer interaction more natural,"" said Ms Hanson. ""People are not always in a situation where they can access a keyboard, so this makes the web a more hands-free experience."" Unlike commercially available voice recognition software, Opera does not have to be ""trained"" to recognise an individual voice. Around 50 voice commands are available and users will have to wear a headset which incorporates a microphone. The voice recognition function is currently only available in English. Opera is free to download but a paid-for version comes without an ad banner in the top right hand corner and with extra support. Opera began life as a research project - a spin-off from Norwegian telecoms company Telenor. Its browser is used by an estimated 10 million people on a variety of operating systems and a number of different platforms.
","Unlike commercially available voice recognition software, Opera does not have to be ""trained"" to recognise an individual voice.The latest version of the net browser can be controlled by voice command and will read pages aloud.The company says that features like voice activation are not solely aimed at visually impaired people.The voice recognition function is currently only available in English.But the browser does not yet work well with screen reader software often used by blind people, so its accessibility features are more likely to appeal to those with some residual vision.The voice features, based on IBM technology, are currently only available in the Windows version.""Our mission was always to provide the best internet experience for everyone,"" said Opera spokeswoman, Berit Hanson.Around 50 voice commands are available and users will have to wear a headset which incorporates a microphone."
"Web radio takes Spanish rap global

Spin the radio dial in the US and you are likely to find plenty of Spanish-language music. But what you will not find is much Spanish-language hip-hop.

Hip-hop and rap are actually quite popular in the Spanish-speaking world, but local artists are having trouble marketing their work abroad. But now, a US company is bringing rap and hip-hop en espanol to computer users everywhere. Los Caballeros de Plan G are one of Mexico's hottest hip-hop acts. They have a devoted fan base in their native Monterrey. But most Mexican hip-hop fans, not to mention fans in most of the Spanish-speaking world, rarely get a chance to hear the group's tracks on the radio.

""You can't really just go on the radio and listen to hip-hop in Spanish... it's just not accessible,"" says Manuel Millan, a native of San Diego, California. ""It's really hard for the Spanish hip-hop scene to get into mainstream radio. You usually have a very commercialised sound and the groups are not really known around the country or around the world."" Millan and two friends set out to change that - they wanted to make groups like Los Caballeros de Plan G accessible to fans globally.

Mainstream radio stations were not going to play this kind of music, and starting their own broadcast station was economically impossible. So, Millan and his friends launched a website called latinohiphopradio.com. The name says it all: it is web-based radio, devoted to the hottest Spanish language rap and hip-hop tracks. The site, which is in both in English and Spanish, is meant to be easy to navigate. All the user has to do is download a media player. There are no DJs. It is just music streamed over the net for free. Suddenly, with the help of the website, Los Caballeros de Plan G are producing ""export quality"" rap.

The web might be just the right medium for Spanish language hip-hop right now. The genre is in what Millan calls its ""infant stage"". But the production values are improving, and artists such as Argentina's Mustafa Yoda are pushing to make it better and better. Mustafa Yoda is currently one of the hottest tracks on latinohiphopradio.com. ""He's considered the Eminem of Argentina, and the Latin American hip-hop scene,"" Millan says. ""He really hasn't had that much exposure as far as anywhere in the world, but he's definitely the one to look out for as far as becoming the next big thing in the Spanish-speaking world."" Currently, the Chilean group Makisa is also in latinohiphopradio.com's top 10, as is Cuban artist Papo Record. ""Every country's got it's own cultural differences and they try to put those into their own songs,"" Millan says. Latinohiphopradio.com has been up and running for a couple of months now. The site has listeners from across the Spanish speaking world. Right now, Mexico leads the way, accounting for about 50% of listeners. But web surfers in Spain are logging in as well - about 25% of the web station's traffic comes from there. That is not surprising as many consider Spain to be the leader in Spanish-language rap and hip-hop. Millan says that Spain is actually just behind the United States and France in terms of overall rap and hip-hop production. That might be changing, though, as more and more Latin American artists are finding audiences.

But one Spaniard is still firmly in latinohiphopradio.com's top 10. His name is Tote King and Manuel Millan says that he is the hip-hop leader in Spain. On his track Uno Contra Veinte Emcees, or One Against 20 Emcees, Tote King shows he is well aware of that fact. ""It's basically him bragging that he's one of the best emcees in Spain right now,"" Millan says. ""And it's pretty much true. He has the tightest productions, and his rap flow is impeccable, it's amazing."" Latinohiphopradio.com is hoping to expand in the coming year. Millan says they want to include more music and more news from the world of Spanish language hip-hop and rap.

Clark Boyd is technology correspondent for The World, a BBC World Service and WGBH-Boston co-production.
","Millan says they want to include more music and more news from the world of Spanish language hip-hop and rap.The name says it all: it is web-based radio, devoted to the hottest Spanish language rap and hip-hop tracks.""You can't really just go on the radio and listen to hip-hop in Spanish... it's just not accessible,"" says Manuel Millan, a native of San Diego, California.His name is Tote King and Manuel Millan says that he is the hip-hop leader in Spain.Millan says that Spain is actually just behind the United States and France in terms of overall rap and hip-hop production.The web might be just the right medium for Spanish language hip-hop right now.""It's really hard for the Spanish hip-hop scene to get into mainstream radio.That is not surprising as many consider Spain to be the leader in Spanish-language rap and hip-hop.""He's considered the Eminem of Argentina, and the Latin American hip-hop scene,"" Millan says.But what you will not find is much Spanish-language hip-hop.Los Caballeros de Plan G are one of Mexico's hottest hip-hop acts.Hip-hop and rap are actually quite popular in the Spanish-speaking world, but local artists are having trouble marketing their work abroad.But most Mexican hip-hop fans, not to mention fans in most of the Spanish-speaking world, rarely get a chance to hear the group's tracks on the radio.""It's basically him bragging that he's one of the best emcees in Spain right now,"" Millan says.The site has listeners from across the Spanish speaking world.But now, a US company is bringing rap and hip-hop en espanol to computer users everywhere.Mustafa Yoda is currently one of the hottest tracks on latinohiphopradio.com.Millan and two friends set out to change that - they wanted to make groups like Los Caballeros de Plan G accessible to fans globally."
"Movie body targets children's PCs

The body that represents the US movie industry has released its latest tool in its campaign to clamp down on movie file-sharing, aimed at parents.

The Movie Association for America's (MPAA) free Parent File Scan software lets parents check their children's computers for peer-to-peer programs. It will also list all movie and music files they have on their hard drive. Parents then have the choice to remove programs and files. The MPAA said files found would not be passed on to it. ""Our ultimate goal is to help consumers locate the resources and information they need to make appropriate decisions about using and trading illegal files,"" said Dan Glickman, MPAA chief. ""Many parents are concerned about what their children have downloaded and where they've downloaded it from.""

But some computer users who had tested the latest software reported on some technology sites that the program had identified Windows default wav files as copyrighted material and wanted to delete them. Movie piracy cost the industry £3.7bn ($7bn) in 2003, according to analysts. The MPAA said in a statement that it would continue to provide easy access to similar tools in the coming months to combat ""the deleterious effects of peer-to-peer software, including such common problems as viruses, Trojan horses and identity theft"".

Mr Glickman said that the film industry was embracing ""digital age technologies"", like Movielink and CinemaNow, which are legal movie sites. ""But legal services such as these need a chance to grow and thrive without having to compete against illegitimate operations that depend on stolen property to survive,"" he added. The industry body also said it had launched a second round of legal action against online movie-swappers across the US, but did not say how many were being sued. Its first set of lawsuits were filed in November 2004. It also started a campaign against operators of BitTorrent, eDonkey and DirectConnect peer-to-peer networks. The first convictions for peer-to-peer piracy were handed out in the US in January. William Trowbridge and Michael Chicoine pleaded guilty to charges that they infringed copyright by illegally sharing music, movies and software.
","The Movie Association for America's (MPAA) free Parent File Scan software lets parents check their children's computers for peer-to-peer programs.The body that represents the US movie industry has released its latest tool in its campaign to clamp down on movie file-sharing, aimed at parents.It will also list all movie and music files they have on their hard drive.The industry body also said it had launched a second round of legal action against online movie-swappers across the US, but did not say how many were being sued.Mr Glickman said that the film industry was embracing ""digital age technologies"", like Movielink and CinemaNow, which are legal movie sites.The MPAA said files found would not be passed on to it.The first convictions for peer-to-peer piracy were handed out in the US in January."
"Norway upholds 'Napster' ruling

A Norwegian student who ran a website which linked to downloadable MP3 files has been ordered to pay compensation by the country's Supreme Court.

Frank Allan Bruvik was ordered to pay 100,000 kroner (£8,000) to the music industry in Norway. He was a student when he set up his napster.no site, which allowed users to submit and receive links to MP3 files. Bruvik had earlier been cleared on appeal after a lower court had found for the music industry. Music industry bosses in Norway said the ruling would help build confidence in the internet as a distribution medium.

Frank Allan Bruvik set up the napster.no website as part of a school project in 2001 while studying computer engineering in the Norwegian town of Lillehammer. The website was not associated with the napster.com site in the USA, which had been operating since 1999 and was already facing legal action.

Bruvik's site was online between August and November 2001, and while it did not host any music, at its peak it was providing links to more than 170 free files on other servers. As well as providing links, the site allowed those visiting it to submit links that could later be accessed by other visitors. A legal complaint for copyright violation was filed by groups including Norway's performing rights society, Tono, and the Norwegian branches of Sony Music and Universal Music, who saw it as an important test of principle.

A Norwegian court ruled in 2003 that Bruvik would have to pay 100,000 kroner to the music industry, but the country's Court of Appeal cleared him, saying that the copyright violation occurred when others posted the music. However, the Supreme Court stated that the music was clearly published in violation of copyright law It added that the case was decided based on the responsibility for abetting an illegal act, and that Bruvik's actions were premeditated. Norway's music industry said it was satisfied with the ruling, because showed that music piracy would not be accepted.

Meanwhile, in the USA a further 717 lawsuits against people alleged to have traded copyrighted songs were filed this week by the Recording Industry Association of America. The suits, brought on behalf of the major record companies, cite the individuals for illegally distributing music via unauthorized peer-to-peer services such as KaZaa and eDonkey. As with preceding cases, the fresh action was made against so-called ""John Doe"" defendants, who are identified only by the codes given to their computers' internet connections.
","Frank Allan Bruvik was ordered to pay 100,000 kroner (£8,000) to the music industry in Norway.Norway's music industry said it was satisfied with the ruling, because showed that music piracy would not be accepted.A Norwegian court ruled in 2003 that Bruvik would have to pay 100,000 kroner to the music industry, but the country's Court of Appeal cleared him, saying that the copyright violation occurred when others posted the music.Bruvik's site was online between August and November 2001, and while it did not host any music, at its peak it was providing links to more than 170 free files on other servers.However, the Supreme Court stated that the music was clearly published in violation of copyright law It added that the case was decided based on the responsibility for abetting an illegal act, and that Bruvik's actions were premeditated.A legal complaint for copyright violation was filed by groups including Norway's performing rights society, Tono, and the Norwegian branches of Sony Music and Universal Music, who saw it as an important test of principle.Bruvik had earlier been cleared on appeal after a lower court had found for the music industry."
"The future in your pocket

If you are a geek or gadget fan, the next 12 months look like they are going to be a lot of fun.

The relentless pace of development in the hi-tech world and rampant competition in many of its sectors, particularly among mobile phone firms, all suggests that 2005 is going to be a very good year. To begin with, 2005 will be the year that third-generation (3G) mobile phones become inescapable. The 3 network launched in 2003, Vodafone launched its consumer service in November, Orange followed in early December and T-Mobile and O2 are due to launch in 2005. The main result of these launches will likely be a slew of good deals for consumers as operators try to poach new customers from rivals and convince existing users to trade up.

Already the extra capacity in 3G networks lets 3 offer good deals on voice calls at rates that will probably have to be matched by the other operators. But the shift in technology and low cost of voice calls means that operators lose a significant chunk of their revenue. ""Show me an operator that believes their voice business can sustain them, and I'll write their obituary"" said Niel Ransom, chief technology officer at Alcatel.

Instead operators are likely to push all other things that 3G phones can do such as video messaging and other multimedia capabilities. Already camera phones look set to challenge digital cameras and are likely to win more fans as multi-megapixel devices go on sale. But 3G will not have everything its own way. It will face competition from emerging technologies such as Wimax. This wireless technology can boost data transmission speeds up to 75 megabits per second and works over distances of up to 30 miles. Kent is likely to be the site of the UK's first Wimax network which is due to go live in 2005 and it could be the way that rural areas get high-speed net access. Analyst firm Telecom View predicts that Wimax will steal a lot of market share from 3G and will be a clear winner. Bob Larribeau, principal analyst at Telecom View, said the better return on investment offered by technologies such as Wimax could dent the possible returns of 3G networks. And the growing ubiquity of wi-fi must not be forgotten either. The technology is popping up in more places than ever and its wider use is only held back by the price differences across countries and suppliers.

Moves to unite mobile and fixed phones look set to get more emphasis in 2005 too.

For a start, BT looks set to roll out its Bluephone project during the next 12 months. The service revolves around a hybrid device that uses the mobile networks when you are out and about but switches back to the fixed line when you are at home. Fixed line phones will also start to get much more serious competition from a technology that has the formidable name of Voice over IP (Voip). Voip routes calls via the net instead of the fixed line phone network. Anyone with a broadband connection, which is now more than 50% of the UK's net using population, can use Voip and could slash their monthly phone bills if they used it. Telecommunications regulator Ofcom has declared 056 to be the area code for Voip calls and 2005 is likely to see a lot more consumer-focused Voip call services starting up. Home broadband services will also start to increase in speed as dwindling numbers of new users signing force the pace of competition. If 2004 has been the year of the portable music player, they 2005 looks like it will be the year of the portable media player. Motorola has just announced a deal with Apple to produce a phone that works with the iTunes service and other hybrid gadgets that sport a big memory and lots of other functions will become commonplace. The pace of advancement in storage media will continue mean that the cost per megabyte of memory will plummet. Some of those devices will sport huge hard drives letting you store more data than you ever wanted or knew you had. Convergence could mean that single-function devices start to dwindle in number. Instead every gadget will be able to do almost anything and communicate almost any way you want. The only downside is that consumers will face a series of tough choices as they are confronted by a bewildering array of gadgets each with an enormous numbers of features and vast data holding capacities. But that is the kind of problem most gadget fans can live with.
","Fixed line phones will also start to get much more serious competition from a technology that has the formidable name of Voice over IP (Voip).Voip routes calls via the net instead of the fixed line phone network.Moves to unite mobile and fixed phones look set to get more emphasis in 2005 too.To begin with, 2005 will be the year that third-generation (3G) mobile phones become inescapable.Motorola has just announced a deal with Apple to produce a phone that works with the iTunes service and other hybrid gadgets that sport a big memory and lots of other functions will become commonplace.Instead operators are likely to push all other things that 3G phones can do such as video messaging and other multimedia capabilities.Already camera phones look set to challenge digital cameras and are likely to win more fans as multi-megapixel devices go on sale.Kent is likely to be the site of the UK's first Wimax network which is due to go live in 2005 and it could be the way that rural areas get high-speed net access.The service revolves around a hybrid device that uses the mobile networks when you are out and about but switches back to the fixed line when you are at home.But the shift in technology and low cost of voice calls means that operators lose a significant chunk of their revenue.Telecommunications regulator Ofcom has declared 056 to be the area code for Voip calls and 2005 is likely to see a lot more consumer-focused Voip call services starting up.It will face competition from emerging technologies such as Wimax.If you are a geek or gadget fan, the next 12 months look like they are going to be a lot of fun.Already the extra capacity in 3G networks lets 3 offer good deals on voice calls at rates that will probably have to be matched by the other operators."
"What high-definition will do to DVDs

First it was the humble home video, then it was the DVD, and now Hollywood is preparing for the next revolution in home entertainment - high-definition.

High-definition gives incredible, 3D-like pictures and surround sound. The DVD disks and the gear to play them will not be out for another year or so, and there at are still a number of issues to be sorted out. But when high-definition films do come out on the new format DVDs, it will profoundly change home entertainment. For Rick Dean, director of business development for digital content company THX, a high-definition future is an exciting prospect. He has worked on the Star Wars DVD trilogy, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles and Indiana Jones. ""There was a time not so long ago when the film world and the video world were two completely separate worlds,"" he told the BBC News website.

""The technology we are dealing with now means they are very much conjoined. ""The film that we see in theatres is coming from the same digital file that we take the home video master,"" he says. But currently, putting a master feature film onto DVD requires severe compression because current DVD technology cannot hold as much as high-definition films demand. ""As much as you compress the picture data rate wise, you also take qualities away from the picture that we fight so hard to keep in the master,"" he explains. ""I would love to be able to show people what projects that we worked on really look like in the high-def world and I find it very exciting.""

High-definition DVDs can hold up to six times more data than the DVDs we are used to. It will take time though to persuade people who spent money on DVD players to buy the different players and displays required to watch high-definition DVDs in 18 months' time. Mr Dean is confident though: ""I think if they see real HD [high-definition], not some heavily compressed version of it, there is such a remarkable difference. ""I have heard comments from people who say the images pop off the screen.""

High-definition will mean some changes for those working behind the scenes too. On the whole, producing films for high-definition DVDs will be easier in some ways because less compression is needed. Equally, it may mean Hollywood studios ask for more to be put onto the average DVD. ""When we master movies right now, our data rates are running at about 1.2 gigabits per second,"" says Mr Dean. ""Our DVDs that we put out today have to be squashed down to about five or six megabits per second. ""That's a huge amount of compression that has to be applied - about 98%. So if you have anything that allows more space, you don't have to compress so hard."" Studios could fit a lot more marketing material, games, and features, onto high-capacity DVDs. Currently, an entire DVD project can take up to three months, says Mr Dean. Although the step of down-converting will be bypassed, this will realistically only save a day's work, says Mr Dean. One of the most time consuming elements is building DVD navigation and menu systems. On the fairly complex Star Wars disks, making sure the menu buttons worked took 45 human hours alone. If studios want to cash in on the extra space, it could mean extra human hours, for which someone has to pay. ""If the decision on the studio side is that they are going to put a lot more on these disks, it could be more expensive because of all the extra navigation that is required."" And if studios do focus on delivering more ""added value content"", thinks Mr Dean, ultimately it could mean that they will want more money for it. Those costs could filter down to the price ticket on a high-definition DVD. But if the consumer is not willing to pay a premium price, studios will listen, thinks Mr Dean.

High-definition throws up other challenge to film makers and DVD production alike. More clarity on screen means film makers have to make doubly sure that attention to detail is meticulous. ""When we did the first HD version of Star Wars Episode I, everybody was very sun-tanned, but that was make-up. ""In the HD version of Episode I, all these make-up lines showed up,"" explains Mr Dean. The restoration of the older Star Wars episodes revealed some interesting items too.

""There are scans of a corridor [on the Death Star] and fairly plainly in one of those shots, there is a file cabinet stuck behind one of the doorways. ""You never used to be able to see it because things are just blurred enough during the pan that you just didn't see it."" What high-definition revolution ultimately means is that the line between home entertainment and cinema worlds will blur. With home theatre systems turning living rooms into cinemas, this line blurs even further. It could also mean that how we get films, and in what format, will widen. ""In the future we are going to look towards file delivery over IP [internet protocol - broadband], giving a DVD-like experience from the set-top box to the hard drive,"" says Mr Dean. But that is some time off for most, and for now, people still like to show off something physical in their bookshelves.
","But currently, putting a master feature film onto DVD requires severe compression because current DVD technology cannot hold as much as high-definition films demand.What high-definition revolution ultimately means is that the line between home entertainment and cinema worlds will blur.Currently, an entire DVD project can take up to three months, says Mr Dean.But when high-definition films do come out on the new format DVDs, it will profoundly change home entertainment.Those costs could filter down to the price ticket on a high-definition DVD.First it was the humble home video, then it was the DVD, and now Hollywood is preparing for the next revolution in home entertainment - high-definition.And if studios do focus on delivering more ""added value content"", thinks Mr Dean, ultimately it could mean that they will want more money for it.High-definition throws up other challenge to film makers and DVD production alike.It will take time though to persuade people who spent money on DVD players to buy the different players and displays required to watch high-definition DVDs in 18 months' time.High-definition DVDs can hold up to six times more data than the DVDs we are used to.Mr Dean is confident though: ""I think if they see real HD [high-definition], not some heavily compressed version of it, there is such a remarkable difference.High-definition will mean some changes for those working behind the scenes too.On the whole, producing films for high-definition DVDs will be easier in some ways because less compression is needed.Equally, it may mean Hollywood studios ask for more to be put onto the average DVD.""In the HD version of Episode I, all these make-up lines showed up,"" explains Mr Dean.""When we master movies right now, our data rates are running at about 1.2 gigabits per second,"" says Mr Dean.""The film that we see in theatres is coming from the same digital file that we take the home video master,"" he says.If studios want to cash in on the extra space, it could mean extra human hours, for which someone has to pay."
"Mobile games come of age

The BBC News website takes a look at how games on mobile phones are maturing. A brief round-up follows but you can skip straight to the reviews by clicking on the links below.

If you think of Snake when some mentions ""mobile games"" then you could be in for a bit of a surprise. This is because mobile games have come a long way in a very short time. Even before Nokia's N-Gage game phone launched in late 2003, many mobile operators were realising that there was an audience looking for something to play on their handset.

And given that many more people own handsets than own portable game playing gadgets such as the GameBoy it could be a very lucrative market. That audience includes commuters wanting something to fill their time on the way home, game fans looking for a bit of variety and hard core gamers who like to play every moment they can. Life for all these types of player has got immeasurably better in the last year as the numbers of titles you can download to your phone has snowballed. Now sites such as Wireless Gaming Review list more than 200 different titles for some UK networks and the ranges suit every possible taste. There are ports of PC and arcade classics such as Space Invaders, Lunar Lander and Bejewelled. There are also versions of titles, such as Colin McRae Rally, that you typically find on PCs and consoles.

There are shoot-em-ups, adventure games, strategy titles and many novel games only found on handsets. Rarely now does an action movie launch without a mobile game tie-in. Increasingly such launches are all part of the promotional campaign for a film, understandable when you realise that a good game can rack up millions of downloads. The returns can be pretty good when you consider that some games cost £5. What has also helped games on mobiles thrive is the fact that it is easier than ever to get hold of them thanks to technology known as Wap push. By sending a text message to a game maker you can have the title downloaded to your handset. Far better than having to navigate through the menus of most mobile operator portals. The number of handsets that can play games has grown hugely too. Almost half of all phones now have Java onboard meaning that they can play the increasingly sophisticated games that are available - even the ones that use 3D graphics.

The minimum technology specifications that phones should adhere to are getting more sophisticated which means that games are too. Now double key presses are possible making familiar tactics such as moving and strafing a real option. The processing power on handsets means that physics on mobile games is getting more convincing and the graphics are improving too. Some game makers are also starting to take advantage of the extra capabilities in a mobile. Many titles, particularly racing games, let you upload your best time to see how you compare to others. Usually you can get hold of their best time and race against a ""ghost"" or ""shadow"" to see if you can beat them. A few games also let you take on people in real time via the network or, if you are sitting close to them, via Bluetooth short-range radio technology. With so much going on it is hard to do justice to the sheer diversity of what is happening. But these two features should help point you in the direction of the game makers and give you an idea of where to look and how to get playing.

 TOO FAST TOO FURIOUS (DIGITAL BRIDGES) 

As soon as I start playing this I remember why I never play driving games - because I'm rubbish at them. No matter if I drive the car via joystick or keypad I just cannot get the hang of braking for corners or timing a rush to pass other drivers. The game rewards replay because to advance you have to complete every section within a time limit. Winning gives you cash for upgrades. Graphically the rolling road is a convincing enough evocation of speed as the palm trees and cactus whip by and the city scrolls past in the background. The cars handle pretty well despite my uselessness but it was not clear if the different models of cars were appreciably different on the track. The only niggle was that the interface was a bit confusing especially when using a joystick rather than the keypad to play.

 FATAL FORCE (MACROSPACE) 

A futuristic shooter that lets you either play various deathmatch modes against your phone or run through a series of scenarios that involves killing aliens invading Earth. Graphics are a bit cartoon-like but only helps to make clear what is going on and levels are well laid out and encourage you to leap about exploring. Both background music and sounds effects work well. The scenarios are well scripted and you regularly get hints from the Fatal Force commanders. Weapons include flamethrowers, rocket launchers, grenades and at a couple of points you even get chance to use a mech for a short while. With the right power-up you can go into a Matrix-style bullet time to cope with the onslaught of aliens. The game lets you play via Bluetooth if others are in range. Online the game has quite a following with clans, player rankings and even new downloadable maps.
","Even before Nokia's N-Gage game phone launched in late 2003, many mobile operators were realising that there was an audience looking for something to play on their handset.This is because mobile games have come a long way in a very short time.The game lets you play via Bluetooth if others are in range.The number of handsets that can play games has grown hugely too.Some game makers are also starting to take advantage of the extra capabilities in a mobile.The BBC News website takes a look at how games on mobile phones are maturing.A few games also let you take on people in real time via the network or, if you are sitting close to them, via Bluetooth short-range radio technology.What has also helped games on mobiles thrive is the fact that it is easier than ever to get hold of them thanks to technology known as Wap push.But these two features should help point you in the direction of the game makers and give you an idea of where to look and how to get playing.The processing power on handsets means that physics on mobile games is getting more convincing and the graphics are improving too.That audience includes commuters wanting something to fill their time on the way home, game fans looking for a bit of variety and hard core gamers who like to play every moment they can.By sending a text message to a game maker you can have the title downloaded to your handset.Almost half of all phones now have Java onboard meaning that they can play the increasingly sophisticated games that are available - even the ones that use 3D graphics.Rarely now does an action movie launch without a mobile game tie-in.The minimum technology specifications that phones should adhere to are getting more sophisticated which means that games are too.The game rewards replay because to advance you have to complete every section within a time limit.There are shoot-em-ups, adventure games, strategy titles and many novel games only found on handsets.The returns can be pretty good when you consider that some games cost £5."
"California sets fines for spyware

The makers of computer programs that secretly spy on what people do with their home PCs could face hefty fines in California.

From 1 January, a new law is being introduced to protect computer users from software known as spyware. The legislation, which was approved by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, is designed to safeguard people from hackers and help protect their personal information. Spyware is considered by computer experts to be one of the biggest nuisance and security threats facing PC users in the coming year. The software buries itself in computers and can collect a wide range of information. At its worst, it has the ability to hijack personal data, like passwords, login details and credit card numbers. The programs are so sophisticated they change frequently and become impossible to eradicate.

One form of spyware called adware has the ability to collect information on a computer user's web-surfing. It can result in people being bombarded with pop-up ads that are hard to close. In Washington, Congress has been debating four anti-spyware bills, but California is a step ahead. The state's Consumer Protection Against Spyware Act bans the installation of software that takes control of another computer. It also requires companies and websites to disclose whether their systems will install spyware. Consumers are able to seek up to $1,000 in damages if they think they have fallen victim to the intrusive software. The new law marks a continuing trend in California towards tougher privacy rights. A recent survey by Earthlink and Webroot found that 90% of PCs are infested with the surreptitious software and that, on average, each one is harbouring 28 separate spyware programs. Currently users wanting protection from spyware have turned to free programs such as Spybot and Ad-Aware.
","From 1 January, a new law is being introduced to protect computer users from software known as spyware.One form of spyware called adware has the ability to collect information on a computer user's web-surfing.The state's Consumer Protection Against Spyware Act bans the installation of software that takes control of another computer.The software buries itself in computers and can collect a wide range of information.The makers of computer programs that secretly spy on what people do with their home PCs could face hefty fines in California.Spyware is considered by computer experts to be one of the biggest nuisance and security threats facing PC users in the coming year.Currently users wanting protection from spyware have turned to free programs such as Spybot and Ad-Aware."
"Web helps collect aid donations

The web is helping aid agencies gather resources to help cope with the aftermath of the tsunami disaster.

Many people are making donations via websites or going online to see how they can get involved with aid efforts. High-profile web portals such as Google, Yahoo, Ebay and Amazon are gathering links that lead people to aid and relief organisations. So many were visiting some aid-related sites that some webpages were struggling to cope with the traffic. An umbrella organisation called the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) has been set up by a coalition of 12 charities and has been taking many donations via its specially created website. It urged people to go online where possible to help because donations could be processed more quickly than cash donated in other ways, meaning aid could be delivered as quickly as possible. The site has so far received almost £8 million, with more than 11,000 donations being made online every hour.

Telco BT stepped in to take over the secure payments on the DEC site and provided extra logistical support for phone and online appeals after it was initially crippled with online donations. It has also provided space in London's BT tower for one of the call centres dealing with donations.

Some of the web's biggest firms are also helping to channel help by modifying their homepages to include links to aid agencies and organisations collecting resources. On its famously sparse homepage Google has placed a link that leads users to a list of sites where donations can be made. Among the 17 organisations listed are Oxfam, Medecins sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) and Network for Good. Many of the sites that Google lists are also taking online donations. Online retailer Amazon has put a large message on its start page that lets people donate money directly to the American Red Cross that will be used with relief efforts. Auction site eBay is giving a list of sites that people can either donate directly to, divert a portion of their profits from anything they sell on eBay to the listed organisations or simply buy items that direct cash to those in the list. Yahoo is proving links direct to charities for those that want to donate. The Auction Drop website is asking people to donate old digital cameras, computers and other gadgets they no longer want that can be auction to raise cash for the aid effort. Sadly, the outpouring of goodwill has also encouraged some conmen to try to cash in. Anti-fraud organisations are warning about e-mails that are starting to circulate which try to convince people to send money directly to them rather than make donations via aid agencies. Those wanting to give cash were urged to use legitimate websites of charities and aid agencies.
","Many of the sites that Google lists are also taking online donations.Many people are making donations via websites or going online to see how they can get involved with aid efforts.On its famously sparse homepage Google has placed a link that leads users to a list of sites where donations can be made.Auction site eBay is giving a list of sites that people can either donate directly to, divert a portion of their profits from anything they sell on eBay to the listed organisations or simply buy items that direct cash to those in the list.An umbrella organisation called the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) has been set up by a coalition of 12 charities and has been taking many donations via its specially created website.The site has so far received almost £8 million, with more than 11,000 donations being made online every hour.High-profile web portals such as Google, Yahoo, Ebay and Amazon are gathering links that lead people to aid and relief organisations.Anti-fraud organisations are warning about e-mails that are starting to circulate which try to convince people to send money directly to them rather than make donations via aid agencies."
"Mobiles rack up 20 years of use

Mobile phones in the UK are celebrating their 20th anniversary this weekend.

Britain's first mobile phone call was made across the Vodafone network on 1 January 1985 by veteran comedian Ernie Wise. In the 20 years since that day, mobile phones have become an integral part of modern life and now almost 90% of Britons own a handset. Mobiles have become so popular that many people use their handset as their only phone and rarely use a landline.

The first ever call over a portable phone was made in 1973 in New York but it took 10 years for the first commercial mobile service to be launched. The UK was not far behind the rest of the world in setting up networks in 1985 that let people make calls while they walked. The first call was made from St Katherine's dock to Vodafone's head office in Newbury which at the time was over a curry house. For the first nine days of 1985 Vodafone was the only firm with a mobile network in the UK. Then on 10 January Cellnet (now O2) launched its service. Mike Caudwell, spokesman for Vodafone, said that when phones were launched they were the size of a briefcase, cost about £2,000 and had a battery life of little more than 20 minutes.

""Despite that they were hugely popular in the mid-80s,"" he said. ""They became a yuppy must-have and a status symbol among young wealthy business folk."" This was also despite the fact that the phones used analogue radio signals to communicate which made them very easy to eavesdrop on. He said it took Vodafone almost nine years to rack up its first million customers but only 18 months to get the second million. ""It's very easy to forget that in 1983 when we put the bid document in we were forecasting that the total market would be two million people,"" he said. ""Cellnet was forecasting half that."" Now Vodafone has 14m customers in the UK alone. Cellnet and Vodafone were the only mobile phone operators in the UK until 1993 when One2One (now T-Mobile) was launched. Orange had its UK launch in 1994. Both newcomers operated digital mobile networks and now all operators use this technology. The analogue spectrum for the old phones has been retired. Called Global System for Mobiles (GSM) this is now the most widely used phone technology on the planet and is used to help more than 1.2 billion people make calls. Mr Caudwell said the advent of digital technology also helped to introduce all those things, such as text messaging and roaming that have made mobiles so popular.
","Cellnet and Vodafone were the only mobile phone operators in the UK until 1993 when One2One (now T-Mobile) was launched.For the first nine days of 1985 Vodafone was the only firm with a mobile network in the UK.Britain's first mobile phone call was made across the Vodafone network on 1 January 1985 by veteran comedian Ernie Wise.The first ever call over a portable phone was made in 1973 in New York but it took 10 years for the first commercial mobile service to be launched.Mobile phones in the UK are celebrating their 20th anniversary this weekend.This was also despite the fact that the phones used analogue radio signals to communicate which made them very easy to eavesdrop on.The UK was not far behind the rest of the world in setting up networks in 1985 that let people make calls while they walked.Mike Caudwell, spokesman for Vodafone, said that when phones were launched they were the size of a briefcase, cost about £2,000 and had a battery life of little more than 20 minutes.In the 20 years since that day, mobile phones have become an integral part of modern life and now almost 90% of Britons own a handset.Now Vodafone has 14m customers in the UK alone."
"Blogs take on the mainstream

Web logs or blogs are everywhere, with at least an estimated five million on the web and that number is set to grow.

These online diaries come in many shapes and styles, ranging from people willing to sharing their views, pictures and links, to companies interested in another way of reaching their customers. But this year the focus has been on blogs which cast a critical eye over news events, often writing about issues ignored by the big media or offering an eye-witness account of events. Most blogs may have only a small readership, but communication experts say they have provided an avenue for people to have a say in the world of politics. The most well-known examples include Iraqi Salam Pax's accounts of the US-led war, former Iranian vice-president Mohammad Ali Abtahi exclusive insight into the Islamic Republic's government, and the highs and lows of the recent US election campaign. There are already websites pulling together these first-hand reporting accounts heralded by blogs, like wikinews.com, launched last November.

The blogging movement has been building up for many years.

Andrew Nachison, Director of the Media Center, a US-based think-tank that studies media, technology and society, highlights the US presidential race as a possible turning point for blogs. ""You could look at that as a moment when audiences exercised a new form of power, to choose among many more sources of information than they have never had before,"" he says. ""And blogs were a key part of that transformation."" Among them were blogs carrying picture messages, saying ""we are sorry"" for George W Bush's victory and the responses from his supporters. Mr Nachison argues blogs have become independent sources for images and ideas that circumvent traditional sources of news and information such as newspapers, TV and radio. ""We have to acknowledge that in all of these cases, mainstream media actually plays a role in the discussion and the distribution of these ideas,"" he told the BBC News website. ""But they followed the story, they didn't lead it.""

Some parts of the so-called traditional media have expressed concerns about this emerging competitor, raising questions about the journalistic value of blogs.

Others, like the French newspaper Le Monde, have applied a different strategy, offering blogs as part of its content. ""I don't think the mission and role of journalism is threatened. It is in transition, as society itself is in transition,"" says Mr Nachison. However, he agrees with other experts like the linguist and political analyst Noam Chomsky, that mainstream media has lost the traditional role of news gatekeeper. ""The one-to-many road of traditional journalism, yes, it is threatened. And professional journalists need to acclimate themselves to an environment in which there are many more contributors to the discourse,"" says Mr Nachison. ""The notion of a gatekeeper who filters and decides what's acceptable for public consumption and what isn't, that's gone forever."" ""With people now walking around with information devices in their pockets, like camera or video phones, we are going to see more instances of ordinary citizens breaking stories.""

It seems unlikely that we will end up living in a planet where every human is a blogger.

But the current number of blogs is likely to keep on growing, in a web already overloaded with information. Blog analysis firm Technorati estimates the number of blogs in existence, the so-called blogosphere, has already exceeded five million, and is growing at exponential levels. Tools such as Google's Blogger, MovableType and the recently launched beta version of MSN Spaces are making it easier to run a blog. US research think-tank Pew Internet & American Life says a blog is created every 5.8 seconds, although less than 40% of the total are updated at least once every two months. But experts agree that the phenomenon, allowing individuals to publish, share ideas, exchange information, comment on current issues, post images or video on the web easily, is here to stay. ""We are entering one era in which the technological infrastructure is creating a different context for how we tell our stories and how we communicate with each other,"" said Mr Nachison. ""And there's going to be bad that comes with the good.""
","Mr Nachison argues blogs have become independent sources for images and ideas that circumvent traditional sources of news and information such as newspapers, TV and radio.Blog analysis firm Technorati estimates the number of blogs in existence, the so-called blogosphere, has already exceeded five million, and is growing at exponential levels.But the current number of blogs is likely to keep on growing, in a web already overloaded with information.However, he agrees with other experts like the linguist and political analyst Noam Chomsky, that mainstream media has lost the traditional role of news gatekeeper.""And blogs were a key part of that transformation.""Most blogs may have only a small readership, but communication experts say they have provided an avenue for people to have a say in the world of politics.Others, like the French newspaper Le Monde, have applied a different strategy, offering blogs as part of its content.But this year the focus has been on blogs which cast a critical eye over news events, often writing about issues ignored by the big media or offering an eye-witness account of events.US research think-tank Pew Internet & American Life says a blog is created every 5.8 seconds, although less than 40% of the total are updated at least once every two months.Web logs or blogs are everywhere, with at least an estimated five million on the web and that number is set to grow.And professional journalists need to acclimate themselves to an environment in which there are many more contributors to the discourse,"" says Mr Nachison.It is in transition, as society itself is in transition,"" says Mr Nachison.Tools such as Google's Blogger, MovableType and the recently launched beta version of MSN Spaces are making it easier to run a blog."
"Honour for UK games maker

Leading British computer games maker Peter Molyneux has been made an OBE in the New Year Honours list.

The head of Surrey's Lionhead Studios was granted the honour for services to the computer games industry. Mr Molyneux has been behind many of the ground-breaking games of the last 15 years such as Populous, Theme Park, Dungeon Keeper and Black and White. He is widely credited with helping to create and popularise the so-called god-game genre.

Speaking to the BBC News website Mr Molyneux said receiving the honour was something of a surprise. It's come completely out of the blue,"" he said, ""I never would have guessed that I'd have that kind of honour."" He said he was surprised as much because, not too long ago, many people thought computer gaming was a fad.

""It was thought to be like skateboarding,"" he said, ""a craze that everyone thought would go away."" Now, he said, the gaming world rivals the movie industry for sales and cultural influence. ""Britain plays a big part in it,"" he said. ""It's one of the founding nations that made the industry what it is."" Mr Molyneux has been a pivotal figure in the computer games industry for almost 20 years. His career started at Bullfrog Studios which in 1987 produced Populous one of the first God-games. The title gave players control over the lives a small population of computerised people. Mr Molyneux said that his involvement with the games industry started almost by accident as back in the early days game making was more a hobby than a career. ""I thought everyone would treat Populous as weird,"" he said, ""but it became a huge international success."" He left Bullfrog in 1997 to set up Lionhead Studios which was behind the ambitous and widely acclaimed game Black & White. One of the next titles to come from Lionhead puts players in charge of a movie studio and tasks them with producing and directing a hit film. The veteran game maker says he has one problem still to solve. ""Being an absolute geek I've got no idea what I'm going to wear when I go and pick it up,"" he said.
","Mr Molyneux said that his involvement with the games industry started almost by accident as back in the early days game making was more a hobby than a career.The head of Surrey's Lionhead Studios was granted the honour for services to the computer games industry.Mr Molyneux has been a pivotal figure in the computer games industry for almost 20 years.He said he was surprised as much because, not too long ago, many people thought computer gaming was a fad.He left Bullfrog in 1997 to set up Lionhead Studios which was behind the ambitous and widely acclaimed game Black & White.Speaking to the BBC News website Mr Molyneux said receiving the honour was something of a surprise.""It was thought to be like skateboarding,"" he said, ""a craze that everyone thought would go away.""Mr Molyneux has been behind many of the ground-breaking games of the last 15 years such as Populous, Theme Park, Dungeon Keeper and Black and White."
"Bush website blocked outside US

Surfers outside the US have been unable to visit the official re-election site of President George W Bush.

The blocking of browsers sited outside the US began in the early hours of Monday morning. Since then people outside the US trying to browse the site get a message saying they are not authorised to view it. The blocking does not appear to be due to an attack by vandals or malicious hackers, but as a result of a policy decision by the Bush camp.

The international exclusion zone around georgewbush.com was spotted by net monitoring firm Netcraft which keeps an eye on traffic patterns across many different sites. Netcraft said that since the early hours of 25 October attempts to view the site through its monitoring stations in London, Amsterdam and Sydney failed.

By contrast Netcraft's four monitoring stations in the US managed to view the site with no problems. The site can still be seen using anonymous proxy services that are based in the US. Some web users in Canada also report that they can browse the site. The pattern of traffic to the website suggests that the blocking was not due to an attack by vandals or politically motivated hackers. Geographic blocking works because the numerical addresses that the net uses to organise itself are handed out on a regional basis. On 21 October, the George W Bush website began using the services of a company called Akamai to ensure that the pages, videos and other content on its site reaches visitors. Mike Prettejohn, president of Netcraft, speculated that the blocking decision might have been taken to cut costs, and traffic, in the run-up to the election on 2 November. He said the site may see no reason to distribute content to people who will not be voting next week. Managing traffic could also be a good way to ensure that the site stays working in the closing days of the election campaign. However, simply blocking non-US visitors also means that Americans overseas are barred too. Akamai declined to comment, saying it could not talk about customer websites.
","Since then people outside the US trying to browse the site get a message saying they are not authorised to view it.Surfers outside the US have been unable to visit the official re-election site of President George W Bush.By contrast Netcraft's four monitoring stations in the US managed to view the site with no problems.Netcraft said that since the early hours of 25 October attempts to view the site through its monitoring stations in London, Amsterdam and Sydney failed.On 21 October, the George W Bush website began using the services of a company called Akamai to ensure that the pages, videos and other content on its site reaches visitors.The site can still be seen using anonymous proxy services that are based in the US.The blocking of browsers sited outside the US began in the early hours of Monday morning."
"Blogger grounded by her airline

A US airline attendant is fighting for her job after she was suspended over postings on her blog, or online diary.

Queen of the Sky, otherwise known as Ellen Simonetti, evolved into an anonymous semi-fictional account of life in the sky. But after she posted pictures of herself in uniform, Delta Airlines suspended her indefinitely without pay. Ms Simonetti was told her suspension was a result of ""inappropriate"" images. Delta Airlines declined to comment.

""I was really shocked, I had no warning,"" Ms Simonetti told BBC News Online. ""I never thought I would get in trouble because of the blog. I thought if they had a problem, someone would have said something before taking action."" The issue has highlighted concerns amongst the growing blogging community about conflicts of interest, employment law and free speech on personal websites. Ms Simonetti was suspended on 25 September pending an investigation and has since lodged a complaint with the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). A spokesperson for Delta Airlines told BBC News Online: ""All I can tell you is we do not discuss internal employee issues with the media."" She added she could not say whether a similar situation over personal websites had occurred in the past.

Ms Simonetti started her personal blog in January to help her get over her mother's death. She had ensured she made no mention of which airline she worked for, and created fictional names for cities and companies. The airline's name was changed to Anonymous Airline and the city in which she was based was called Quirksville. A large part of the blog contained fictional stories because Queen of the Sky developed over the months as a character in her own right, according to Ms Simonetti.

The images were taken from a digital camera she had inherited from her mother. ""We often take pictures on flight or on layovers. I just though why not include them on my blog for fun. ""I never meant it as something to harm my company and don't understand how they think it did harm them,"" Ms Simonetti said. She has also claimed that pictures of male Delta Airline employees in uniform are freely available on the web. Of the 10 or so images on the site, only one showed Ms Simonetti's flight ""wings"". ""They did not tell me which pictures they had a problem with. I am just assuming it was the one of me posing on seats where my skirt rode up,"" she said. The images were removed as soon as she learned she had been suspended. As far as Ms Simonetti knows, there is no company anti-blogging policy. There is guidance which suggests the company uniform cannot be used without approval from management, but use in personal pictures on websites is unclear.

Jeffrey Matsuura, director of the law and technology programme at the University of Dayton, said personal websites can be hazardous for both employers and their employees. ""There are many examples of employees who have presented some kind of material online that have gotten them in trouble with employers,"" he said. It was crucial that any policy about what was and what was not acceptable was expressed clearly, was reasonable, and enforced fairly in company policy. ""You have to remember that as an employee, you don't have total free speech anymore,"" he said. Mr Matsuura added that some companies actively encouraged employees to blog. ""One of the areas where it does become a problem is that they encourage this when it suits them, but they may not be particularly clear when they [employees] do cross the line."" He speculated that Delta might be concerned that the fictional content on the blog may be linked back to the airline after the images of Ms Simonetti in uniform were posted. ""Whether or not that is successful will depend on what exactly is prohibited, and whether you can reasonably say this content now crosses that line,"" he said. Ms Simonetti said her suspension has caused two of her friends to discontinue their blogs. One of them was asked to stop blogging by his company before any action was taken. ""If they had asked me just take down the blog, I would have done it, but that was not been given to me as an option,"" she said. ""This blogging thing is obviously a new problem for employers and they need to get a policy about it. If I had known it would cost me my job, I would not have done that.""
","Ms Simonetti was told her suspension was a result of ""inappropriate"" images.""If they had asked me just take down the blog, I would have done it, but that was not been given to me as an option,"" she said.He speculated that Delta might be concerned that the fictional content on the blog may be linked back to the airline after the images of Ms Simonetti in uniform were posted.""I was really shocked, I had no warning,"" Ms Simonetti told BBC News Online.One of them was asked to stop blogging by his company before any action was taken.The airline's name was changed to Anonymous Airline and the city in which she was based was called Quirksville.It was crucial that any policy about what was and what was not acceptable was expressed clearly, was reasonable, and enforced fairly in company policy.Ms Simonetti started her personal blog in January to help her get over her mother's death.A US airline attendant is fighting for her job after she was suspended over postings on her blog, or online diary.Ms Simonetti was suspended on 25 September pending an investigation and has since lodged a complaint with the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).""I never meant it as something to harm my company and don't understand how they think it did harm them,"" Ms Simonetti said.Ms Simonetti said her suspension has caused two of her friends to discontinue their blogs.As far as Ms Simonetti knows, there is no company anti-blogging policy.I am just assuming it was the one of me posing on seats where my skirt rode up,"" she said.A large part of the blog contained fictional stories because Queen of the Sky developed over the months as a character in her own right, according to Ms Simonetti.But after she posted pictures of herself in uniform, Delta Airlines suspended her indefinitely without pay."
"Camera phones are 'must-haves'

Four times more mobiles with cameras in them will be sold in Europe by the end of 2004 than last year, says a report from analysts Gartner.

Globally, the number sold will reach 159 million, an increase of 104%. The report predicts that nearly 70% of all mobile phones sold will have a built-in camera by 2008. Improving imaging technology in mobiles is making them an increasingly ""must-have"" buy. In Europe, cameras on mobiles can take 1.3 megapixel images. But in Japan and Asia Pacific, where camera phone technology is much more advanced, mobiles have already been released which can take 3.2 megapixel images. Japan still dominates mobile phone technology, and the uptake there is huge. By 2008, according to Gartner, 95% of all mobiles sold there will have cameras on them.

Camera phones had some teething problems when they were first launched as people struggled with poor quality images and uses for them, as well as the complexity and expense of sending them via MMS (Multimedia Messaging Services). This has changed in the last 18 months. Handset makers have concentrated on trying to make phones easier to use. Realising that people like to use their camera phones in different ways, they have introduced more design features, like rotating screens and viewfinders, removable memory cards and easier controls to send picture messages.

Mobile companies have introduced more ways for people to share photos with other people. These have included giving people easier ways to publish them on websites, or mobile blogs - moblogs. But the report suggests that until image quality increases more, people will not be interested in printing out pictures at kiosks. Image sensor technology inside cameras phones is improving. The Gartner report suggests that by mid-2005, it is likely that the image resolution of most camera phones will be more than two megapixels. Consumer digital cameras images range from two to four megapixels in quality, and up to six megapixels on a high-end camera. But a lot of work is being done to make camera phones more like digital cameras. Some handsets already feature limited zoom capability, and manufacturers are looking into technological improvements that will let people take more photos in poorly-lit conditions, like nightclubs. Other developments include wide-angle modes, basic editing features, and better sensors and processors for recording film clips.

Images from camera phones have even made it into the art world. An exhibition next month in aid of the charity Mencap, will feature snaps taken from the camera phones of top artists.

The exhibition, Fonetography, will feature images taken by photographers David Bailey, Rankin and Nan Goldin, and artists Sir Peter Blake, Tracey Emin and Jack Vettriano. But some uses for them have worried many organisations. Intel, Samsung, the UK's Foreign Office and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories in the US, have decided to ban camera phones from their buildings for fear of sensitive information being snapped and leaked. Many schools, fitness centres and local councils have also banned them over fears about privacy and misuse. Italy's information commissioner has also voiced concern and has issued guidelines on where and how the phones can be used. But camera phone fears have not dampened the manufacturers' profits. According to recent figures, Sony Ericsson's profits tripled in the third-quarter because of new camera phones. Over 60% of mobiles sold during the three months through to September featured integrated cameras, it said.
","The report predicts that nearly 70% of all mobile phones sold will have a built-in camera by 2008.Image sensor technology inside cameras phones is improving.By 2008, according to Gartner, 95% of all mobiles sold there will have cameras on them.But in Japan and Asia Pacific, where camera phone technology is much more advanced, mobiles have already been released which can take 3.2 megapixel images.The Gartner report suggests that by mid-2005, it is likely that the image resolution of most camera phones will be more than two megapixels.But camera phone fears have not dampened the manufacturers' profits.In Europe, cameras on mobiles can take 1.3 megapixel images.Four times more mobiles with cameras in them will be sold in Europe by the end of 2004 than last year, says a report from analysts Gartner.Images from camera phones have even made it into the art world.But a lot of work is being done to make camera phones more like digital cameras.Camera phones had some teething problems when they were first launched as people struggled with poor quality images and uses for them, as well as the complexity and expense of sending them via MMS (Multimedia Messaging Services).Consumer digital cameras images range from two to four megapixels in quality, and up to six megapixels on a high-end camera.Realising that people like to use their camera phones in different ways, they have introduced more design features, like rotating screens and viewfinders, removable memory cards and easier controls to send picture messages."
"Games 'deserve a place in class'

Computer games could enhance learning and have a legitimate place in the classroom, say researchers.

Academics from the Institute of Education at London University found that ""games literacy"" was a key skill for youngsters. As well as being used in different areas of the curriculum, games are a legitimate area of study in their own right, researchers say. Pupils should also be able to create their own games, they say.

""Like all games, computer and video games entertain while promoting social development, and playing and talking about games is an important part of young people's lives,"" said project manager Caroline Pelletier.

""Games literacy is a way of investigating how games are means of expression and representation, just like writing or drawing,"" she said. The researchers conducted two studies into the impact of games on education, the first looking at how they can be used in different curriculum subjects to enhance learning. Researchers found that girls were often excluded from the male-dominated world of game playing. ""Without first-hand experience of how much fun a game can be, they have little motivation to play and remain disengaged from an engrossing and sociable activity,"" said research fellow Diane Carr.

The second project looked at how games can be integrated into media education and concluded that writing games should be a core part of studying them. Sixth-form teacher Barney Oram already teaches computer games alongside the more traditional study of film, TV and popular music at the A-level course he runs at Long Road Sixth Form College in Cambridge.

For parents, the idea that computer games could be brought into the classroom environment, could cause controversy. Dr Andrew Burn, associate director of the Institute of Education's Centre for the Study of Children, Youth and Media moved to reassure anxious parents. ""Games are a legitimate cultural form that deserve critical analysis in schools just as film, television and literature do,"" he said. ""But we also want to argue that full understanding only comes when children have the tools to create their own games."" The games industry welcomed the report, saying it showed how games had a positive impact on children. ""At a time of hysterical and inaccurate reporting it is heartening to see the cultural, social and educational value of computer and video games being assessed intelligently,"" said Roger Bennett, director general of the Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association. ""This report is further evidence, if it were needed, about the excellence and imagination that thrives in gaming. They have much to offer to the education of our children and they have much to offer as a career."" The three-year research project, which is being presented at a seminar on Tuesday in London, was partly funded by the Department of Trade and Industry.
","""Like all games, computer and video games entertain while promoting social development, and playing and talking about games is an important part of young people's lives,"" said project manager Caroline Pelletier.The games industry welcomed the report, saying it showed how games had a positive impact on children.Computer games could enhance learning and have a legitimate place in the classroom, say researchers.The second project looked at how games can be integrated into media education and concluded that writing games should be a core part of studying them.""Games literacy is a way of investigating how games are means of expression and representation, just like writing or drawing,"" she said.The researchers conducted two studies into the impact of games on education, the first looking at how they can be used in different curriculum subjects to enhance learning.As well as being used in different areas of the curriculum, games are a legitimate area of study in their own right, researchers say.For parents, the idea that computer games could be brought into the classroom environment, could cause controversy."
"Nuclear body seeks new tech

The computer systems used to monitor the world's nuclear power installations are so outdated that they are hampering the work of inspectors.

A spokesman for the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said its current technology could allow key information to be overlooked as it was more than 20 years old. Such systems are the only method of tracking nuclear material worldwide. The agency has appealed for more funds to update its hardware and software. ""A major overhaul of the system is needed to allow inspectors immediate, secure online access to information,"" said project manager Livio Costantini.

IAEA inspectors make around 3,000 visits a year to more than 900 nuclear facilities worldwide. They are there to verify official reports of activities in the plants, to carry out environmental checks, and also to look for any signs that nuclear material is being smuggled in or out of the facility.

The computer system inspectors currently use for comparing data from earlier visits, for instance, was built in the 1970s and largely paper based. An IAEA spokesman said this was extremely inefficient and makes searching for anomalies like searching for a needle in a haystack. The organisation is aiming to start a system upgrade in November, aiming to provide inspectors in the field with secure online access to previous inspection data, design blueprints of nuclear facilities, even satellite images of the plant. Where possible, it hopes to link the system with national records of the import and export of nuclear materials. Further analysis of these could help spot potential smuggling activities or illicit technology transfers between countries, according to a spokesman.

Computer specialist at the IAEA, Peter Smith, would like to be able to incorporate state of the art visualisation techniques, more familiar to video games players, into the inspector's toolkit. ""The commercials you now see have people are moving around in a virtual world,"" he said. ""If we could have that on our laptops, we could be walking through the plant seeing, on the laptop, how the plant should look. ""And if there's a door in the wall that is not on our laptop, then we have a problem."" The IAEA estimates the total cost of the four-year project to upgrade its technology will be $40m. So far it has only received $11m from the US and the UK. ""Failure to replace the hardware and software, and to integrate fully all the information system components will carry large risks,"" said an agency statement.
","A spokesman for the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said its current technology could allow key information to be overlooked as it was more than 20 years old.IAEA inspectors make around 3,000 visits a year to more than 900 nuclear facilities worldwide.Such systems are the only method of tracking nuclear material worldwide.""Failure to replace the hardware and software, and to integrate fully all the information system components will carry large risks,"" said an agency statement.""A major overhaul of the system is needed to allow inspectors immediate, secure online access to information,"" said project manager Livio Costantini.The organisation is aiming to start a system upgrade in November, aiming to provide inspectors in the field with secure online access to previous inspection data, design blueprints of nuclear facilities, even satellite images of the plant.The computer systems used to monitor the world's nuclear power installations are so outdated that they are hampering the work of inspectors.An IAEA spokesman said this was extremely inefficient and makes searching for anomalies like searching for a needle in a haystack."
"Web logs aid disaster recovery

Some of the most vivid descriptions of the devastation in southern Asia are on the internet - in the form of web logs or blogs.

Bloggers have been offering snapshots of information from around the region and are also providing some useful information for those who want to help. Indian writer Rohit Gupta edits a group blog called Dogs without Borders. When he created it, the site was supposed to be a forum to discuss relations between India and Pakistan. But in the wake of Sunday's tsunami, Mr Gupta and his fellow bloggers switched gears.

They wanted to blog the tsunami and its aftermath. One Sri Lankan blogger in the group goes by the online name Morquendi. With internet service disrupted by the tsunami, Morquendi started sending SMS text messages via cell phone from the affected areas of Sri Lanka. ""We started publishing these SMSes,"" says Mr Gupta.

""Morquendi was describing scenes like 1,600 bodies washed up on a shore, and people burying, and burying and burying them. People digging holes with their hands. And this was coming through an SMS message. ""We didn't have visual accounts on radio or on TV, or in the print media."" Soon, thousands of web users around the world were logging on to read Morquendi's first hand accounts. In one message, Morquendi wrote about a Sri Lankan woman who was running home with a friend when the wave hit. ""She was being swept away,"" Morquendi's message read. ""She grabbed a tree with one hand and her friend with the other. She says she watched the water pull her friend away."" Mr Gupta says the power of Morquendi's text message blogs was palpable. ""He was running around, looking for friends, burying bodies, carrying bodies,"" Mr Gupta says of Morquendi. ""I can't even begin to imagine the psychological state he was in when he was sending us reports, and doing the relief work at the same time. ""He was caught between being a journalist and being a human being.""

Others blogs are helping to spread information about relief efforts. Dina Mehta is an Indian blogger who's helping with the newly created South East Asia Earthquake and Tsunami Blog. She says the blog is not meant to be filled with first person accounts. ""What we're doing is we're building a resource,"" she says. ""Anyone who says, OK, I want to come and do some work in India, volunteer in India, or in Sri Lanka or Malaysia, this is the sort of one-stop-shop that they can come to for all sorts of resources - emergency help lines, relief agencies, aid agencies, contacts for them etc.""

Ms Mehta also says she wishes that governments in the region would realise the power of blogs. ""Imagine if they had this resource available to them, if there was a disaster, how quickly you could funnel aid in, and get people to help,"" she says. Bloggers in the United States are also getting involved. Ramdhan Yadav Kotamaraja is originally from India, but now lives in Dallas. Mr Kotamaraja wanted to help those affected by the tsunami by pooling money with concerned friends. So, he set up an online payment system on his website. Then, says Mr Kotamaraja, the blogging world found out. ""All my blogger friends started linking up my site, and I saw a lot of people other than my friends. I'd say 70% of the donations came from people I don't know. ""It's simply unbelievable to me, that people that I don't know will come and start donating."" News spreads quickly on weblogs, a phenomenon that helps bloggers expand their audience and scope. In Sri Lanka, blogger Morquendi is recruiting others to help. One recruit calls himself Heretic. In one of his latest posts, Heretic asks: ""Have you ever seen fishing trawlers on the road? Ever seen a bus inside a house? ""Well,"" Heretic writes, ""that was just the least affected areas - so you can just imagine - or can you?"" He concludes: ""Keep it blogged.""

Clark Boyd is technology correspondent for The World, a BBC World Service and WGBH-Boston co-production.
","Mr Gupta says the power of Morquendi's text message blogs was palpable.""He was running around, looking for friends, burying bodies, carrying bodies,"" Mr Gupta says of Morquendi.In one message, Morquendi wrote about a Sri Lankan woman who was running home with a friend when the wave hit.""Imagine if they had this resource available to them, if there was a disaster, how quickly you could funnel aid in, and get people to help,"" she says.One Sri Lankan blogger in the group goes by the online name Morquendi.Then, says Mr Kotamaraja, the blogging world found out.""She was being swept away,"" Morquendi's message read.In Sri Lanka, blogger Morquendi is recruiting others to help.""We started publishing these SMSes,"" says Mr Gupta.With internet service disrupted by the tsunami, Morquendi started sending SMS text messages via cell phone from the affected areas of Sri Lanka.And this was coming through an SMS message.Mr Kotamaraja wanted to help those affected by the tsunami by pooling money with concerned friends.""All my blogger friends started linking up my site, and I saw a lot of people other than my friends.""I can't even begin to imagine the psychological state he was in when he was sending us reports, and doing the relief work at the same time.""Well,"" Heretic writes, ""that was just the least affected areas - so you can just imagine - or can you?""But in the wake of Sunday's tsunami, Mr Gupta and his fellow bloggers switched gears.I'd say 70% of the donations came from people I don't know.She says the blog is not meant to be filled with first person accounts."
"Pandas benefit from wireless net

The world's dwindling panda population is getting a helping hand from a wireless internet network.

The Wolong Nature Reserve in the Sichuan Province of southwest China is home to 20% of the remaining 1,500 giant pandas in the world. A broadband and wireless network installed on the reserve has allowed staff to chronicle the pandas' daily activities. The data and images can be shared with colleagues around the world. The reserve conducts vital research on both panda breeding and bamboo ecology.

Using the network, vets have been able to observe how infant pandas feed and suggest changes to improve the tiny cubs' chances of survival.

""Digital technology has transformed the way we communicate and share information inside Wolong and with the rest of the world,"" said Zhang Hemin, director of the Wolong Nature Reserve. ""Our researchers now have state-of-the-art digital technology to help foster the panda population and manage our precious surroundings."" The network has been developed by Intel, working closely with the staff at Wolong. It includes a 802.11b wireless network and a video monitoring system using five cameras to observe pandas around the clock.

Before the new infrastructure arrived at the panda park, staff walked or drove to deliver floppy disks across the reserve. Infant panda health was recorded on paper notebooks and research teams in the field had little access to the data. To foster cultural links across the globe, a children's learning lab has been incorporated in the network, in collaboration with Globio (Federation for Global Biodiversity Education for Children), an international non-profit organisation. It will enable children at local primary schools to hook up with their peers in Portland, Oregon in the US. ""Digital technology brings this story to life by enabling a global dialogue to help bridge cultures around the world,"" said Globio founder Gerry Ellis.
","The Wolong Nature Reserve in the Sichuan Province of southwest China is home to 20% of the remaining 1,500 giant pandas in the world.It includes a 802.11b wireless network and a video monitoring system using five cameras to observe pandas around the clock.The world's dwindling panda population is getting a helping hand from a wireless internet network.A broadband and wireless network installed on the reserve has allowed staff to chronicle the pandas' daily activities.""Digital technology has transformed the way we communicate and share information inside Wolong and with the rest of the world,"" said Zhang Hemin, director of the Wolong Nature Reserve.The network has been developed by Intel, working closely with the staff at Wolong."
"Search wars hit desktop PCs

Another front in the on-going battle between Microsoft and Google is about to be opened.

By the end of 2004 Microsoft aims to launch search software to find any kind of file on a PC hard drive. The move is in answer to Google's release of its own search tool that catalogues data on desktop PCs. The desktop search market is becoming increasingly crowded as Google, AOL, Yahoo and many smaller firms tout programs that help people find files.

Microsoft made the announcement about its forthcoming search software during a call to financial analysts to talk about its first quarter results. John Connors, Microsoft's chief financial officer said a test version of its desktop search software should be available for download by the end of the year.

""We're going to have a heck of a great race in search between Google, Microsoft and Yahoo,"" he said. ""It's going to be really fun to follow."" Microsoft is coming late to the desktop search arena and its software will have to compare favourably with programs from a large number of rivals, many of which have fiercely dedicated populations of users. The program could be based on the software Microsoft owns as a result of its purchase of Lookout Software in early October. On 14 October Google released desktop search software that catalogues all the files on a PC and lets users use one tool to find e-mail messages, spreadsheets, text files and presentations. The software will also find webpages and messages sent via AOL Instant Messenger.

Many other firms have released desktop search systems recently too. Companies such as Blinkx, Copernic, Enfish X1 Technologies and X-Friend all do the same job of cataloguing the huge amounts of information that people increasingly store on their desktop or home computer.

Apple has also debuted a similar search system for its computers called Spotlight that is due to debut with the release of the Tiger operating system. Due to follow are net giants AOL and Yahoo. The latter recently bought Stata Labs to get its hands on search software that people can use. Microsoft is also reputedly working on a novel search system for the next version of Windows (codenamed Longhorn). However this is not likely to appear until 2006. ""The recent activity in the search industry shows that there is a need to move beyond simple keyword-based web search,"" said Kathy Rittweger, co-founder of Blinkx. ""Finding information of our own computers is becoming as difficult as it is to find the relevant webpage amongst the billions that exist.""

Desktop search has become important for several reasons. According to research by message analysts the Radicati Group up to 45% of the information critical to keeping many businesses running sits in e-mail messages and attachments. JF Sullivan, spokesman for e-mail software firm Sendmail said many organisations were starting to realise how important messaging was to their organisation and the way the work. ""The key thing is being able to manage all this information,"" he said. Also search is increasingly key to the way that people get around the internet. Many people use a search engine as the first page they go to when getting on the net. Many others use desktop toolbars that let them search for information no matter what other program they are using. Having a tool on a desktop can be a lucrative way to control where people go online. For companies such as Google which relies on revenue from adverts this knowledge about what people are looking for is worth huge amounts of money. But this invasiveness has already led some to ask about the privacy implications of such tools.
","The desktop search market is becoming increasingly crowded as Google, AOL, Yahoo and many smaller firms tout programs that help people find files.Many other firms have released desktop search systems recently too.Many others use desktop toolbars that let them search for information no matter what other program they are using.""We're going to have a heck of a great race in search between Google, Microsoft and Yahoo,"" he said.On 14 October Google released desktop search software that catalogues all the files on a PC and lets users use one tool to find e-mail messages, spreadsheets, text files and presentations.Microsoft is coming late to the desktop search arena and its software will have to compare favourably with programs from a large number of rivals, many of which have fiercely dedicated populations of users.Many people use a search engine as the first page they go to when getting on the net.Desktop search has become important for several reasons.By the end of 2004 Microsoft aims to launch search software to find any kind of file on a PC hard drive.The latter recently bought Stata Labs to get its hands on search software that people can use.Also search is increasingly key to the way that people get around the internet.John Connors, Microsoft's chief financial officer said a test version of its desktop search software should be available for download by the end of the year.Microsoft made the announcement about its forthcoming search software during a call to financial analysts to talk about its first quarter results."
"Home phones face unclear future

The fixed line phone in your home could soon be an endangered species.

Research by handset maker Nokia shows that more and more people are using their mobile phone for every call they make or take. According to the study, more than 45 million people in the UK, Germany, US and South Korea now only use a mobile. It showed that people keep their fixed line phone because call charges are lower, but most of those questioned said the future was definitely mobile.

The Nokia-sponsored research showed that mobiles and fixed phones were used for different purposes. Home phones were used for longer calls but conversations on mobiles tended to be shorter, between mobiles and to friends. In the UK 69% of those questioned said they turned to their fixed phone because it was still cheaper to use than a mobile. However, when pressed few could say with accuracy how tariffs on fixed and mobile phones compared. In the US and Germany many of those interviewed said they used the fixed phone because it was more reliable than a mobile handset and let them get access to the net at relatively high speeds. In all the countries where interviews were carried out, older people were more likely to use a fixed line phone more than a mobile. Women aged 50 or above almost never use a mobile phone, the research found.

The move to mobile was most pronounced in South Korea where 65% of those questioned said they already make most of their calls from a mobile. 18% said they would not get a landline if they moved house.

Many of those questioned said they had an emotional connection to their fixed phone that drew on its position in the home and the ""cosiness"" of making a call there. Nokia said these findings had implications for mobile operators who must work hard to ensure that mobiles are seen as cheap, reliable and providing good call quality. The survey also showed that it is not just voice calls that are going wireless. Some of those questioned said they were looking to use a mobile or wireless service to get net access within the next couple of years. Polling firm Mori interviewed more than 6,000 people in the UK, US, Germany and South Korea for the survey.
","It showed that people keep their fixed line phone because call charges are lower, but most of those questioned said the future was definitely mobile.In the UK 69% of those questioned said they turned to their fixed phone because it was still cheaper to use than a mobile.The move to mobile was most pronounced in South Korea where 65% of those questioned said they already make most of their calls from a mobile.In the US and Germany many of those interviewed said they used the fixed phone because it was more reliable than a mobile handset and let them get access to the net at relatively high speeds.Home phones were used for longer calls but conversations on mobiles tended to be shorter, between mobiles and to friends.In all the countries where interviews were carried out, older people were more likely to use a fixed line phone more than a mobile.The Nokia-sponsored research showed that mobiles and fixed phones were used for different purposes.Research by handset maker Nokia shows that more and more people are using their mobile phone for every call they make or take."
"Podcasts mark rise of DIY radio

An Apple iPod or other digital music players can hold anything up to 10,000 songs, which is a lot of space to fill.

But more and more iPod owners are filling that space with audio content created by an unpredictable assortment of producers. It is called ""podcasting"" and its strongest proponent is former MTV host and VJ (video jockey) Adam Curry. Podcasting takes its name from the Apple iPod, although you do not need an iPod to create one or to listen to a podcast. A podcast is basically an internet-based radio show which podcasters create, usually in the comfort of their own home. They need only a microphone, a PC, and some editing software. They then upload their shows to the internet and others can download and listen to them, all for free. Using technology based on XML computer code and RSS - Really Simple Syndication - listeners can subscribe to podcasts collected automatically in a bit of software, which Mr Curry has pioneered. The latest MP3 files of shows can then be picked up by a music playing device automatically.

Mr Curry records, hosts, edits and produce a daily, 40 minute podcast called The Daily Source Code. He wants to make podcasting ""the Next Big Thing"" and says it is an extension of his childhood love of radio gadgetry. ""I was always into technologies and wires,"" he explains. ""My parents gave me the Radio Shack 101 project kit, which allows you to build an AM transmitter and subsequently an FM transmitter. ""I had my mom drive me around the block, see how far it would reach on the car radio.""

Mr Curry is American, but he grew up in the Netherlands where he hosted illegal, pirate radio shows in the Dutch capital. He tried university in the US, and ended up back in Holland where he hosted a music video show. He spent the next seven years in New York where he worked at MTV hosting the Top 20 Video Countdown, but spent most of his hours tinkering with this new thing called the internet. ""At a certain point in 1995, I was driving in on a Friday afternoon, beautiful blue sky, one of those beautiful days thinking, this is so stupid. ""You know, I'm going do the Top 20 Countdown, take the cheque, go home, and sit on the internet until three in the morning. ""So, after I finished the show, I quit. I said, on air, it's been great, I've been here for seven years at that point, there's something on the internet, I've got to go find it, and I'll see you later.""

But Mr Curry's technology and broadcast interests started to gel a couple of years ago when computer storage was growing exponentially and high-speed internet connections were becoming more widely available. The MP3 format also meant that people could create and upload audio more cheaply and efficiently than ever before.

Most importantly, Mr Curry says, people across the globe were bored with the radio they were hearing. ""Listen to 99% of the radio that you hear today, it's radio voices, and it's fake, it's just fake."" He wanted to make it easier for people to find ""real voices"" on the internet. He wanted software that would automatically download new audio content directly onto players like, iPods. Mr Curry is not a computer programmer, so he asked others to create one for him. No one did, so he tried to write one himself. He finished it a few months ago and says it ""totally sucked."" He put it up on the net as open source software and now dozens of coders and audio junkies are refining it; the result is a work in progress called ""ipodder"". Doug Kaye, a California-based podcaster, praises the former MTV VJ for what he has done. ""Adam created a simple script that solved what we call the last mile problem. Ipodder takes audio from the web and brings it all the way down to the MP3 player,"" he explains. ""People can wake up in the morning, pick up their iPods as they go to work or before they go exercise, and discover that there's all this new content automatically put onto their players."" It is created an explosion in podcasting content and podcasters are springing up in Australia, Finland, Brazil, even Malaysia. One couple broadcasts theirs, The Dawn and Drew Show, from Wisconsin in the US, sometimes even from the comfort of their own bed. Topics range from the comfort of their bed, to the latest films or music and have thousands of listeners.

Already, websites are springing up that point listeners in the right direction of good podcasts.

Chris McIntyre runs Podcast Alley and says that there are good sites out there but that not everyone has the technological know-how to simply listen. ""If I were to tell my mom, or my mother-in-law to copy an XML or RSS file to their podcast aggregator, they would think I was speaking a foreign language,"" Mr McIntyre says. Along with technical challenges, there may be legal challenges to podcasters who air their favourite, albeit copyrighted, music. Some in podcasting also worry that too much attention may turn what they see as the ""anti-radio"" into something that is more like conventional broadcasting. Already there is interest in podcasting from the corporate world. Heineken is doing its own podcast now, and so is Playboy. For his part, Adam Curry's pressing ahead with his own vision of what podcasting should be. He loves doing The Daily Source Code because it is about introducing good music and cool ideas to new audiences. He has even been called the Ed Sullivan or Johnny Carson of podcasting which, he says, ""is a badge I'll wear with great honour. ""To be the Johnny Carson, or Ed Sullivan of anything is wonderful. And you know what? You don't need a hell of a lot of talent. ""You just have to be nice, have your ears open, and let people shine. And that's good for me.""

Clark Boyd is technology correspondent for The World, a BBC World Service and WGBH-Boston co-production.
","Podcasting takes its name from the Apple iPod, although you do not need an iPod to create one or to listen to a podcast.A podcast is basically an internet-based radio show which podcasters create, usually in the comfort of their own home.Most importantly, Mr Curry says, people across the globe were bored with the radio they were hearing.Mr Curry is American, but he grew up in the Netherlands where he hosted illegal, pirate radio shows in the Dutch capital.Mr Curry is not a computer programmer, so he asked others to create one for him.Using technology based on XML computer code and RSS - Really Simple Syndication - listeners can subscribe to podcasts collected automatically in a bit of software, which Mr Curry has pioneered.It is called ""podcasting"" and its strongest proponent is former MTV host and VJ (video jockey) Adam Curry.He wanted software that would automatically download new audio content directly onto players like, iPods.He has even been called the Ed Sullivan or Johnny Carson of podcasting which, he says, ""is a badge I'll wear with great honour.They then upload their shows to the internet and others can download and listen to them, all for free.Mr Curry records, hosts, edits and produce a daily, 40 minute podcast called The Daily Source Code.The latest MP3 files of shows can then be picked up by a music playing device automatically.He wants to make podcasting ""the Next Big Thing"" and says it is an extension of his childhood love of radio gadgetry.But Mr Curry's technology and broadcast interests started to gel a couple of years ago when computer storage was growing exponentially and high-speed internet connections were becoming more widely available.One couple broadcasts theirs, The Dawn and Drew Show, from Wisconsin in the US, sometimes even from the comfort of their own bed.He loves doing The Daily Source Code because it is about introducing good music and cool ideas to new audiences.He tried university in the US, and ended up back in Holland where he hosted a music video show.It is created an explosion in podcasting content and podcasters are springing up in Australia, Finland, Brazil, even Malaysia.""If I were to tell my mom, or my mother-in-law to copy an XML or RSS file to their podcast aggregator, they would think I was speaking a foreign language,"" Mr McIntyre says.Chris McIntyre runs Podcast Alley and says that there are good sites out there but that not everyone has the technological know-how to simply listen.""People can wake up in the morning, pick up their iPods as they go to work or before they go exercise, and discover that there's all this new content automatically put onto their players.""Already there is interest in podcasting from the corporate world."
"Sony wares win innovation award

Sony has taken the prize for top innovator at the annual awards of PC Pro Magazine.

It won the award for taking risks with products and for its ""brave"" commitment to good design. Conferring the award, PC Pro's staff picked out Sony's PCG-X505/P Vaio laptop as a ""stunning piece of engineering"". The electronics giant beat off strong competition from Toshiba and chip makers AMD and Intel to take the gong.

Paul Trotter, news and features editor of PC Pro, said several Sony products helped it to take the innovation award.

He said Sony's Clie PEG UX50 media player with its swivel screen and qwerty keyboard ""broke the design rules yet again"". Other Sony products that helped included the Vaio W1 desktop computer and the RA-104 media server. Mr Trotter said Sony's combining of computer, screen and keyboard in the W1 was likely to be widely copied in future home PCs. The company has also become one of the first to use organic LEDs in its products. ""While not always inventing new technology itself, Sony was never afraid to innovate around various formats,"" said Mr Trotter.

Other awards decided by PC Pro's staff and contributors included one for Canon's EOS 300D digital camera in the Most Wanted Hardware category.

Microsoft's Media Player 10 took the award for Most Wanted Software. This year was the 10th anniversary of the PC Pro awards, which splits its prizes into two sections. The first are chosen by the magazine's writers and consultants, the second are voted for by readers. Mr Trotter said more than 13,000 people voted for the Reliability and Service Awards, twice as many as in 2003. Net-based memory and video card shop Crucial shared the award for Online Vendor of the year with Novatech.
","Paul Trotter, news and features editor of PC Pro, said several Sony products helped it to take the innovation award.Sony has taken the prize for top innovator at the annual awards of PC Pro Magazine.Other awards decided by PC Pro's staff and contributors included one for Canon's EOS 300D digital camera in the Most Wanted Hardware category.Mr Trotter said Sony's combining of computer, screen and keyboard in the W1 was likely to be widely copied in future home PCs.Conferring the award, PC Pro's staff picked out Sony's PCG-X505/P Vaio laptop as a ""stunning piece of engineering"".Mr Trotter said more than 13,000 people voted for the Reliability and Service Awards, twice as many as in 2003.""While not always inventing new technology itself, Sony was never afraid to innovate around various formats,"" said Mr Trotter."
"Portable PlayStation ready to go

Sony's PlayStation Portable (PSP) will go on sale in Japan on 12 December.

The long-awaited handheld game playing gadget will cost about 19,800 yen (145 euros) when it hits the shelves. At launch 21 games will be available for the PSP, including Need for Speed, Ridge Racer, Metal Gear Acid and Vampire Chronicle. Sony has not yet announced when the PSP will be available in Europe and the US, but analysts expect it to debut in those territories in early 2005.

Fifa 2005 is back at the top of the UK games charts, a week after losing it to rival Pro Evolution Soccer 4. Konami's Pro Evo dropped only one place to two, while the only new entry in the top 10 was another football title, LMA Manager 2005, in at number seven. Tony Hawk's Underground 2 held its own at three, while Star Wars Battlefront inched up to four places to four. There was good news for Disney, with the spin-off from the Shark's Tale film moving up the charts into number eight.

Fans of the Gran Turismo series in Europe are going to have to wait until next year for the latest version. Sony has said that the PAL version of GT4 will not be ready for Christmas. ""The product is localised into 13 different languages across the PAL territories, therefore the process takes considerably longer than it does in Japan,"" it said. Gran Turismo 4 for the PlayStation 2 is still expected to be released in Japan and the USA this year.

Halo 2 has broken video game records, with pre-orders of more than 1.5 million in the US alone. Some 6,500 US stores plan to open just after midnight on Tuesday 9 November for the game's release. ""Halo 2 is projected to bring in more revenue than any day one box office blockbuster movie in the United States,"" said Xbox's Peter Moore. ""We've even heard rumours of fan anticipation of the 'Halo 2 flu' on 9 November.""
","Halo 2 has broken video game records, with pre-orders of more than 1.5 million in the US alone.Sony has not yet announced when the PSP will be available in Europe and the US, but analysts expect it to debut in those territories in early 2005.Sony has said that the PAL version of GT4 will not be ready for Christmas.Konami's Pro Evo dropped only one place to two, while the only new entry in the top 10 was another football title, LMA Manager 2005, in at number seven.Gran Turismo 4 for the PlayStation 2 is still expected to be released in Japan and the USA this year.At launch 21 games will be available for the PSP, including Need for Speed, Ridge Racer, Metal Gear Acid and Vampire Chronicle.Sony's PlayStation Portable (PSP) will go on sale in Japan on 12 December."
"Viewers to be able to shape TV

Imagine editing Titanic down to watch just your favourite bits or cutting out the slushier moments of Star Wars to leave you with a bare bones action-fest.

Manipulating your favourite films to make a more personalised movie is just the beginning of an ambitious new 7.5m euro (£5.1m) project funded by the European Union. New Media for a New Millennium (NM2) will have as its endgame the development of a completely new media genre, which will allow audiences to create their own media worlds based on their specific interests or tastes. Viewers will be able to participate in storylines, manipulate plots and even the sets and props of TV shows. BT is one of 13 partners involved in the project. It will be contributing software that was originally designed to spot anomalies in CCTV pictures. The software uses content recognition algorithms. The three-year project will work on seven productions as it develops a set of software tools that will allow viewers to edit content to their needs.

One of the productions will be a experimental television show where the plot will be driven by text messages from the TV audience.

Participants will text selected words which will impact how the characters in the drama interact. It is being developed in Finland and will be shown to Finnish TV audiences. Another team will work on the BBC's big budget drama of Mervyn Peake's gothic fantasy Gormenghast. It will be re-engineered to allow people to choose a variety of edited versions. ""The BBC is allowing us access to the material so that we can prove the technology and the principles,"" explained Dr Doug Williams of BT, who will be NM2's technical project manager. ""The TV at the moment is a relatively dumb box which receives signals. This project is about teaching the machine to look at content like Lego blocks that can be reassembled to make perfect sense,"" he said. ""At the moment we have interactive gaming and a limited form of interactive TV which usually means allowing audiences to vote on shows. We are hoping to occupy the space in-between,"" he added.

NM2's co-ordinator Peter Stollenmayer explained that the new genre would radically alter the role of the audience.

""Viewers will be able to interact directly with the medium and influence what they see and hear according to their personal tastes and wishes,"" he said. ""Media users will no longer be passive viewers but become active engagers."" It will also be important that the tools are sophisticated enough to obey the complex rules of cinematography and editing said John Wyver, from TV producer Illuminations Television Limited, which is also involved in the project. ""It's not just a matter of stringing together the romantic or action portions of a production,"" said Mr Wyver. ""The tool has to know which bits fit together both visually, by observing the time-honoured rules that go in editing, and in terms of the story."" ""Only then will the personalised version both make sense and be aesthetically pleasing,"" he added. Mr Wyver is planning a production entitled The Golden Age, about Renaissance art. It will allow viewers to create a so-called media world based on their own specific areas of interest such as poetry, music and architecture. Other productions that the NM2 team will make range from news, documentaries to a romantic comedy drama.
","The three-year project will work on seven productions as it develops a set of software tools that will allow viewers to edit content to their needs.It will also be important that the tools are sophisticated enough to obey the complex rules of cinematography and editing said John Wyver, from TV producer Illuminations Television Limited, which is also involved in the project.One of the productions will be a experimental television show where the plot will be driven by text messages from the TV audience.New Media for a New Millennium (NM2) will have as its endgame the development of a completely new media genre, which will allow audiences to create their own media worlds based on their specific interests or tastes.This project is about teaching the machine to look at content like Lego blocks that can be reassembled to make perfect sense,"" he said.Other productions that the NM2 team will make range from news, documentaries to a romantic comedy drama.""It's not just a matter of stringing together the romantic or action portions of a production,"" said Mr Wyver.Manipulating your favourite films to make a more personalised movie is just the beginning of an ambitious new 7.5m euro (£5.1m) project funded by the European Union.""At the moment we have interactive gaming and a limited form of interactive TV which usually means allowing audiences to vote on shows.It will allow viewers to create a so-called media world based on their own specific areas of interest such as poetry, music and architecture.BT is one of 13 partners involved in the project.Viewers will be able to participate in storylines, manipulate plots and even the sets and props of TV shows."
"Games maker fights for survival

One of Britain's largest independent game makers, Argonaut Games, has been put up for sale.

The London-based company behind the Harry Potter games has sacked about 100 employees due to a severe cash crisis. The administrators told BBC News Online that selling Argonaut was the only way to save it as it had run out of cash. Argonaut warned that it was low on cash 10 days ago when its shares were suspended from trading on the London Stock Exchange.

Argonaut has been making games for some 18 years and is one the largest independent games developers in the UK.

Along with its headquarters in north London, it operates studios in Cambridge and Sheffield. Argonaut was behind the Harry Potter games which provided a healthy flow of cash into the company. But, like all software developers, Argonaut needed a constant flow of deals with publishers. Signs that it was in trouble emerged in August, when it warned it was heading for losses of £6m in the financial year due to delays in signing new contracts for games. Those new deals were further delayed, leading Argonaut to warn in mid-October that it was running out of cash and suspend trading of its shares on the London Stock Exchange. As part of cost-cutting measures, some 100 employees were fired. ""When the news about the £6m loss came out, we knew there were going to be redundancies,"" said Jason Parkinson, one of the game developers sacked by Argonaut. ""A lot of people suspected that Argonaut had been in trouble for some time,"" he told BBC News Online. Mr Parkinson said staff were told the job losses were necessary to save Argonaut from going under. At the start of the year, the company employed 268 people. After the latest round of cuts there are 80 staff at Argonaut headquarters in Edgware in north London, with 17 at its Morpheme offices in Kentish Town, London, and 22 at the Just Add Monsters base in Cambridge.

Argonaut called in administrators David Rubin & Partners on Friday to find a way to rescue the company from collapse. It spent the weekend going over the company's finances and concluded that the only way to save the business was to put it up for sale. The administrator told BBC News Online that the costs of restructuing would be too high, partly because of the overheads from the company's four premises across the UK. It said it was hopeful that it could save some 110 jobs by selling the business, saying it had had expressions of interest from several quarters and were looking for a quick sale. The administrator said it would ensure that staff made redundant would receive any wages, redundancy or holiday pay due to them, hopefully by Christmas.
","The administrators told BBC News Online that selling Argonaut was the only way to save it as it had run out of cash.Argonaut was behind the Harry Potter games which provided a healthy flow of cash into the company.Argonaut warned that it was low on cash 10 days ago when its shares were suspended from trading on the London Stock Exchange.""When the news about the £6m loss came out, we knew there were going to be redundancies,"" said Jason Parkinson, one of the game developers sacked by Argonaut.Argonaut has been making games for some 18 years and is one the largest independent games developers in the UK.Mr Parkinson said staff were told the job losses were necessary to save Argonaut from going under.Those new deals were further delayed, leading Argonaut to warn in mid-October that it was running out of cash and suspend trading of its shares on the London Stock Exchange.One of Britain's largest independent game makers, Argonaut Games, has been put up for sale.""A lot of people suspected that Argonaut had been in trouble for some time,"" he told BBC News Online."
"Pompeii gets digital make-over

The old-fashioned audio tour of historical places could soon be replaced with computer-generated images that bring the site to life.

A European Union-funded project is looking at providing tourists with computer-augmented versions of archaeological attractions. It would allow visitors a glimpse of life as it was originally lived in places such as Pompeii. It could pave the way for a new form of cultural tourism.

The technology would allow digital people and other computer-generated elements to be combined with the actual view seen by tourists as they walk around an historical site.

The Lifeplus project is part of the EU's Information Society Technologies initiative aimed at promoting user-friendly technology and enhancing European cultural heritage. Engineers and researchers working in the Europe-wide consortium have come up with a prototype augmented-reality system. It would require the visitor to wear a head-mounted display with a miniature camera and a backpack computer. The camera captures the view and feeds it to software on the computer where the visitor's viewpoint is combined with animated virtual elements. At Pompeii for example, the visitor would not just see the frescos, taverns and villas that have been excavated, but also people going about their daily life. Augmented reality has been used to create special effects in films such as Troy and Lord of the Rings and in computer gaming.

""This technology can now be used for much more than just computer games,"" said Professor Nadia Magnenat-Thalman of the Swiss research group MiraLab.

""We are, for the first time, able to run this combination of software processes to create walking, talking people with believable clothing, skin and hair in real-time,"" she said. Unlike virtual reality, which delivers an entirely computer-generated scene to the viewer, the Lifeplus project is about combining digital and real views. Crucial to the technique is the software that interprets the visitor's view and provides an accurate match between the real and virtual elements. The software capable of doing this has been developed by a UK company, 2d3. Andrew Stoddart, chief scientist at 2d3, said that the EU project has been driven by a new desire to bring the past to life. ""The popularity of television documentaries and dramatisations using computer-generated imagery to recreate scenes from ancient history demonstrates the widespread appeal of bringing ancient cultures to life,"" he said.
","The technology would allow digital people and other computer-generated elements to be combined with the actual view seen by tourists as they walk around an historical site.The camera captures the view and feeds it to software on the computer where the visitor's viewpoint is combined with animated virtual elements.Andrew Stoddart, chief scientist at 2d3, said that the EU project has been driven by a new desire to bring the past to life.It would allow visitors a glimpse of life as it was originally lived in places such as Pompeii.Unlike virtual reality, which delivers an entirely computer-generated scene to the viewer, the Lifeplus project is about combining digital and real views.The old-fashioned audio tour of historical places could soon be replaced with computer-generated images that bring the site to life.At Pompeii for example, the visitor would not just see the frescos, taverns and villas that have been excavated, but also people going about their daily life.Crucial to the technique is the software that interprets the visitor's view and provides an accurate match between the real and virtual elements."
"Fast moving phone bugs appear

Security firms are warning about several mobile phone viruses that can spread much faster than similar bugs.

The new strains of the Cabir mobile phone virus use short-range radio technology to leap to any vulnerable phone as soon as it is in range. The Cabir virus only affects high-end handsets running the Symbian Series 60 phone operating system. Despite the warnings, there are so far no reports of any phones being infected by the new variants of Cabir.

The original Cabir worm came to light in mid-June 2004 when it was sent to anti-virus firms as a proof-of-concept program. A mistake in the way the original Cabir was written meant that even if it escaped from the laboratory, the bug would only have been able to infect one phone at a time.

However, the new Cabir strains have this mistake corrected and will spread via short range Bluetooth technology to any vulnerable phone in range. Bluetooth has an effective range of a few tens of metres. The risk of being infected by Cabir is low because users must give the malicious program permission to download on to their handset and then must manually install it. Users can protect themselves by altering a setting on Symbian phones that conceals the handset from other Bluetooth using devices. Finnish security firm F-Secure issued a warning about the new strains of Cabir but said that the viruses do not do any damage to a phone. All they do is block normal Bluetooth activity and drain the phone's battery. Anti-virus firm Sophos said the source code for Cabir had been posted on the net by a Brazilian programmer which might lead to even more variants of the program being created. So far seven versions of Cabir are know to exist, one of which was inside the malicious Skulls program that was found in late November. Symbian's Series 60 software is licenced by Nokia, LG Electronics, Lenovo, Panasonic, Samsung, Sendo and Siemens.
","The new strains of the Cabir mobile phone virus use short-range radio technology to leap to any vulnerable phone as soon as it is in range.However, the new Cabir strains have this mistake corrected and will spread via short range Bluetooth technology to any vulnerable phone in range.Finnish security firm F-Secure issued a warning about the new strains of Cabir but said that the viruses do not do any damage to a phone.The Cabir virus only affects high-end handsets running the Symbian Series 60 phone operating system.Despite the warnings, there are so far no reports of any phones being infected by the new variants of Cabir.A mistake in the way the original Cabir was written meant that even if it escaped from the laboratory, the bug would only have been able to infect one phone at a time."
"Joke e-mail virus tricks users

A virus that disguises itself as a joke is spreading rapidly across the net.

Anti-virus firms are issuing high-level warnings about the new version of the Bagle e-mail program that seems to be catching a lot of people out. The Windows virus grabs e-mail addresses from Microsoft Outlook and uses its own mail sending software to spread itself to new victims. When it infects a machine, the Bagle variant turns off security measures that usually protect PCs.

The new variant is called Bagle.AT, Bagle.BB and Bagle.AU and the attachment bearing the virus code is labelled as either ""joke"" or ""price"".

The body of the virus usually contains nothing but a smiley or emoticon. The virus can strike computers running Windows 95, 98, ME, NT, 2000 and XP. Users will be infected if they open the attachment that travels with the e-mail. As well as plundering Microsoft Outlook for e-mail addresses to send itself to, Bagle.AT also tries to turn off the firewall and security centre services on Windows XP machines. BBC News Online has received five warnings about the virus from security companies. Finnish company F-Secure gave the virus its second highest threat level. ""We've had several reports all over the world,"" said Mikko Hypponen, director of anti-virus research for F-Secure. Security firm Network Box said that it stopped more than 30,000 copies an hour of the virus as the outbreak reached a peak. Black Spider said it had stopped more than 1 million copies of Bagle.AT since the outbreak began at 0630 BST (0530 GMT). Anti-virus firms urged users to be wary of unexpected e-mail messages bearing attachments and to update their software to ensure they are protected against the latest threats.
","Security firm Network Box said that it stopped more than 30,000 copies an hour of the virus as the outbreak reached a peak.The Windows virus grabs e-mail addresses from Microsoft Outlook and uses its own mail sending software to spread itself to new victims.The new variant is called Bagle.AT, Bagle.BB and Bagle.AU and the attachment bearing the virus code is labelled as either ""joke"" or ""price"".As well as plundering Microsoft Outlook for e-mail addresses to send itself to, Bagle.AT also tries to turn off the firewall and security centre services on Windows XP machines.The virus can strike computers running Windows 95, 98, ME, NT, 2000 and XP.BBC News Online has received five warnings about the virus from security companies."
"Progress on new internet domains

By early 2005 the net could have two new domain names.

The .post and .travel net domains have been given preliminary approval by the net's administrative body. The names are just two of a total of 10 proposed domains that are being considered by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, Icann. The other proposed names include a domain for pornography, Asia, mobile phones, an anti-spam domain and one for the Catalan language and culture.

The .post domain is backed by the Universal Postal Union that wants to use it as the online marker for every type of postal service and to help co-ordinate the e-commerce efforts of national post offices.

The .travel domain would be used by hotels, travel firms, airlines, tourism offices and would help such organisations distinguish themselves online. It is backed by a New York-based trade group called The Travel Partnership. Icann said its early decision on the two domains was in response to the detailed technical and commercial information the organisations behind the names had submitted. Despite this initial approval, Icann cautioned that there was no guarantee that the domains would actually go into service. At the same time Icann is considering proposals for another eight domains. One that may not win approval is a proposal to set up a .xxx domain for pornographic websites. A similar proposal has been made many times in the past. But Icann has been reluctant to approve it because of the difficulty of making pornographers sign up and use it. In 2000 Icann approved seven other new domains that have had varying degrees of success. Three of the new so-called top level domains were for specific industries or organisations such as .museum and .aero. Others such as .info and .biz were intended to be more generic. In total there are in excess of 200 domain names and the majority of these are for nations. But domains that end in the .com suffix are by far the most numerous.
","By early 2005 the net could have two new domain names.The names are just two of a total of 10 proposed domains that are being considered by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, Icann.In 2000 Icann approved seven other new domains that have had varying degrees of success.The other proposed names include a domain for pornography, Asia, mobile phones, an anti-spam domain and one for the Catalan language and culture.Icann said its early decision on the two domains was in response to the detailed technical and commercial information the organisations behind the names had submitted.Despite this initial approval, Icann cautioned that there was no guarantee that the domains would actually go into service.In total there are in excess of 200 domain names and the majority of these are for nations.The .post and .travel net domains have been given preliminary approval by the net's administrative body."
"Argonaut founder rebuilds empire

Jez San, the man behind the Argonaut games group which went into administration a week ago, has bought back most of the company.

The veteran games developer has taken over the Cambridge-based Just Add Monsters studios and the London subsidiary Morpheme. The Argonaut group went into administration due to a severe cash crisis, firing about half of its staff. In August it had warned of annual losses of £6m for the year to 31 July.

Jez San is one of the key figures in the UK's games industry. The developer, who received an OBE in 2002, was estimated to have been worth more than £200m at the peak of the dotcom boom.

He founded Argonaut in 1982 and has been behind titles such as 1993 Starfox game. More recently it was behind the Harry Potter games for the PlayStation. But, like all software developers, Argonaut needed a constant flow of deals with publishers. In August it warned of annual losses of £6m, blaming delays in signing new contracts and tough conditions in the software industry. The group's three subsidiaries were placed in administration a week ago, with Mr Sans resigning as the company's CEO and some 100 staff being fired. After the latest round of cuts, there were 80 workers at Argonaut headquarters in Edgware in north London, with 17 at its Morpheme offices in Kentish Town, London, and 22 at the Just Add Monsters base in Cambridge. Mr San has re-emerged, buying back Morpheme and Just Add Monsters. ""We are pleased to announce the sale of these two businesses as going concerns,"" said David Rubin of administrators David Rubin & Partners. ""This has saved over 40 jobs as well as the substantial employment claims that would have arisen had the sales not been achieved."" Mr Rubin said the administrators were in talks over the sale of the Argonaut software division in Edgware and were hopeful of finding a buyer. ""This is a very difficult time for all the employees there, but I salute their commitment to the business while we work towards a solution,"" he said. Some former employees are angry at the way cash crisis was handled. One told BBC News Online that the staff who had been fired had been ""financially ruined in the space of a day"".
","Jez San, the man behind the Argonaut games group which went into administration a week ago, has bought back most of the company.He founded Argonaut in 1982 and has been behind titles such as 1993 Starfox game.The veteran games developer has taken over the Cambridge-based Just Add Monsters studios and the London subsidiary Morpheme.Mr Rubin said the administrators were in talks over the sale of the Argonaut software division in Edgware and were hopeful of finding a buyer.Mr San has re-emerged, buying back Morpheme and Just Add Monsters.The Argonaut group went into administration due to a severe cash crisis, firing about half of its staff.More recently it was behind the Harry Potter games for the PlayStation.Jez San is one of the key figures in the UK's games industry."
"Dozens held over ID fraud site

Twenty-eight people, including a Briton, have been arrested after a global operation against a website allegedly involved in identity fraud.

Those arrested are accused of operating Shadowcrew.com, which investigators claim was a global clearing house for criminals involved in credit card fraud. A 19-year-old man from Camberley, Surrey, was arrested by the National Hi-Tech Crime Unit but has been bailed. Operation Firewall, led by the US Secret Service, involved seven nations. The British teenager was arrested on Wednesday but details only emerged on Friday. He has now been bailed to return to a Surrey police station in December. All 28 people detained globally are suspected of being involved in an internet-based network which stole people's identities and used computers and websites to defraud credit card companies. The authorities in the US, who have indicted 19 people in Newark, New Jersey, estimate the fraud caused losses of more than $4m. Assistant US Attorney Scott Christie said several people had been arrested in Argentina, Bulgaria, Canada, Estonia, Poland and Sweden. Mr Christie said one of the ringleaders was believed to be a Russian, Anatoly Tyukanov.

Investigators from 30 law enforcement agencies worldwide spent 15 months looking into the activities of three websites - Shadowcrew, Carderplanet and Darkprofits. The US Secret Service was first tipped off in July 2003. An NHTCU spokeswoman said the American investigators went undercover on the Shadowcrew website and discovered some of the site's 4,000 members were using it for organised crime purposes.

She said criminals were using the websites to traffic counterfeit credit cards and false identification information and documents such as credit cards, driver's licences, passports and birth certificates. The websites shared tips on how to commit fraud and provided a forum by which people could buy the information and tools they needed to commit such crime, she said. The Shadowcrew site, which has now been taken over by the US Secret Service, listed several discussion groups, in English and Russian, including one on hacking, spam and online anonymity tools. The head of the NHTCU, Acting Detective Chief Superintendent, Mick Deats, said: ""This investigation has resulted in the significant disruption of organised criminals using the internet for profit.

""We believe that the suspects have trafficked at least 1.7 million stolen credit card numbers, leading to losses by financial institutions running into the millions."" Chief Supt Deats went on to warn: ""The internet offers huge legitimate benefits for modern society; however with it brings powerful opportunities for those seeking to abuse those benefits for criminal gain. ""Your identity is one of the most precious commodities. Criminals who try to steal the personal and financial information of ordinary citizens as well as the confidential and proprietary information of companies engaged in e-commerce, will be targeted by law enforcement.""
","Twenty-eight people, including a Briton, have been arrested after a global operation against a website allegedly involved in identity fraud.Those arrested are accused of operating Shadowcrew.com, which investigators claim was a global clearing house for criminals involved in credit card fraud.She said criminals were using the websites to traffic counterfeit credit cards and false identification information and documents such as credit cards, driver's licences, passports and birth certificates.All 28 people detained globally are suspected of being involved in an internet-based network which stole people's identities and used computers and websites to defraud credit card companies.The websites shared tips on how to commit fraud and provided a forum by which people could buy the information and tools they needed to commit such crime, she said.A 19-year-old man from Camberley, Surrey, was arrested by the National Hi-Tech Crime Unit but has been bailed.Assistant US Attorney Scott Christie said several people had been arrested in Argentina, Bulgaria, Canada, Estonia, Poland and Sweden.The Shadowcrew site, which has now been taken over by the US Secret Service, listed several discussion groups, in English and Russian, including one on hacking, spam and online anonymity tools.The US Secret Service was first tipped off in July 2003."
"Robots learn 'robotiquette' rules

Robots are learning lessons on ""robotiquette"" - how to behave socially - so they can mix better with humans.

By playing games, like pass-the-parcel, a University of Hertfordshire team is finding out how future robot companions should react in social situations. The study's findings will eventually help humans develop a code of social behaviour in human-robot interaction. The work is part of the European Cogniron robotics project, and was on show at London's Science Museum.

""We are assuming a situation in which a useful human companion robot already exists,"" said Professor Kerstin Dautenhahn, project leader at Hertfordshire. ""Our mission is to look at how such a robot should be programmed to respect personal spaces of humans.""

The research also focuses on human perception of robots, including how they should look, and how a robot can learn new skills by imitating a human demonstrator. ""Without such studies, you will build robots which might not respect the fact that humans are individuals, have preferences and come from different cultural backgrounds,"" Professor Dautenhahn told BBC News Online. ""And I want robots to treat humans as human beings, and not like other robots,"" she added.

In most situations, a companion robot will eventually have to deal not only with one person, but also with groups of people. To find out how they would react, the Hertfordshire Cogniron team taught one robot to play pass-the-parcel with children.

Showing off its skills at the Science Museum, the unnamed robot had to select, approach, and ask different children to pick up a parcel with a gift, moving it arm as a pointer and its camera as an eye. It even used speech to give instructions and play music. However, according to researchers, it will still take many years to build a robot which would make full use of the ""robotiquette"" for human interaction. ""If you think of a robot as a companion for the human being, you can think of 20 years into the future,"" concluded Professor Dautenhahn. ""It might take even longer because it is very, very hard to develop such a robot.""

You can hear more on this story on the BBC World Service's Go Digital programme.
","""And I want robots to treat humans as human beings, and not like other robots,"" she added.""If you think of a robot as a companion for the human being, you can think of 20 years into the future,"" concluded Professor Dautenhahn.""We are assuming a situation in which a useful human companion robot already exists,"" said Professor Kerstin Dautenhahn, project leader at Hertfordshire.The research also focuses on human perception of robots, including how they should look, and how a robot can learn new skills by imitating a human demonstrator.""Without such studies, you will build robots which might not respect the fact that humans are individuals, have preferences and come from different cultural backgrounds,"" Professor Dautenhahn told BBC News Online.By playing games, like pass-the-parcel, a University of Hertfordshire team is finding out how future robot companions should react in social situations.However, according to researchers, it will still take many years to build a robot which would make full use of the ""robotiquette"" for human interaction."
"Concerns over Windows ATMs

Cash machine networks could soon be more susceptible to computer viruses, a security firm has warned.

The warning is being issued because many banks are starting to use the Windows operating system in machines. Already there have been four incidents in which Windows viruses have disrupted networks of cash machines running the Microsoft operating system. But banking experts say the danger is being overplayed and that the risks of infection and disruption are small.

For many years the venerable IBM operating system, known as OS/2, has been the staple software used to power many of the 1.4m cash machines in operation around the world. But IBM will end support for OS/2 in 2006 which is forcing banks to look for alternatives. There are also other pressures making banks turn to Windows said Dominic Hirsch, managing director of financial analysis firm Retail Banking Research.

He said many cash machines will also have to be upgraded to make full use of the new Europay, Mastercard and Visa credit cards that use computer chips instead of magnetic stripes to store data. US laws that demand disabled people get equal access to information will also force banks to make their cash machines more versatile and able to present information in different ways. Todd Thiemann, spokesman for anti-virus firm Trend Micro, said the move to Windows in cash machines was not without risks. Mr Thiemann said research by the TowerGroup showed that 70% of new cash machines being installed were Windows based.

Already, he said, there have been four incidents in which cash machines have been unavailable for hours due to viruses affecting the network of the bank that owns them.

In January 2003 the Slammer worm knocked out 13,000 cash machines of the Bank of America and many of those operated by the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce. In August of the same year, cash machines of two un-named banks were put out of action for hours following an infection by the Welchia worm. Incidents like this happen, said Mr Thiemann, because when banks start using Windows cash machines they also change the networking technology used to link the devices to their back office computers. This often means that all the cash machines and computers in a bank share the same data network. ""This could mean that cash machines get caught up in the viruses that are going around because they have a common transmission system,"" he said. ""Banks need to consider protection as part of the investment to maintain the security of that network,"" Mr Thiemann told BBC News Online.

But Mr Hirsch from Retail Banking Research said the number of cash machines actually at risk was low because so few were upgraded every year.

Currently, he said, a cash machine has a lifetime of up to 10 years which means that only about 10% of all ATMs get swapped for a newer model every year. ""Windows cash machines have been around for several years,"" he said. ""Most banks simply upgrade as part of their usual replacement cycle."" ""In theory there is a bigger threat with Windows than OS/2,"" he said, ""but I do not think that the banks are hugely concerned at the moment."" ""It's pretty unusual to hear about virus problems with ATMs,"" he said. The many different security systems built-in to cash machines meant there was no chance that a virus could cause them to start spitting out cash spontaneously, he said. Banks were more likely to be worried about internal networks being overwhelmed by worms and viruses and customers not being able to get cash out at all, he added. A spokesman for the Association of Payment and Clearing Services (Apacs) which represents the UK's payments industry said the risk from viruses was minimal. ""There's no concern that there's going to be any type of virus hitting the UK networks,"" he said. Risks of infection were small because the data networks that connect UK cash machines together and the operators of the ATMs themselves were a much smaller and tightly-knit community than in the US where viruses have struck.
","Already, he said, there have been four incidents in which cash machines have been unavailable for hours due to viruses affecting the network of the bank that owns them.""Windows cash machines have been around for several years,"" he said.The many different security systems built-in to cash machines meant there was no chance that a virus could cause them to start spitting out cash spontaneously, he said.""This could mean that cash machines get caught up in the viruses that are going around because they have a common transmission system,"" he said.This often means that all the cash machines and computers in a bank share the same data network.Mr Thiemann said research by the TowerGroup showed that 70% of new cash machines being installed were Windows based.Already there have been four incidents in which Windows viruses have disrupted networks of cash machines running the Microsoft operating system.But Mr Hirsch from Retail Banking Research said the number of cash machines actually at risk was low because so few were upgraded every year.Incidents like this happen, said Mr Thiemann, because when banks start using Windows cash machines they also change the networking technology used to link the devices to their back office computers.Todd Thiemann, spokesman for anti-virus firm Trend Micro, said the move to Windows in cash machines was not without risks.In January 2003 the Slammer worm knocked out 13,000 cash machines of the Bank of America and many of those operated by the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce.Currently, he said, a cash machine has a lifetime of up to 10 years which means that only about 10% of all ATMs get swapped for a newer model every year."
"Attack prompts Bush site block

The official re-election site of President George W Bush is blocking visits from overseas users for ""security reasons"".

The blocking began early on Monday so those outside the US and trying to view the site got a message saying they are not authorised to view it. But keen net users have shown that the policy is not being very effective. Many have found that the site can still be viewed by overseas browsers via several alternative net addresses.

The policy of trying to stop overseas visitors viewing the site is thought to have been adopted in response to an attack on the georgewbush.com website. Scott Stanzel, a spokesman for the Bush-Cheney campaign said: ""The measure was taken for security reasons."" He declined to elaborate any further on the blocking policy. The barring of non-US visitors has led to the campaign being inundated with calls and forced it to make a statement about why the blocking was taking place. In early October a so-called ""denial of service"" attack was mounted on the site that bombarded it with data from thousands of PCs. The attack made the site unusable for about five hours.

About the same time the web team of the Bush-Cheney campaign started using the services of a company called Akamai that helps websites deal with the ebbs and flows of visitor traffic. Akamai uses a web-based tool called EdgeScape that lets its customers work out where visitors are based. Typically this tool is used to ensure that webpages, video and images load quickly but it can also be used to block traffic. Geographic blocking works because the numerical addresses that the net uses to organise itself are handed out on a regional basis. Readers of the Boingboing weblog have found that viewers can still get at the site by using alternative forms of the George W Bush domain name. Ironically one of the working alternatives is for a supposedly more secure version of the site. There are now at least three working alternative domains for the Bush-Cheney campaign that let web users outside the US visit the site. The site can also be seen using anonymous proxy services that are based in the US. Some web users in Canada also report that they can browse the site.

The international exclusion zone around georgewbush.com was spotted by net monitoring firm Netcraft which keeps an eye on traffic patterns across many different sites.

Netcraft said that since the early hours of 25 October attempts to view the site through its monitoring stations in London, Amsterdam and Sydney have failed. By contrast Netcraft's four monitoring stations in the US managed to view the site with no problems. Data gathered by Netcraft on the pattern of traffic to the site shows that the blocking is not the result of another denial of service attack. Mike Prettejohn, Netcraft president, speculated that the blocking decision might have been taken to cut costs, and traffic, in the run-up to the election on 2 November. He said the site may see no reason to distribute content to people who will not be voting next week. Managing traffic could also be a good way to ensure that the site stays working in the closing days of the election campaign. However, simply blocking non-US visitors also means that Americans overseas are barred too. Most American soldiers stationed overseas will be able to see the site as they use the US military's own portion of the net. Akamai declined to comment, saying it could not talk about customer websites.
","There are now at least three working alternative domains for the Bush-Cheney campaign that let web users outside the US visit the site.Data gathered by Netcraft on the pattern of traffic to the site shows that the blocking is not the result of another denial of service attack.The official re-election site of President George W Bush is blocking visits from overseas users for ""security reasons"".The site can also be seen using anonymous proxy services that are based in the US.The blocking began early on Monday so those outside the US and trying to view the site got a message saying they are not authorised to view it.Some web users in Canada also report that they can browse the site.Managing traffic could also be a good way to ensure that the site stays working in the closing days of the election campaign.The policy of trying to stop overseas visitors viewing the site is thought to have been adopted in response to an attack on the georgewbush.com website.Most American soldiers stationed overseas will be able to see the site as they use the US military's own portion of the net.Many have found that the site can still be viewed by overseas browsers via several alternative net addresses.By contrast Netcraft's four monitoring stations in the US managed to view the site with no problems.In early October a so-called ""denial of service"" attack was mounted on the site that bombarded it with data from thousands of PCs."
"Loyalty cards idea for TV addicts

Viewers could soon be rewarded for watching TV as loyalty cards come to a screen near you.

Any household hooked up to Sky could soon be using smartcards in conjunction with their set-top boxes. Broadcasters such as Sky and ITV could offer viewers loyalty points in return for watching a particular channel or programme. Sky will activate a spare slot on set-top boxes in January, marketing magazine New Media Age reported.

Sky set-top boxes have two slots. One is for the viewer's decryption card, while the other has been dormant until now.

Loyalty cards have become a common addition to most wallets, as High Street brands rush to keep customers with a series of incentives offered by store cards. Now similar schemes look set to enter the highly competitive world of multi-channel TV. Viewers who stay loyal to a particular TV channel could be rewarded by free TV content or freebies from retail partners. Broadcasters aiming content at children could offer smartcards which gives membership to exclusive content and clubs. ""Parents could pre-pay for some content, as a kind of TV pocket money card,"" said Nigel Whalley, managing director of media consultancy Decipher.

Viewers could even be rewarded for watching ad breaks, with ideas such as ad bingo being touted by firms keen to make money out of the new market, said Mr Whalley. Credit cards that have been chipped could be used in set-top boxes to pay for movies, gambling and gaming. ""The idea of an intelligent card in boxes offers a lot of possibilities. It will be down to the ingenuity of the content players,"" said Mr Whalley. For the BBC, revenue-generating activity will be of little interest but the new development may prompt changes to Freeview set-top boxes, said Mr Whalley. Currently most Freeview boxes do not have a slot which would allow viewers to use a smartcard. Some 7.4 million households have Sky boxes and Sky is hoping to increase this to 10 million by 2010. Loyalty cards could play a role in this, particularly in reducing the number of people who cancel their Sky subscriptions, said Ian Fogg, an analyst with Jupiter Research.
","Viewers could soon be rewarded for watching TV as loyalty cards come to a screen near you.""Parents could pre-pay for some content, as a kind of TV pocket money card,"" said Nigel Whalley, managing director of media consultancy Decipher.Credit cards that have been chipped could be used in set-top boxes to pay for movies, gambling and gaming.Any household hooked up to Sky could soon be using smartcards in conjunction with their set-top boxes.Sky set-top boxes have two slots.Broadcasters such as Sky and ITV could offer viewers loyalty points in return for watching a particular channel or programme.Loyalty cards could play a role in this, particularly in reducing the number of people who cancel their Sky subscriptions, said Ian Fogg, an analyst with Jupiter Research.Viewers who stay loyal to a particular TV channel could be rewarded by free TV content or freebies from retail partners."
"The Force is strong in Battlefront

The warm reception that has greeted Star Wars: Battlefront is a reflection not of any ingenious innovation in its gameplay, but of its back-to-basics approach and immense nostalgia quotient.

Geared towards online gamers, it is based around little more than a series of all-out gunfights, set in an array of locations all featured in, or hinted at during, the two blockbusting film trilogies. Previous Star Wars titles like the acclaimed Knights Of The Old Republic and Jedi Knight have regularly impressed with their imaginative forays into the far corners of the franchise's extensive universe, and their use of weird and wonderful new characters. Battlefront on the other hand wholeheartedly revisits the most recognisable elements of the hit movies themselves.

The sights, sounds and protagonists on show here will all be instantly familiar to fans, who may well feel that the opportunity to relive Star Wars' most memorable screen skirmishes makes this the game they have always waited for. The mayhem can be viewed from either a third or first-person perspective, and you can either fight for the forces of freedom or join Darth Vader on the Dark Side, depending on the episode and type of campaign as well as the player's personal propensity for good or evil.

There is ample chance to be a Wookie, shoot Ewoks and rush into battle alongside a fired-up Luke Skywalker. In each section, the task is simply to wipe out enemy troops, seize strategic waypoints and move on to the next planet. It really is no more complicated than that. Locations include the frozen wastes of Hoth, the ice planet from The Empire Strikes Back, complete with massive mechanical AT-ATs on the march. There are also the dusty, sinister deserts of Tatooine and Geonosis, as well as the forest moon of Endor, where Return Of The Jedi's much-maligned Ewoks lived. The feel of those places is well and truly captured, with both backdrops and characters looking good and very authentic. It is worth noting though that on the PlayStation 2, the game's graphics are a curiously long way behind those of the Xbox version. The pivotal element behind Battlefront's success is that it successfully gives you the feel of being of being plunged into the midst of large-scale war. The number of combatants, noise and abundance of laser fire see to that, and the sense of chaos really comes over.

Speaking of noise, Battlefront is a real testament to the strength of the Star Wars galaxy's audio motifs.

The multitude of distinctive weapon and vehicle noises are immensely familiar, as are the stirring John Williams symphonies that never let up. There is also a particularly snazzy remix of one of his themes in the menu section. It has to be said if the game did not have the boon of being Star Wars, it would not stand up for long. The gameplay is reliable, bog-standard stuff, short on originality. There are also odd annoyances, like the game's insistence on re-spawning you miles away from the action, an irritating price to pay for not getting blown up the second you appear. And some of the weapons and vehicles are not as responsive and fluid to operate as they might be. That said, it is still great fun to pilot a Scout Walker or Speeder Bike, however non user-friendly they prove. Whilst it is firmly designed with multiplayer action in mind, Battlefront is actually perfectly good fun as an offline game. The above-average AI of the enemy sees to that, although given the frenetic environments they operate in, their strategic behaviour does not need to be all that sophisticated. Battlefront's novelty value will doubtless wear off relatively fast, leaving behind a slightly empty one-trick-pony of a game. But for a while, it is an absolute blast, and one of the most immediately satisfying video game offerings yet from George Lucas' stable.
","It has to be said if the game did not have the boon of being Star Wars, it would not stand up for long.The sights, sounds and protagonists on show here will all be instantly familiar to fans, who may well feel that the opportunity to relive Star Wars' most memorable screen skirmishes makes this the game they have always waited for.Speaking of noise, Battlefront is a real testament to the strength of the Star Wars galaxy's audio motifs.The warm reception that has greeted Star Wars: Battlefront is a reflection not of any ingenious innovation in its gameplay, but of its back-to-basics approach and immense nostalgia quotient.Whilst it is firmly designed with multiplayer action in mind, Battlefront is actually perfectly good fun as an offline game.The number of combatants, noise and abundance of laser fire see to that, and the sense of chaos really comes over.The feel of those places is well and truly captured, with both backdrops and characters looking good and very authentic.There are also the dusty, sinister deserts of Tatooine and Geonosis, as well as the forest moon of Endor, where Return Of The Jedi's much-maligned Ewoks lived.Battlefront's novelty value will doubtless wear off relatively fast, leaving behind a slightly empty one-trick-pony of a game.In each section, the task is simply to wipe out enemy troops, seize strategic waypoints and move on to the next planet.The multitude of distinctive weapon and vehicle noises are immensely familiar, as are the stirring John Williams symphonies that never let up."
"'Ultimate game' award for Doom 3

Sci-fi shooter Doom 3 has blasted away the competition at a major games ceremony, the Golden Joystick awards.

It was the only title to win twice, winning Ultimate Game of the year and best PC game at the awards, presented by Little Britain star Matt Lucas. The much-anticipated sci-fi horror Doom 3 shot straight to the top of the UK games charts on its release in August. Other winners included Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas which took the Most Wanted for Christmas prize. Only released last week, it was closely followed by Halo 2 and Half-Life 2, which are expected to be big hits when they are unleashed later this month.

But they missed out on the prize for the Most Wanted game of 2005, which went to the Nintendo title, The Legend of Zelda. The original Doom, released in 1994, heralded a new era in computer games and introduced 3D graphics. It helped to establish the concept of the first-person shooter. Doom 3 was developed over four years and is thought to have cost around $15m (£8.3m). The top honour for the best online game of the year went to Battlefield Vietnam. The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay was handed the Unsung Hero Game of 2004. Its release was somewhat eclipsed by Doom 3, which was released on the same week. It was, however, very well received by gamers and was praised for its storyline which differed from the film released around the same time. Electronic Arts was named top publisher of the year, taking the crown from Nintendo which won in 2003. The annual awards are voted for by more than 200,000 readers of computer and video games magazines. Games awards like this have grown in importance. Over the last six years, the UK market for games grew by 100% and was worth a record £1,152m in 2003, according to a recent report by analysts Screen Digest.
","It was the only title to win twice, winning Ultimate Game of the year and best PC game at the awards, presented by Little Britain star Matt Lucas.Its release was somewhat eclipsed by Doom 3, which was released on the same week.The original Doom, released in 1994, heralded a new era in computer games and introduced 3D graphics.Doom 3 was developed over four years and is thought to have cost around $15m (£8.3m).The much-anticipated sci-fi horror Doom 3 shot straight to the top of the UK games charts on its release in August.The top honour for the best online game of the year went to Battlefield Vietnam.The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay was handed the Unsung Hero Game of 2004."
"Gadget show heralds MP3 season

Partners of those who love their hi-tech gear may want to get their presents in early as experts predict a gadget shortage this Christmas.

With Apple's iPod topping wish lists again, there may not be enough iPod minis to go round, predicts Oliver Irish, editor of gadget magazine Stuff. ""The iPod mini is likely to be this year's Tracey Island,"" said Mr Irish. Stuff has compiled a list of the top 10 gadgets for 2004 and the iPod is at number one.

For anyone bewildered by the choice of gadgets on the market, Stuff and What Hi-Fi? are hosting a best-of gadget show in London this weekend. Star of the show will be Sony's Qrio Robot, an all-singing, all-dancing, football-playing man-machine who can even hold intelligent conversations.

But he is not for sale and Sony has no commercial plans for the robot. ""He will greet visitors and is flying in from Japan. He probably has his own airplane seat, that is how highly Sony prize him,"" said Mr Irish. Also on display will be a virtual keyboard which projects itself onto any flat surface. The event will play host to a large collection of digital music players, from companies such as Creative, Sony and Philips as well as the ubiquitously fashionable iPod from Apple. Suggestions that it could be a gaming or wireless Christmas are unlikely to come true as MP3 players remain the most popular stocking filler, said Mr Irish. ""Demand is huge and Apple has promised that it can supply enough but people might struggle to get their hands on iPod minis,"" said Mr Irish.

For those who like their gadgets to be multi-talented, the Gizmondo, a powerful gaming console with GPS and GPRS, that also doubles up as an MP3 player, movie player and camera, could be a must-have. ""What is impressive is how much it can do and how well it can do them,"" said Mr Irish. This Christmas, gadgets will not be an all-male preserve. ""Women will be getting gadgets from husbands and boyfriends as well as buying them for themselves,"" said Mr Irish. ""Gadgets nowadays are lifestyle products rather than just for geeks.""
","""Women will be getting gadgets from husbands and boyfriends as well as buying them for themselves,"" said Mr Irish.He probably has his own airplane seat, that is how highly Sony prize him,"" said Mr Irish.""The iPod mini is likely to be this year's Tracey Island,"" said Mr Irish.""What is impressive is how much it can do and how well it can do them,"" said Mr Irish.""Demand is huge and Apple has promised that it can supply enough but people might struggle to get their hands on iPod minis,"" said Mr Irish.With Apple's iPod topping wish lists again, there may not be enough iPod minis to go round, predicts Oliver Irish, editor of gadget magazine Stuff.Stuff has compiled a list of the top 10 gadgets for 2004 and the iPod is at number one.Suggestions that it could be a gaming or wireless Christmas are unlikely to come true as MP3 players remain the most popular stocking filler, said Mr Irish."
"Commodore finds new lease of life

The once-famous Commodore computer brand could be resurrected after being bought by a US-based digital music distributor.

New owner Yeahronimo Media Ventures has not ruled out the possibility of a new breed of Commodore computers. It also plans to develop a ""worldwide entertainment concept"" with the brand, although details are not yet known. The groundbreaking Commodore 64 computer elicits fond memories for those who owned one back in the 1980s.

In the chronology of home computing, Commodore was one of the pioneers.

The Commodore 64, launched in 1982, was one of the first affordable home PCs. It was followed a few years later by the Amiga. The Commodore 64 sold more than any other single computer system, even to this day. The brand languished somewhat in the 1990s. Commodore International filed for bankruptcy in 1994 and was sold to Dutch firm Tulip Computers. In the late 1980s the firm was a great rival to Atari, which produced its own range of home computers and is now a brand of video games, formerly known as Infogrames.

Tulip Computers sold several products under the Commodore name, including portable USB storage devices and digital music players. It had planned to relaunch the brand, following an upsurge of nostalgia for 1980s-era games. Commodore 64 enthusiasts have written emulators for Windows PC, Apple Mac and even PDAs so that the original Commodore games can be still run. The sale of Commodore is expected to be complete in three weeks in a deal worth over £17m.
","In the chronology of home computing, Commodore was one of the pioneers.The Commodore 64, launched in 1982, was one of the first affordable home PCs.Commodore International filed for bankruptcy in 1994 and was sold to Dutch firm Tulip Computers.The once-famous Commodore computer brand could be resurrected after being bought by a US-based digital music distributor.The Commodore 64 sold more than any other single computer system, even to this day.In the late 1980s the firm was a great rival to Atari, which produced its own range of home computers and is now a brand of video games, formerly known as Infogrames."
"Broadband in the UK growing fast

High-speed net connections in the UK are proving more popular than ever.

BT reports that more people signed up for broadband in the last three months than in any other quarter. The 600,000 connections take the total number of people in the UK signing up for broadband from BT to almost 3.3 million. Nationally more than 5 million browse the net via broadband. Britain now has among the highest number of broadband connections throughout the whole of Europe.

According to figures gathered by industry watchdog, Ofcom, the growth means that the UK has now surpassed Germany in terms of broadband users per 100 people. The UK total of 5.3 million translates into 7.5 connections per 100 people, compared to 6.7 in Germany and 15.8 in the Netherlands. The numbers of people signing up to broadband include those that get their service direct from BT or via the many companies that re-sell BT lines under their own name. Part of the surge in people signing up was due to BT stretching the reach of ADSL - the UK's most widely used way of getting broadband - beyond 6km.

Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line technology lets ordinary copper phone lines support high data speeds. The standard speed is 512kbps, though faster connections are available. ""This breakthrough led to a dramatic increase in orders as we were suddenly able to satisfy the pent-up demand that existed in many areas,"" said Paul Reynolds, chief executive of BT Wholesale which provides phone lines that other firms re-sell. BT Retail, which sells net services under its own name, also had a good quarter and provided about 30% of the new broadband customers. This was a slight increase on the previous three months. Despite the good news about growth in broadband, figures from telecommunications regulator Ofcom show that BT faces increasing competition, and dwindling influence, in other sectors. Local Loop Unbundling, (LLU), in which BT rivals install their hardware in exchanges and take over the line to a customer's home or office, is growing steadily. Cable & Wireless and NTL have announced that they are investing millions to start offering LLU services. By the end of September more than 4.2 million phone lines were using so-called Carrier Pre-Section (CPS) services, such as TalkTalk and One.Tel, which route phone calls across non-BT networks from a local exchange. There are now more than 300 different firms offering CPS services and the percentage of people using BT lines for voice calls has shrunk to 55.4%.
","The 600,000 connections take the total number of people in the UK signing up for broadband from BT to almost 3.3 million.The numbers of people signing up to broadband include those that get their service direct from BT or via the many companies that re-sell BT lines under their own name.BT reports that more people signed up for broadband in the last three months than in any other quarter.There are now more than 300 different firms offering CPS services and the percentage of people using BT lines for voice calls has shrunk to 55.4%.The UK total of 5.3 million translates into 7.5 connections per 100 people, compared to 6.7 in Germany and 15.8 in the Netherlands.BT Retail, which sells net services under its own name, also had a good quarter and provided about 30% of the new broadband customers.Part of the surge in people signing up was due to BT stretching the reach of ADSL - the UK's most widely used way of getting broadband - beyond 6km.Nationally more than 5 million browse the net via broadband."
"Slim PlayStation triples sales

Sony PlayStation 2's slimmer shape has proved popular with UK gamers, with 50,000 sold in its first week on sale.

Sales have tripled since launch, outstripping Microsoft's Xbox, said market analysts Chart-Track. The numbers were also boosted by the release of the PS2-only game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. The title broke the UK sales record for video games in its first weekend of release. Latest figures suggest it has sold more than 677,000 copies.

""It is obviously very, very encouraging for Sony because Microsoft briefly outsold them last week,"" John Houlihan, editor of Computerandvideogames.com told BBC News. ""And with Halo 2 [for Xbox] out next week, it really is a head-to-head contest between them and Xbox.""

Although Xbox sales over the last week also climbed, PS2 sales were more than double that. The figures mean Sony is reaching the seven million barrier for UK sales of the console. Edinburgh-based developer, Rockstar, which is behind the GTA titles, has seen San Andreas pull in an estimated £24m in gross revenues over the weekend. In comparison, blockbuster films like Harry Potter and The Prisoner Of Azkaban took £11.5m in its first three days at the UK box office. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King took nearly £10m over its opening weekend, although games titles are four to five times more expensive than cinema tickets.

Gangster-themed GTA San Andreas is the sequel to Grand Theft Auto Vice City which previously held the record for the fastest-selling video game ever. The Xbox game Halo 2, released on 11 November in the UK, is also widely tipped to be one of the best-selling games of the year. The original title won universal acclaim in 2001, and sold more than four million copies.

Mr Houlihan added that Sony had done well with the PS2, but it definitely helped that the release of San Andreas coincided with the slimline PS2 hitting the shelves. The run-up to Christmas is a huge battlefield for games consoles and titles. Microsoft's Xbox had been winning the race up until last week in sales. The sales figures also suggest that it may be a largely adult audience driving demand, since GTA San Andreas has an 18 certificate. Sony and Microsoft have both reduced console prices recently and are preparing the way for the launches of their next generation consoles in 2005. ""Both have hit crucial price points at around £100 and that really does open up new consoles to new audience, plus the release of two really important games in terms of development are also driving those sales,"" said Mr Houlihan.
","The title broke the UK sales record for video games in its first weekend of release.Although Xbox sales over the last week also climbed, PS2 sales were more than double that.Sony PlayStation 2's slimmer shape has proved popular with UK gamers, with 50,000 sold in its first week on sale.The sales figures also suggest that it may be a largely adult audience driving demand, since GTA San Andreas has an 18 certificate.The Xbox game Halo 2, released on 11 November in the UK, is also widely tipped to be one of the best-selling games of the year.The numbers were also boosted by the release of the PS2-only game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.The figures mean Sony is reaching the seven million barrier for UK sales of the console.""Both have hit crucial price points at around £100 and that really does open up new consoles to new audience, plus the release of two really important games in terms of development are also driving those sales,"" said Mr Houlihan.Microsoft's Xbox had been winning the race up until last week in sales."
"Seamen sail into biometric future

The luxury cruise liner Crystal Harmony, currently in the Gulf of Mexico, is the unlikely setting for tests of biometric technology.

As holidaymakers enjoy balmy breezes, their ship's crew is testing prototype versions of the world's first internationally issued biometric ID cards, the seafarer's equivalent of a passport. Along with the owner's picture, name and personal details, the new Seafarers' Identity Document incorporates a barcode representing unique features of its holder's fingerprints. The cards are due to be issued in February next year, in line with the revised UN Convention on Seafarers' Identity Documents of June 2003. Tests currently under way in the Caribbean are designed to ensure that new cards and their machine readers, produced by different companies in different countries, are working to interoperable standards. Results of the current tests, which involve seafarers from a wide range of occupations and nationalities, will be published by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) by the end of November. Crystal Cruises, which operates the Crystal Harmony, is exploring the use of biometrics but has not yet committed to the technology.

Authenti-corp, the US technology consultancy, has been working with the ILO on its technical specifications for the cards.

""If you're issued a seafarer's ID in your country, you want to be sure that when the ship lands in a port in, say, my country you can validate yourself using whatever equipment we have installed,"" Authenti-corp's CEO, Cynthia Musselman, told the BBC's Go Digital programme. She said French, Jordanian and Nigerian nationals would be the first seafarers to get the new ID cards since their countries have already ratified the convention. It aims to combat international terrorism whilst guaranteeing the welfare the one million seafarers estimated to be at sea. The convention highlights the importance of access to shore facilities and shore leave as vital elements to a sailor's wellbeing and, therefore, it says, to safer shipping and cleaner oceans. ""By increasing security on the seas as well as border control and protection, the cards will hopefully reduce the number of piracy problems around the world,"" said Ms Musselman. ""It should be a safer environment for seafarers to work in, and will allow people protecting their borders to have confidence that the people getting off the ship are, in fact, seafarers.""
","She said French, Jordanian and Nigerian nationals would be the first seafarers to get the new ID cards since their countries have already ratified the convention.The cards are due to be issued in February next year, in line with the revised UN Convention on Seafarers' Identity Documents of June 2003.""It should be a safer environment for seafarers to work in, and will allow people protecting their borders to have confidence that the people getting off the ship are, in fact, seafarers.""As holidaymakers enjoy balmy breezes, their ship's crew is testing prototype versions of the world's first internationally issued biometric ID cards, the seafarer's equivalent of a passport.""If you're issued a seafarer's ID in your country, you want to be sure that when the ship lands in a port in, say, my country you can validate yourself using whatever equipment we have installed,"" Authenti-corp's CEO, Cynthia Musselman, told the BBC's Go Digital programme.The luxury cruise liner Crystal Harmony, currently in the Gulf of Mexico, is the unlikely setting for tests of biometric technology."
"US duo in first spam conviction

A brother and sister in the US have been convicted of sending hundreds of thousands of unsolicited e-mail messages to AOL subscribers.

It is the first criminal prosecution of internet spam distributors. Jurors in Virginia recommended that the man, Jeremy Jaynes, serve nine years in prison and that his sister, Jessica DeGroot, be fined $7,500. They were convicted under a state law that bars the sending of bulk e-mails using fake addresses.

They will be formally sentenced next year. A third defendant, Richard Rutkowski, was acquitted. Prosecutors said Jaynes was ""a snake oil salesman in a new format"", using the internet to peddle useless wares, news agency Associated Press reported. A ""Fed-Ex refund processor"" was supposed to allow people to earn $75 an hour working from home. Another item on sale was an ""internet history eraser"". His sister helped him process credit card payments. Jaynes amassed a fortune of $24m from his sales, prosecutors said. ""He's been successful ripping people off all these years,"" AP quoted prosecutor Russell McGuire as saying. Jaynes was also found guilty of breaking a state law which prohibits the sending of more than 100,000 e-mails in 30 days, Virginia State Attorney General Jerry Kilgore reportedly said. Prosecutors had asked for 15 years in jail for Jaynes, and a jail term for his sister. But Jaynes' lawyer David Oblon called the nine-year recommended term ""outrageous"" and said his client believed he was innocent. He pointed out that all three of the accused lived in North Carolina and were unaware of the Virginia state law. Spam messages are estimated to account for at least 60% of all e-mails sent.
","Jaynes was also found guilty of breaking a state law which prohibits the sending of more than 100,000 e-mails in 30 days, Virginia State Attorney General Jerry Kilgore reportedly said.Prosecutors said Jaynes was ""a snake oil salesman in a new format"", using the internet to peddle useless wares, news agency Associated Press reported.Prosecutors had asked for 15 years in jail for Jaynes, and a jail term for his sister.But Jaynes' lawyer David Oblon called the nine-year recommended term ""outrageous"" and said his client believed he was innocent.Jurors in Virginia recommended that the man, Jeremy Jaynes, serve nine years in prison and that his sister, Jessica DeGroot, be fined $7,500.They were convicted under a state law that bars the sending of bulk e-mails using fake addresses.Jaynes amassed a fortune of $24m from his sales, prosecutors said."
"US blogger fired by her airline

A US airline attendant suspended over ""inappropriate images"" on her blog - web diary - says she has been fired.

Ellen Simonetti, known as Queen of the Sky, wrote an anonymous semi-fictional account of her life in the sky. She was suspended by Delta in September. In a statement, she said she was initiating legal action against the airline for ""wrongful termination"". A Delta spokesperson confirmed on Wednesday that Ms Simonetti was no longer an employee. Delta has repeatedly declined to elaborate on what it calls ""internal employee matters"". A spokesperson reiterated this position on Wednesday, confirming only that Ms Simonetti was no longer with the company. The spokesperson also confirmed that there were ""very clear rules"" attached to the unauthorised use of Delta branding, including uniforms. Ms Simonetti announced on her blog she had been fired on 1 November.

She said in an official statement: ""As a result of my suspension and subsequent termination without cause by Delta Airlines I am moving forward with filing a discrimination complaint with the Federal Government EEOC [US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission]."" She added she had also hired a Texas-based law firm to initiate legal action for ""wrongful termination, defamation of character and lost future wages."" Ms Simonetti told the BBC News website she had received no warning or further explanation when she was suspended on 25 September. Queen of the Sky has received a lot of support and advice from the global blogging community since news of her suspension was brought to light on the BBC News website and others.

Her story has highlighted concerns amongst the growing blogging community about conflicts of interest, employment law and free speech on personal websites. The blog, which she started in January as a way of getting over her mother's death, contains a mix of fictional and non-fictional accounts. Queen of the Sky developed over the months as a character in her own right, according to Ms Simonetti. In the postings, she made up fictional names for cities and other companies she mentioned to protect anonymity. But some postings contained images of herself in uniform. Of the 10 or so images only one showed Ms Simonetti's flight ""wings"". She removed them as soon as she was informed of her suspension. ""I never meant it as something to harm my company and don't understand how they think it did harm them,"" Ms Simonetti said. A legal expert in the US speculated that Delta might be concerned that the fictional content on the blog may be linked back to the airline after the images were posted.

Delta has been hit recently by pressures of rising fuel costs and fierce competition. It has said it needs to cut between 6,000 and 7,000 jobs and reduce costs by $5bn (£2.7bn) a year. Analysts had warned recently that the airline might have to seek Chapter 11 bankruptcy prevention. Last week, it struck a $1bn cost-cutting deal with its pilots which could save it from bankruptcy. The deal would see pilots accept a 32% pay cut in return for the right to buy 30 million Delta shares, unions said. And on Monday, it negotiated a deal to defer about $135m in debt which was due next year, until 2007. The airline also said it had agreed the terms of a $600m loan from American Express.
","A Delta spokesperson confirmed on Wednesday that Ms Simonetti was no longer an employee.A spokesperson reiterated this position on Wednesday, confirming only that Ms Simonetti was no longer with the company.She was suspended by Delta in September.Ms Simonetti told the BBC News website she had received no warning or further explanation when she was suspended on 25 September.In a statement, she said she was initiating legal action against the airline for ""wrongful termination"".A legal expert in the US speculated that Delta might be concerned that the fictional content on the blog may be linked back to the airline after the images were posted.Ms Simonetti announced on her blog she had been fired on 1 November.Queen of the Sky developed over the months as a character in her own right, according to Ms Simonetti.Queen of the Sky has received a lot of support and advice from the global blogging community since news of her suspension was brought to light on the BBC News website and others.""I never meant it as something to harm my company and don't understand how they think it did harm them,"" Ms Simonetti said.A US airline attendant suspended over ""inappropriate images"" on her blog - web diary - says she has been fired.The deal would see pilots accept a 32% pay cut in return for the right to buy 30 million Delta shares, unions said."
"Gates opens biggest gadget fair

Bill Gates has opened the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, saying that gadgets are working together more to help people manage multimedia content around the home and on the move.

Mr Gates made no announcement about the next generation Xbox games console, which many gadget lovers had been hoping for. About 120,000 people are expected to attend the trade show which stretches over more than 1.5 million square feet and runs from 6 to 9 January. The latest trends in digital imaging, storage technologies, thinner flat screen and high-definition TVs, wireless and portable technologies, gaming, and broadband technologies will all be on show over the three days.

Mr Gates said that a lot of work had been done in the last year to sort out usability and compatibility issues between devices to make it easier to share content.

""We predicted at the beginning of the decade that the digital approach would be taken for granted - but there was a lot of work to do. ""What is fun is to come to the show and see what has been done. It is going even faster than we expected and we are excited about it."" He highlighted technology trends over the last year that had driven the need to make technology and transferring content across difference devices ""seamless"". ""Gaming is becoming more of a social thing and all of the social genres will use this rich communications. ""And if we look at what has been going on with e-mail, instant messaging, blogging, entertainment - if we can make this seamless, we can create something quite phenomenal.""

Mr Gates said the PC, like Microsoft's Media Centre, had a central role to play in how people would be making the most out of audio, video and images but it would not be the only device. ""It is the way all these devices work together which will make the difference,"" he said. He also cited the success of the Microsoft Xbox video game Halo 2, released in November, which pushed Xbox console sales past PlayStation in the last two months of 2004 for the first time in 2004. The game, which makes use of the Xbox Live online games service, has sold 6.23 million copies since its release. ""People are online and playing together and that really points to the future,"" he said. Several partnerships with device and hardware manufacturers were highlighted during Mr Gates' speech, but there were few major groundbreaking new technology announcements. Although most of these affected largely US consumers, the technologies highlighted the kind of trends to come. These included what Mr Gates called an ""ecosystem of technologies"", like SBC's IPTV, a high-definition TV and digital video recorder that worked via broadband to give high-quality and fast TV. There were also other deals announced which meant that people could watch and control content over portable devices and mobile phones.

CES features several more key speeches from major technology players, such as Intel and Hewlett Packard, as well as parallel conference sessions on gaming, storage, broadband and the future of digital music. About 50,000 new products will be unleashed at the tech-fest, which is the largest yet. Consumer electronics and gadgets had a phenomenal year in 2004, according to figures released by CES organisers the CEA on Tuesday. The gadget explosion signalled the strongest growth yet in the US in 2004. That trend is predicted to continue with wholesale shipments of consumer technologies expected to grow by 11% again in 2005.
","He highlighted technology trends over the last year that had driven the need to make technology and transferring content across difference devices ""seamless"".Mr Gates said that a lot of work had been done in the last year to sort out usability and compatibility issues between devices to make it easier to share content.Several partnerships with device and hardware manufacturers were highlighted during Mr Gates' speech, but there were few major groundbreaking new technology announcements.Bill Gates has opened the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, saying that gadgets are working together more to help people manage multimedia content around the home and on the move.""It is the way all these devices work together which will make the difference,"" he said.Mr Gates said the PC, like Microsoft's Media Centre, had a central role to play in how people would be making the most out of audio, video and images but it would not be the only device.The latest trends in digital imaging, storage technologies, thinner flat screen and high-definition TVs, wireless and portable technologies, gaming, and broadband technologies will all be on show over the three days.That trend is predicted to continue with wholesale shipments of consumer technologies expected to grow by 11% again in 2005.Mr Gates made no announcement about the next generation Xbox games console, which many gadget lovers had been hoping for.The game, which makes use of the Xbox Live online games service, has sold 6.23 million copies since its release."
"GTA sequel is criminally good

The Grand Theft Auto series of games have set themselves the very highest of standards in recent years, but the newest addition is more than able to live up to an increasingly grand tradition.

The 18 certificate GTA: San Andreas for the PlayStation 2 could have got away with merely revisiting a best-selling formula with a more-of-the-same approach. Instead, it builds and expands almost immeasurably upon the last two games and stomps, carefree, over all the Driv3r and True Crime-shaped opposition. Even in the year that will see sequels to Halo and Half-Life, it is hard to envisage anything topping this barnstorming instant classic.

The basic gameplay remains familiar. You control a character, on this occasion a youth named CJ, who sets out on a series of self-contained missions within a massive 3D environment. CJ can commandeer any vehicle he stumbles across from a push-bike to a city bus to a plane. All come in handy as he seeks to establish his presence in a tough urban environment and avenge the dreadful deeds waged upon his family. To make things worse, he is framed for murder the moment he arrives in town, and blackmailed by crooked cops played by Samuel L Jackson and Chris Penn. The setting for all this rampant criminality is the fictional US state of San Andreas, comprising three major cities: Los Santos, which is a thinly-disguised Los Angeles, San Fierro, aka San Francisco and Las Venturas, a carbon copy of Las Vegas. San Andreas sucks you in with its sprawling range, cast of characters and incredibly sharp writing.

Its ability to capture the ambience of the real-world versions of these cities is something to behold, assisted no end by the monumental graphical advances since Vice City. The streets, and vast swathes of countryside, are by turns gloriously menacing, grungy and preppy. Flaunting awesome levels of graphical detail, the game's overall look, particularly during the many unusual weather conditions and dramatic sunsets, is stupendous. The outstanding bread-and-butter gameplay mechanics provide a solid grounding for the elaborate plot to hang on. Cars handle more convincingly than ever, a superb motion blur kicks in when you hit high speeds, and there's more traffic to navigate than before. Park your vehicle across the lanes of a freeway, and within seconds there will be a huge pile-up. Pedestrians are also out in force, and are a loquacious bunch. CJ can interact with them using a simple system on the control pad. They will pass comments on his appearance and credibility, aspects that the player now has control over. Clothes, tattoos and haircuts can all be purchased, and funding these habits can be achieved by criminal means or by indulging in mini-games like betting on horses and challenging bar patrons to games of pool. The character will put on or lose weight according to how long he spends on foot or in the gym. He will have to pause regularly in restaurants to keep energy levels up, but will swell up as a result of over-eating. And at last, this is a GTA hero who can swim.

At a time when games are once again under fire for their supposed potential to corrupt the young, San Andreas' violence, or specifically the freedom it gives the player to commit violence, are sure to inflame the pro-censorship brigade. Developers Rockstar have not shied away from brutality, and in some respects ramp it up from past outings.

When hijacking a car, for example, CJ will gratuitously shove the driver's head into the steering wheel rather than just fleeing with the vehicle. Indeed, the tone is darker than the jokey Vice City. The grim subject matter here hardly lends itself to gags in quite the same way as the cheesy 80s setting of the last game. This title, incidentally, is set in 1992, but that is really neither here nor there apart from the influence it has on the radio playlists. The wit is still present, just more restrained than in previous outings. A further reason for this is that the incredible range of in-vehicle radio stations available means you will spend less time happening upon the hilarious talk radio options, where GTA games' trademark humour is anchored. The quality of voice acting and motion capture is simply off-the-chart. The game's rather odious gangland lowlifes swagger and mouth off in a way that rings very true indeed. It is a testament to San Andreas' magnificence that it has a number of prominent flaws, but plus-points are so numerous that the niggles don't detract. The on-screen map, for instance, is needlessly fiddly, an unwelcome change from past editions. There is also a very jarring slowdown at action-packed moments. And the game suffers from the age-old problem that can be relied upon to blight all games of this genre, setting you back a vast distance when you fail right at the very end of a long mission. But the gameplay experience in its entirety is overwhelmingly positive. You simply will not be bothered by these minor failings. San Andreas is among the few unmissable games of 2004.
","San Andreas is among the few unmissable games of 2004.And the game suffers from the age-old problem that can be relied upon to blight all games of this genre, setting you back a vast distance when you fail right at the very end of a long mission.You control a character, on this occasion a youth named CJ, who sets out on a series of self-contained missions within a massive 3D environment.San Andreas sucks you in with its sprawling range, cast of characters and incredibly sharp writing.The 18 certificate GTA: San Andreas for the PlayStation 2 could have got away with merely revisiting a best-selling formula with a more-of-the-same approach.CJ can commandeer any vehicle he stumbles across from a push-bike to a city bus to a plane.At a time when games are once again under fire for their supposed potential to corrupt the young, San Andreas' violence, or specifically the freedom it gives the player to commit violence, are sure to inflame the pro-censorship brigade.Instead, it builds and expands almost immeasurably upon the last two games and stomps, carefree, over all the Driv3r and True Crime-shaped opposition.It is a testament to San Andreas' magnificence that it has a number of prominent flaws, but plus-points are so numerous that the niggles don't detract.The setting for all this rampant criminality is the fictional US state of San Andreas, comprising three major cities: Los Santos, which is a thinly-disguised Los Angeles, San Fierro, aka San Francisco and Las Venturas, a carbon copy of Las Vegas.The grim subject matter here hardly lends itself to gags in quite the same way as the cheesy 80s setting of the last game.Its ability to capture the ambience of the real-world versions of these cities is something to behold, assisted no end by the monumental graphical advances since Vice City.The quality of voice acting and motion capture is simply off-the-chart.A further reason for this is that the incredible range of in-vehicle radio stations available means you will spend less time happening upon the hilarious talk radio options, where GTA games' trademark humour is anchored.The basic gameplay remains familiar.Developers Rockstar have not shied away from brutality, and in some respects ramp it up from past outings.But the gameplay experience in its entirety is overwhelmingly positive."
"BT offers free net phone calls

BT is offering customers free internet telephone calls if they sign up to broadband in December.

The Christmas give-away entitles customers to free telephone calls anywhere in the UK via the internet. Users will need to use BT's internet telephony software, known as BT Communicator, and have a microphone and speakers or headset on their PC. BT has launched the promotion to show off the potential of a broadband connection to customers.

People wanting to take advantage of the offer will need to be a BT Together fixed-line customer and will have to sign up to broadband online. The offer will be limited to the first 50,000 people who sign up and there are limitations - the free calls do not include calls to mobiles, non-geographical numbers such as 0870, premium numbers or international numbers. BT is keen to provide extra services to its broadband customers. ""People already using BT Communicator have found it by far the most convenient way of making a call if they are at their PC,"" said Andrew Burke, director of value-added services at BT Retail. As more homes get high-speed access, providers are increasingly offering add-ons such as cheap net calls. ""Broadband and telephony are attractive to customers and BT wants to make sure it is in the first wave of services,"" said Ian Fogg, an analyst with Jupiter Research. ""BT Communicator had a quiet launch in the summer and now BT is waving the flag a bit more for it,"" he added.

BT has struggled to maintain its market share of broadband subscribers as more competitors enter the market. Reports say that BT has lost around 10% of market share over the last year, down from half of broadband users to less than 40%. BT is hoping its latest offer can persuade more people to jump on the broadband bandwagon. It currently has 1.3 million broadband subscribers.
",BT is offering customers free internet telephone calls if they sign up to broadband in December.People wanting to take advantage of the offer will need to be a BT Together fixed-line customer and will have to sign up to broadband online.BT has launched the promotion to show off the potential of a broadband connection to customers.BT is keen to provide extra services to its broadband customers.BT is hoping its latest offer can persuade more people to jump on the broadband bandwagon.BT has struggled to maintain its market share of broadband subscribers as more competitors enter the market.
"When invention turns to innovation

It is unlikely that future technological inventions are going to have the same kind of transformative impact that they did in the past.

When history takes a look back at great inventions like the car and transistor, they were defining technologies which ultimately changed people's lives substantially. But, says Nick Donofrio, senior vice-president of technology and manufacturing at IBM, it was not ""the thing"" itself that actually improved people's lives. It was all the social and cultural changes that the discovery or invention brought with it. The car brought about a crucial change to how people lived in cities, giving them the ability to move out into the suburbs, whilst having mobility and access. ""When we talk about innovation and creating real value in the 21st Century, we have to think more like this, but faster,"" Mr Donofrio told the BBC News website, after giving the Royal Academy of Engineering 2004 Hinton Lecture. ""The invention, discovery is likely not to have the same value as the transistor had or the automobile had. ""The equivalent of those things will be invented or discovered, but by themselves, they are just not going to able to generate real business value or wealth as these things did."" These are not altogether new ideas, and academics have been exploring how technologies impact wider society for years. But what it means for technology companies is that a new idea, method, or device, will have to have a different kind thinking behind it so that people see the value that innovative technology has for them.

We are in a different phase now when it comes to technology, argues Mr Donofrio, Industry Week's 2003 Technology Leader of the Year. The hype and over-promise is over and now technology leaders have to demonstrate that things work, make sense, make a difference and life gets better as a result.

""In the dotcom era, there was something that was jumping up in your face every five minutes. ""Somebody had a new thing that would awe you. You weren't quite sure that it did anything, you weren't quite sure if you needed it, you weren't quite sure if it had value for it, but it was cool."" But change and innovation in technology that people will see affecting their daily lives, he says, will come about slowly, subtlety, and in ways that will no longer be ""in your face"". It will creep in pervasively. Nanotechnologies will play a key part in this kind of pervasive environment in all sorts of ways, through new superconducting materials, to coatings, power, and memory storage. ""I am a very big believer in the evolution of this industry into a pervasive environment, in an incredible network infrastructure,"" says Mr Donofrio. Pervasive computing is where wireless computing rules, and where jewellery, clothes, and everyday objects become the interfaces instead of bulky wires, screens and keyboards. The net becomes a true network that is taken for granted and just there, like air. ""People will not have to do anything to stay connected. People will know their lives are just better,"" says Mr Donofrio. ""Trillions of devices will be connected to the net in ways people will not know."" Natural interfaces will develop, devices will shape your persona, and our technologically underused voices could be telling our jewellery to sort out the finances.

Ultimately, there will be, says Mr Donofrio, no value in being ""computer illiterate"". To some, it sounds like a technological world gone mad. To Mr Donofrio, it is a vision innovation that will happen. Behind this vision should be a rich robust network capability and ""deep computing"", says Mr Donofrio. Deep computing is the ability to perform lots of complex calculations on massive amounts of data, and integral to this concept is supercomputing. It has value, according to IBM, because it helps humans work out extremely complex problems to come up with valuable solutions, like how to refine millions of net search results, finding cures for diseases, or understanding of exactly how a gene or protein operates.

But pervasive computing presumably means having technologies that are aware of diversity of contexts, commands, and requirements of a diverse world. As computing and technologies become part of the environment, part of furniture, walls, and clothing, physical space becomes a more important consideration.

This is going to need a much broader range of skills and experience. ""I am confident that the SET [science, engineering and technology] industry is going to be short on skills,"" he says. ""If I am right about what innovation is, you need to be multidisciplinary and collaborative. ""Women tend to have those traits a lot better than men."" Eventually, women could win out in both life and physical sciences, he says. In the UK, a DTI-funded resource centre for women has set a target to have 40% representation on SET industry boards. IBM, according to Mr Donofrio, has 30%. ""Our goal is for our research team to become the preferred organisation for women in science and technology to begin their career."" The whole issue of global diversity is as much a business matter as it is a moral and social concern to Mr Donofrio. ""We believe in the whole issue of global diversity,"" he says. ""Our customers are diverse, our clients are diverse. They expect us to look like them. ""As more and more women or underrepresented minorities succeed into leadership positions, it becomes and imperative for us to constantly look like them.""
","People will know their lives are just better,"" says Mr Donofrio.We are in a different phase now when it comes to technology, argues Mr Donofrio, Industry Week's 2003 Technology Leader of the Year.But what it means for technology companies is that a new idea, method, or device, will have to have a different kind thinking behind it so that people see the value that innovative technology has for them.Ultimately, there will be, says Mr Donofrio, no value in being ""computer illiterate"".But, says Nick Donofrio, senior vice-president of technology and manufacturing at IBM, it was not ""the thing"" itself that actually improved people's lives.Behind this vision should be a rich robust network capability and ""deep computing"", says Mr Donofrio.IBM, according to Mr Donofrio, has 30%.To Mr Donofrio, it is a vision innovation that will happen.""I am a very big believer in the evolution of this industry into a pervasive environment, in an incredible network infrastructure,"" says Mr Donofrio.But change and innovation in technology that people will see affecting their daily lives, he says, will come about slowly, subtlety, and in ways that will no longer be ""in your face"".When history takes a look back at great inventions like the car and transistor, they were defining technologies which ultimately changed people's lives substantially.But pervasive computing presumably means having technologies that are aware of diversity of contexts, commands, and requirements of a diverse world.The whole issue of global diversity is as much a business matter as it is a moral and social concern to Mr Donofrio.""When we talk about innovation and creating real value in the 21st Century, we have to think more like this, but faster,"" Mr Donofrio told the BBC News website, after giving the Royal Academy of Engineering 2004 Hinton Lecture.""I am confident that the SET [science, engineering and technology] industry is going to be short on skills,"" he says.As computing and technologies become part of the environment, part of furniture, walls, and clothing, physical space becomes a more important consideration.The hype and over-promise is over and now technology leaders have to demonstrate that things work, make sense, make a difference and life gets better as a result.""Trillions of devices will be connected to the net in ways people will not know.""""Our goal is for our research team to become the preferred organisation for women in science and technology to begin their career."""
"Firefox browser takes on Microsoft

Microsoft's Internet Explorer has a serious rival in the long-awaited Firefox 1.0 web browser, which has just been released.

Few people get excited when some new software is released, especially when the program is not a game or a music or movie player. But the release of the first full version of Firefox has managed to drum up a respectable amount of pre-launch fervour. Fans of the software have banded together to raise cash to pay for an advert in the New York Times announcing that version 1.0 of the browser is available. The release of Firefox 1.0 on 9 November might even cause a few heads to turn at Microsoft because the program is steadily winning people away from the software giant's Internet Explorer browser.

Firefox has been created by the Mozilla Foundation which was started by former browser maker Netscape back in 1998. Much of the development work done since then has gone into Firefox which made its first appearance under this name in February. Earlier incarnations, but which had the same core technology, were called Phoenix and Firebird. Since then the software has been gaining praise and converts, not least because of the large number of security problems that have come to light in Microsoft's Internet Explorer. Rivals to IE got a boost in late June when two US computer security organisations warned people to avoid the Microsoft program to avoid falling victim to a serious vulnerability.

Internet monitoring firm WebSideStory has charted the growing population of people using the Firefox browser and says it is responsible for slowly eroding the stranglehold of IE. Before July this year, according to WebSideStory, Internet Explorer was used by about 95% of web surfers. That figure had remained static for years. In July the IE using population dropped to 94.7% and by the end of October stood at 92.9%. The Mozilla Foundation claims that Firefox has been downloaded almost eight million times and has publicly said it would be happy to garner 10% of the Windows- using, net-browsing population. Firefox is proving popular because, at the moment, it has far fewer security holes than Internet Explorer and has some innovations lacking in Microsoft's program. For instance, Firefox allows the pages of different websites to be arranged as tabs so users can switch easily between them. It blocks pop-ups, has a neat way of finding text on a page and lets you search through the pages you have browsed.

One of the most powerful features of Firefox is the many hundreds of extras, or extensions, produced for it. The Mozilla Foundation is an open source organisation which means that the creators of the browser are happy for others to play around with the core code for the program. This has resulted in many different add-ons or extensions for the browser which now include everything from a version of the familiar Google toolbar to a Homeland Security monitor that keep users aware of current threat levels. Firefox, which used to be called Firebird and before that Phoenix, also has a growing number of vocal net-based fans. A campaign co-ordinated by the Spread Firefox website attempted to raise the $50,000 needed for a full page advert in the New York Times. The campaign set itself a target of recruiting 2500 volunteers. Ten days in to the campaign 10,000 people had signed up and now about $250,000 has been raised. The ad is due to run sometime in a three-week period in late November/early December. The surplus cash will be used to help keep the Mozilla Foundation running. Microsoft is facing a growing challenge to IE's hold on the web using population. from alternative browsers such as Opera, Safari, Amaya and even Netscape.
","Microsoft's Internet Explorer has a serious rival in the long-awaited Firefox 1.0 web browser, which has just been released.Internet monitoring firm WebSideStory has charted the growing population of people using the Firefox browser and says it is responsible for slowly eroding the stranglehold of IE.Firefox is proving popular because, at the moment, it has far fewer security holes than Internet Explorer and has some innovations lacking in Microsoft's program.Firefox has been created by the Mozilla Foundation which was started by former browser maker Netscape back in 1998.The Mozilla Foundation claims that Firefox has been downloaded almost eight million times and has publicly said it would be happy to garner 10% of the Windows- using, net-browsing population.Firefox, which used to be called Firebird and before that Phoenix, also has a growing number of vocal net-based fans.The release of Firefox 1.0 on 9 November might even cause a few heads to turn at Microsoft because the program is steadily winning people away from the software giant's Internet Explorer browser.But the release of the first full version of Firefox has managed to drum up a respectable amount of pre-launch fervour.Ten days in to the campaign 10,000 people had signed up and now about $250,000 has been raised.Since then the software has been gaining praise and converts, not least because of the large number of security problems that have come to light in Microsoft's Internet Explorer.A campaign co-ordinated by the Spread Firefox website attempted to raise the $50,000 needed for a full page advert in the New York Times.Much of the development work done since then has gone into Firefox which made its first appearance under this name in February."
"Halo fans' hope for sequel

Xbox video game Halo 2 has been released in the US on 9 November, with a UK release two days later. Why is the game among the most anticipated of all time?

Halo is considered by many video game pundits to be one of the finest examples of interactive entertainment ever produced and more than 1.5 million people worldwide have pre-ordered the sequel. A science fiction epic, Halo centred the action on a human cyborg, controlled by the player, who had to save his crew from an alien horde after a crash landing on a strange and exotic world contained on the interior surface of a giant ring in space. Remembrance of Things Past it was not - but as a slice of schlock science fiction inspired by works such as Larry Niven's Ringworld and the film Starship Troopers, it fit the bill perfectly. Halo stood out from a crowd of similar titles - it was graphically impressive, had tremendous audio, using Dolby Digital, a decent storyline, instant playability and impressive physics.

But what marked Halo as a classic were the thousands of details which brought a feeling of polish and the enormously-high production values not usually associated with video gaming.

Produced by Bungie software, renowned for their innovation in gaming, it caused a stir among the gaming fraternity when the developer was bought by Microsoft and became an Xbox exclusive. Claude Errera, editor of fansite Halo.Bungie.Org, said: ""Bungie got everything right. They were really careful to make sure everything worked the way it was supposed to. ""Nothing distracts you when you were playing. There was nothing in Halo that had not been done before but everything in there was as good as it could be."" He added: ""Graphically it was superior to everything else out there.

""It also had a depth to it that made it stand out."" Halo was unusually immersive, sucking the player into the action and blurring the interface between screen and controller. It also capitalised on the growing popularity of LAN gaming in the PC world - for the first time it became easy to link multiple game consoles together, allowing up to 16 players to battle against each other at the same time.

The game instantly cultivated an online following, which continues today with a score of Halo fan websites following every aspect of the sequel, Halo 2. Errera spends three to fours hours a day of his own time maintaining the hugely popular website, which attracts 600,000 page views a day from Halo fans eager for the latest news.

When the Xbox launched on November 15 2001 in the US, Halo was one of the launch titles and had an immediate impact on critics and consumers. ""Halo is the most important launch game for any console ever,"" wrote the influential Edge magazine in its review, giving it a rare 10 out of 10 mark. The game had its critics and while it is not a one-off original as a game, it brought many original touches and flourishes to the genre which have defined all other first person shooters since. ""The first time I played it I just stood there watching the spent shells fall out of my gun,"" said Errera, remarking on the level of detail in the game.

The game also inspired thousands of people to write their own fiction based on the storyline and produce downloadable video clips of the many weird and wonderful things that can be done in the game. ""It blew me away the first time someone managed to climb to the top of Halo,"" said Errera, referring to a fan who had created a video of Master Chief scaling the landscape of the graphical world. Video clips of the more outrageous stunts that are possible thanks to the game's amazing physics engine are incredibly popular and some have attained a cult following. Speculation about the sequel has seen every titbit analysed and poured over with all the intent of a forensic scientist examining a body. When early screenshots of the game were released some people wrote essay-length articles highlighting everything from the texture of graphics to clues about the story line. Errera said expectations of the sequel among fans were sky high. ""It does not feel like a game release any more. Somebody told me this was the biggest single release of any product in Microsoft's history. ""We're all just hoping that Bungie has got it right again.""

Halo 2 is out on 9 November in the US and 11 November in the UK
","Xbox video game Halo 2 has been released in the US on 9 November, with a UK release two days later.There was nothing in Halo that had not been done before but everything in there was as good as it could be.""The game instantly cultivated an online following, which continues today with a score of Halo fan websites following every aspect of the sequel, Halo 2.When the Xbox launched on November 15 2001 in the US, Halo was one of the launch titles and had an immediate impact on critics and consumers.The game also inspired thousands of people to write their own fiction based on the storyline and produce downloadable video clips of the many weird and wonderful things that can be done in the game.Halo is considered by many video game pundits to be one of the finest examples of interactive entertainment ever produced and more than 1.5 million people worldwide have pre-ordered the sequel.Why is the game among the most anticipated of all time?""It blew me away the first time someone managed to climb to the top of Halo,"" said Errera, referring to a fan who had created a video of Master Chief scaling the landscape of the graphical world.It also capitalised on the growing popularity of LAN gaming in the PC world - for the first time it became easy to link multiple game consoles together, allowing up to 16 players to battle against each other at the same time.Halo was unusually immersive, sucking the player into the action and blurring the interface between screen and controller.""The first time I played it I just stood there watching the spent shells fall out of my gun,"" said Errera, remarking on the level of detail in the game.""Halo is the most important launch game for any console ever,"" wrote the influential Edge magazine in its review, giving it a rare 10 out of 10 mark.Halo 2 is out on 9 November in the US and 11 November in the UK"
"Players sought for $1m prize

UK gamers are getting a chance to take part in a $1m tournament thanks to one of the country's top teams.

The Four-Kings clan is staging a Pop Idol type competition to find new members who can take on the world's best in the lucrative tournament. Four-Kings hopes the open qualifiers will turn up gamers good enough to beat all comers at the Painkiller game. Top players also get a contract with the Four-Kings team which will pay travelling expenses for the contest.

UK gamers have until 12 November to register their interest in taking part and can sign up via the Four-Kings, Jolt.co.uk and Painkiller tournament websites. Philip Wride, who co-manages the Four-Kings team, said online qualifiers will be held from 16-28 November to find the best eight players of the Painkiller game. He said the clan was running the contest because Four-Kings does not currently have any players that excel at Painkiller. These eight players will be brought together in London on 3-5 December for the Bloodline Tournament that will find the best two players.

The event will be filmed and the final cut made available online for others to watch. The movie is being put together by Simon Bysshe who has shot many other films about pro-gaming that have been widely shared online. Said Mr Bysshe: ""Painkiller is a new game and the opportunity is there for a new player to step up."" Painkiller has been described as a game that adds a few modern touches, such as improved graphics, to the old-fashioned first-person shooter. These two players will be put forward as the UK's entrants to the Cyberathlete Professional League $1m Painkiller contest that will take place throughout 2005. The event is being billed as the CPL World Tour and will be arranged around ten separate tournaments at different locations around the world. Travel expenses to all the stops on the tour will be paid by Four-Kings for the two UK players who make the grade. The top prize at each stop on the world tour will be $15,000. A further $150,000 will be given to the winner of the Grand Final due to be held in December 2005. Mr Wride said any gamer that wins a few tour stop tournaments and the grand final will have a very good year. The first stop on the world tour will be Istanbul, Turkey from 10-13 February. A total of $50,000 in cash prizes is on offer. The CPL has said that it picked a one-on-one game such as Painkiller to make it easier for spectators to follow the action. Counter-Strike, by far the most popular online game, pits teams against each other and can be confusing to follow if those watching are not familiar with the layout of the maps on which it is played. The decision to pick Painkiller was greeted with surprise by many gamers, as it was widely expected that Doom 3 would be chosen as the one-one-one title.
","Philip Wride, who co-manages the Four-Kings team, said online qualifiers will be held from 16-28 November to find the best eight players of the Painkiller game.He said the clan was running the contest because Four-Kings does not currently have any players that excel at Painkiller.Travel expenses to all the stops on the tour will be paid by Four-Kings for the two UK players who make the grade.Said Mr Bysshe: ""Painkiller is a new game and the opportunity is there for a new player to step up.""The top prize at each stop on the world tour will be $15,000.Mr Wride said any gamer that wins a few tour stop tournaments and the grand final will have a very good year.UK gamers have until 12 November to register their interest in taking part and can sign up via the Four-Kings, Jolt.co.uk and Painkiller tournament websites.Four-Kings hopes the open qualifiers will turn up gamers good enough to beat all comers at the Painkiller game.The CPL has said that it picked a one-on-one game such as Painkiller to make it easier for spectators to follow the action.Top players also get a contract with the Four-Kings team which will pay travelling expenses for the contest."
"US top of supercomputing charts

The US has pushed Japan off the top of the supercomputing chart with IBM's prototype Blue Gene/L machine.

It is being assembled for the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, under the US Department of Energy. IBM test results show that Blue Gene/L has managed speeds of 70.72 teraflops. The previous top machine, Japan's NEC Earth Simulator, clocked up 35.86. The Top 500 list was announced on Monday and officially charts the fastest computers in the world.

It is announced every six months and is worked out using an officially recognised mathematical speed test called Linpack which measures calculations per second.

Once completed in 2005, Blue Gene/L will be more powerful than its current prototype. ""Next year with the final Blue Gene, four times what it is this year, it is going to be a real step up and will be hard to beat,"" said Erich Strohmaier, one of the co-founders of the Top500 list. It will help scientists work out the safety, security and reliability requirements for the US's nuclear weapons stockpile, without the need for underground nuclear testing. It will also cut down on the amount of heat generated by the massive power, a big problem for supercomputers.

In second place was Silicon Graphics' Columbia supercomputer based at the US space agency's (Nasa) Ames Research Center in California. The Linux-based machine was reported to have reached a top speed of 42.7 trillion calculations per second (teraflops) in October. It will be used to model flight missions, climate research, and aerospace engineering. The defeated Japanese contender, the Earth Simulator, which was listed in third place, losing the top spot it had held since June 2002. It is dedicated to climate modelling and simulating seismic activity.

Since the first supercomputer, the Cray-1, was installed at Los Alamos National Laboratory, US, in 1976, computational speed has leaped 500,000 times. The Cray-1 was capable of 80 megaflops (80 million operations a second). The Blue Gene/L machine that will be completed next year will be five million times faster. Started in 1993, the Top 500 list is decided by a group of computer science academics from around the world. It is presented at the International Supercomputer Conference in Pittsburgh.
","The US has pushed Japan off the top of the supercomputing chart with IBM's prototype Blue Gene/L machine.The Linux-based machine was reported to have reached a top speed of 42.7 trillion calculations per second (teraflops) in October.Since the first supercomputer, the Cray-1, was installed at Los Alamos National Laboratory, US, in 1976, computational speed has leaped 500,000 times.The Top 500 list was announced on Monday and officially charts the fastest computers in the world.The Blue Gene/L machine that will be completed next year will be five million times faster.In second place was Silicon Graphics' Columbia supercomputer based at the US space agency's (Nasa) Ames Research Center in California.IBM test results show that Blue Gene/L has managed speeds of 70.72 teraflops.The defeated Japanese contender, the Earth Simulator, which was listed in third place, losing the top spot it had held since June 2002."
"Text messages aid disaster recovery

Text messaging technology was a valuable communication tool in the aftermath of the tsunami disaster in Asia.

The messages can get through even when the cell phone signal is too weak to sustain a spoken conversation. Now some are studying how the technology behind SMS could be better used during an emergency. Sanjaya Senanayake works for Sri Lankan television. The blogging world, though, might know him better by his online name, Morquendi. He was one of the first on the scene after the tsunami destroyed much of the Sri Lankan coast. Cell phone signals were weak. Land lines were unreliable. So Mr Senanayake started sending out text messages. The messages were not just the latest news they were also an on-the-ground assessment of ""who needs what and where"". Blogging friends in India took Mr Senanayake's text messages and posted them on a weblog called Dogs without Borders. Thousands around the world followed the story that unfolded in the text messages that he sent.

And that's when Mr Senanayake started to wonder if SMS might be put to more practical use. ""SMS networks can handle so much more traffic than the standard mobile phone call or the land line call,"" he says.

""In every rural community, there's at least one person who has access to a mobile phone, or has a mobile phone, and can receive messages."" Half a world away, in the Caribbean nation of Trinidad and Tobago, Taran Rampersad read Morquendi's messages. Mr Rampersad, who used to work in the military, knew how important on the ground communication can be in times of disaster. He wondered if there might be a way to automatically centralise text messages, and then redistribute them to agencies and people who might be able to help. Mr Rampersad said: ""Imagine if an aid worker in the field spotted a need for water purification tablets, and had a central place to send a text message to that effect. ""He can message the server, so the server can send out an e-mail message and human or machine moderators can e-mail aid agencies and get it out in the field."" He added: ""Or, send it at the same time to other people who are using SMS in the region, and they might have an excess of it, and be able to shift supplies to the right places.""

Mr Rampersad and others had actually been thinking about such a system since Hurricane Ivan ravaged the Caribbean and the southern United States last September. Last week, he sent out e-mail messages asking for help in creating such a system for Asia.

In only 72 hours, he found Dan Lane, a text message guru living in Britain. The pair, along with a group of dedicated techies, are creating what they call the Alert Retrieval Cache. The idea is to use open-source software - software can be used by anyone without commercial restraint - and a far-flung network of talent to create a system that links those in need with those who can help. ""This is a classic smart mobs situation where you have people self-organizing into a larger enterprise to do things that benefit other people,"" says Paul Saffo, a director at the California-based Institute for the Future. ""You may be halfway around the world from someone, but in cyberspace you're just one click or one e-mail away,"" he said, ""That's put a whole new dimension on disaster relief and recovery, where often people halfway around the world can be more effective in making something happen precisely because they're not right on top of the tragedy."" It is still very early days for the project, though. In an e-mail, Dan Lane calls it ""an early proof of concept."" Right now, the Alert Retrieval Cache can only take a text message and automatically upload it to a web-page, or distribute it to an e-mail list. In the near future, the group says it hopes to take in messages from people in affected areas, and use human moderators to take actions based on the content of those messages. But there's still another challenge. You have to get people to know that the system is there for them to use. ""It's amazing how difficult it is to find someone to pass it along to, and say, look this is what we're trying to do and everything like that,"" says Mr Rampersad. ""So the big problem right now is the same problem we're trying to solve - human communication."" He is optimistic, however. He thinks that the Alert Retrieval Cache is an idea whose time has come and he hopes governments, too, will sit up and take notice. And he stands by his motto, courtesy of Michelangelo: criticise by creating.

Clark Boyd is technology correspondent for The World, a BBC World Service and WGBH-Boston co-production.
","Right now, the Alert Retrieval Cache can only take a text message and automatically upload it to a web-page, or distribute it to an e-mail list.So Mr Senanayake started sending out text messages.Last week, he sent out e-mail messages asking for help in creating such a system for Asia.Thousands around the world followed the story that unfolded in the text messages that he sent.""He can message the server, so the server can send out an e-mail message and human or machine moderators can e-mail aid agencies and get it out in the field.""In the near future, the group says it hopes to take in messages from people in affected areas, and use human moderators to take actions based on the content of those messages.Mr Rampersad said: ""Imagine if an aid worker in the field spotted a need for water purification tablets, and had a central place to send a text message to that effect.He wondered if there might be a way to automatically centralise text messages, and then redistribute them to agencies and people who might be able to help.The messages can get through even when the cell phone signal is too weak to sustain a spoken conversation.And that's when Mr Senanayake started to wonder if SMS might be put to more practical use.Blogging friends in India took Mr Senanayake's text messages and posted them on a weblog called Dogs without Borders.""SMS networks can handle so much more traffic than the standard mobile phone call or the land line call,"" he says.In only 72 hours, he found Dan Lane, a text message guru living in Britain.You have to get people to know that the system is there for them to use.""You may be halfway around the world from someone, but in cyberspace you're just one click or one e-mail away,"" he said, ""That's put a whole new dimension on disaster relief and recovery, where often people halfway around the world can be more effective in making something happen precisely because they're not right on top of the tragedy.""Mr Rampersad, who used to work in the military, knew how important on the ground communication can be in times of disaster."
"Putting a face to 'Big Brother'

Literally putting a face on technology could be one of the keys to improving our interaction with hi-tech gadgets.

Imagine a surveillance system that also presents a virtual embodiment of a person on a screen who can react to your behaviour, and perhaps even alert you to new e-mails. Basic versions of these so-called avatars already exist. Together with speech and voice recognition systems, they could replace the keyboard and mouse in the near future. Some of these ideas have been showcased at the London's Science Museum, as part of its Future Face exhibition.

One such avatar is Jeremiah. It is a virtual man, which you can download for free and install in your computer.

His creator, Richard Bowden, lecturer at the Centre for Vision, Speech and Signal Processing at the University of Surrey, refers to Jeremiah as ""him"", rather than it. ""Jeremiah is a virtual face that attempts to emulate humans in the way it responds to activity. He is very childlike, he likes visual stimulus,"" he told the BBC News website. ""When he sees children running and laughing and waving at him, he smiles at them. If you ignore him, he gets angry. If you leave, he gets sad. And you can also even surprise him."" Jeremiah is not actually intelligent. It works on vision, reacting in a preset way to the information provided by a surveillance tracker system. It is not able to talk or to hear you, at least not yet. The Surrey team is already working on Jeremiah's next version, that will replace the human face with an underwater and more interactive creature: Finn the fish. ""I am interested in the interaction, providing the ability of a system to watch what's going on and make decisions based on that,"" explained Dr Bowden.

The research comes at a time when people are having to cope with an increasing number of hi-tech gadgets.

Experts say a much more natural way to interact with these devices, such as a virtual human, could make it much easier to make the most of all those new gizmos. ""If you get up at three o'clock in the morning, and you go downstairs, there are probably two things you are going to do: either going to the bathroom, or maybe you are going to make a cup of tea,"" said Dr Bowden. ""Now if the system can watch your behaviour over time, it can learn this, so it would predict what you are going to do, turn on the lights for you, or, before you even get to the kettle, it could have switched it on."" You might even be able to tell your home surveillance system that you will be going away on holiday, and ask if it could make sure that the house is secure once you have left. This might sound like a scary vision of an Orwellian future. But it might all depend on the face that is watching you. ""When we put the surveillance cameras in our centre, a lot of people were very unhappy about the fact that there was a system watching them,"" said Dr Bowden. ""But when Jeremiah's camera went in, nobody minded, because although it's still watching them, they could see what it was watching.""
","You might even be able to tell your home surveillance system that you will be going away on holiday, and ask if it could make sure that the house is secure once you have left.""Now if the system can watch your behaviour over time, it can learn this, so it would predict what you are going to do, turn on the lights for you, or, before you even get to the kettle, it could have switched it on.""""Jeremiah is a virtual face that attempts to emulate humans in the way it responds to activity.""When we put the surveillance cameras in our centre, a lot of people were very unhappy about the fact that there was a system watching them,"" said Dr Bowden.But it might all depend on the face that is watching you.Literally putting a face on technology could be one of the keys to improving our interaction with hi-tech gadgets.Imagine a surveillance system that also presents a virtual embodiment of a person on a screen who can react to your behaviour, and perhaps even alert you to new e-mails.""I am interested in the interaction, providing the ability of a system to watch what's going on and make decisions based on that,"" explained Dr Bowden.""But when Jeremiah's camera went in, nobody minded, because although it's still watching them, they could see what it was watching.""""If you get up at three o'clock in the morning, and you go downstairs, there are probably two things you are going to do: either going to the bathroom, or maybe you are going to make a cup of tea,"" said Dr Bowden.Experts say a much more natural way to interact with these devices, such as a virtual human, could make it much easier to make the most of all those new gizmos.One such avatar is Jeremiah."
"Football Manager scores big time

For the past decade or so the virtual football fans among us will have become used to the annual helping of Championship Manager (CM). Indeed, it seems like there has been a CM game for as many years as there have been PCs.

However, last year was the final time that developers Sports Interactive (SI) and publishers Eidos would work together. They decided to go their separate ways, and each kept a piece of the franchise. SI kept the game's code and database, and Eidos retained rights to the CM brand, and the look and feel of the game. So at the beginning of this year, fans faced a new situation. Eidos announced the next CM game, with a new team to develop it from scratch, whilst SI developed the existing code further to be released, with new publishers Sega, under the name Football Manager. So what does this mean? Well, Football Manager is the spiritual successor to the CM series, and it has been released earlier than expected. At this point CM5 looks like it will ship early next year. But given that Football Manager 2005 is by and large the game that everybody knows and loves, how does this new version shape up?

A game like FM2005 could blind you with statistics. It has an obscene number of playable leagues, an obscene number of manageable teams and a really obscene number of players and staff from around the world in the database, with stats faithfully researched and compiled by a loyal army of fans. But that does not do justice to the game really. What we are talking about is the most realistic and satisfying football management game to ever grace the Earth.

You begin by picking the nations and leagues you want to manage teams from, for instance England and Scotland. That will give you a choice not just of the four main Scottish leagues, but the English Premiership all the way down to the Conference North and South. Of course you might be looking for European glory, or to get hold of Abramovich's millions, in which case you can take control at Chelsea, or even Barcelona, Real Madrid, AC Milan ... the list goes on a very long way. Once in a team you will be told by the board what they expect of you. Sometimes it is promotion, or a place in Europe, sometimes it is consolidation or a brave relegation battle. It might even be a case of Champions or else. Obviously the expectations are linked to the team you choose, so choose wisely. Then it is time to look at your squad, work out your tactics, seeing how much cash, if any, you have got to splash, having a look at the transfer market, sorting out the training schedule and making sure your backroom staff are up to it. Then bring on the matches, which are once more available in the ever-improving top down 2D view. With the exception of the improved user interface on the surface, not much else seems to have changed.

However, there have been a lot of changes under the bonnet as well - things like the manager mind-games, which let you talk to the media about the opposition bosses. The match engine is also much improved, and it is more of a joy than ever to watch. In fact just about every area of the game has been tweaked, and it leads to an ever more immersive experience.

With a game that is so complex and so open-ended, there are of course a few glitches, but nowhere near the sorts of problems that have blighted previous releases. With so many calculations to perform the game can take some time to process in between matches, though there have been improvements in this area. And a sport like football, which is so high profile and unpredictable itself, can never be modelled quite to everybody's satisfaction. But this time around a great deal of hard work has been put in to ensure that any oddities that do crop up are cosmetic only, and do not affect gameplay. And if there are problems further down the line, Sports Interactive have indicated their usual willingness to support and develop the game as far as possible. In all there are many more tweaks and improvements. If you were a fan of the previous CM games, then FM2005 might make you forget there was anything else before it. If you are new to the genre but like the idea of trying to take Margate into the Premiership, Spurs into Europe, or even putting Rangers back on the top of the tree, FM2005 could be the best purchase you ever made. Just be warned that the family might not see you much at Christmas.

Football Manager 2005 out now for the PC and the Mac
","Indeed, it seems like there has been a CM game for as many years as there have been PCs.Eidos announced the next CM game, with a new team to develop it from scratch, whilst SI developed the existing code further to be released, with new publishers Sega, under the name Football Manager.But given that Football Manager 2005 is by and large the game that everybody knows and loves, how does this new version shape up?SI kept the game's code and database, and Eidos retained rights to the CM brand, and the look and feel of the game.A game like FM2005 could blind you with statistics.But that does not do justice to the game really.With so many calculations to perform the game can take some time to process in between matches, though there have been improvements in this area.Well, Football Manager is the spiritual successor to the CM series, and it has been released earlier than expected.What we are talking about is the most realistic and satisfying football management game to ever grace the Earth.If you are new to the genre but like the idea of trying to take Margate into the Premiership, Spurs into Europe, or even putting Rangers back on the top of the tree, FM2005 could be the best purchase you ever made.If you were a fan of the previous CM games, then FM2005 might make you forget there was anything else before it.At this point CM5 looks like it will ship early next year.In fact just about every area of the game has been tweaked, and it leads to an ever more immersive experience.For the past decade or so the virtual football fans among us will have become used to the annual helping of Championship Manager (CM).Football Manager 2005 out now for the PC and the MacHowever, last year was the final time that developers Sports Interactive (SI) and publishers Eidos would work together."
"Musicians 'upbeat' about the net

Musicians are embracing the internet as a way of reaching new fans and selling more music, a survey has found.

The study by US researchers, Pew Internet, suggests musicians do not agree with the tactics adopted by the music industry against file-sharing. While most considered file-sharing as illegal, many disagreed with the lawsuits launched against downloaders. ""Even successful artists don't think the lawsuits will benefit musicians,"" said report author Mary Madden.

For part of the study, Pew Internet conducted an online survey of 2,755 musicians, songwriters and music publishers via musician membership organisations between March and April 2004.

They ranged from full-time, successful musicians to artists struggling to make a living from their music. ""We looked at more of the independent musicians, rather than the rockstars of this industry but that reflects more accurately the state of the music industry,"" Ms Madden told the BBC News website. ""We always hear the views of successful artists like the Britneys of the world but the less successful artists rarely get represented."" The survey found that musicians were overwhelming positive about the internet, rather than seeing it as just a threat to their livelihood. Almost all of them used the net for ideas and inspiration, with nine out of 10 going online to promote, advertise and post their music on the web. More than 80% offered free samples online, while two-thirds sold their music via the net. Independent musicians, in particular, saw the internet as a way to get around the need to land a record contract and reach fans directly. ""Musicians are embracing the internet enthusiastically,"" said Ms Madden. ""They are using the internet to gain inspiration, sell it online, tracking royalties, learning about copyright.""

Perhaps surprisingly, opinions about online file-sharing were diverse and not as clear cut as those of the record industry.

Through the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), it has pursued an aggressive campaign through the courts to sue people suspected of sharing copyrighted music. But the report suggests this campaign does not have the wholehearted backing of musicians in the US. It found that most artists saw file-sharing as both good and bad, though most agreed that it should be illegal. ""Free downloading has killed opportunities for new bands to break without major funding and backing,"" said one musician quoted by the report. ""It's hard to keep making records if they don't pay for themselves through sales."" However 60% said they did not think the lawsuits against song swappers would benefit musicians and songwriters. Many suggested that rather than fighting file-sharing, the music industry needed to recognise the changes it has brought and embrace it. ""Both successful and struggling musicians were more likely to say that the internet has made it possible for them to make more money from their music, rather than make it harder for them to protect their material from piracy,"" said Ms Madden.
","The study by US researchers, Pew Internet, suggests musicians do not agree with the tactics adopted by the music industry against file-sharing.""Both successful and struggling musicians were more likely to say that the internet has made it possible for them to make more money from their music, rather than make it harder for them to protect their material from piracy,"" said Ms Madden.Musicians are embracing the internet as a way of reaching new fans and selling more music, a survey has found.For part of the study, Pew Internet conducted an online survey of 2,755 musicians, songwriters and music publishers via musician membership organisations between March and April 2004.They ranged from full-time, successful musicians to artists struggling to make a living from their music.""Even successful artists don't think the lawsuits will benefit musicians,"" said report author Mary Madden.""Musicians are embracing the internet enthusiastically,"" said Ms Madden.Many suggested that rather than fighting file-sharing, the music industry needed to recognise the changes it has brought and embrace it.""We looked at more of the independent musicians, rather than the rockstars of this industry but that reflects more accurately the state of the music industry,"" Ms Madden told the BBC News website.The survey found that musicians were overwhelming positive about the internet, rather than seeing it as just a threat to their livelihood."
"Broadband takes on TV viewing

The number of Europeans with broadband has exploded over the past 12 months, with the web eating into TV viewing habits, research suggests.

Just over 54 million people are hooked up to the net via broadband, up from 34 million a year ago, according to market analysts Nielsen/NetRatings. The total number of people online in Europe has broken the 100 million mark. The popularity of the net has meant that many are turning away from TV, say analysts Jupiter Research. It found that a quarter of web users said they spent less time watching TV in favour of the net

The report by Nielsen/NetRatings found that the number of people with fast internet access had risen by 60% over the past year.

The biggest jump was in Italy, where it rose by 120%. Britain was close behind, with broadband users almost doubling in a year. The growth has been fuelled by lower prices and a wider choice of always-on, fast-net subscription plans. ""Twelve months ago high speed internet users made up just over one third of the audience in Europe; now they are more than 50% and we expect this number to keep growing,"" said Gabrielle Prior, Nielsen/NetRatings analyst. ""As the number of high-speed surfers grows, websites will need to adapt, update and enhance their content to retain their visitors and encourage new ones."" The total number of Europeans online rose by 12% to 100 million over the past year, the report showed, with the biggest rise in France, Italy, Britain and Germany.

The ability to browse web pages at high speed, download files such as music or films and play online games is changing what people do in their spare time.

A study by analysts Jupiter Research suggested that broadband was challenging television viewing habits. In homes with broadband, 40% said they were spending less time watching TV. The threat to TV was greatest in countries where broadband was on the up, in particular the UK, France and Spain, said the report. It said TV companies faced a major long-term threat over the next five years, with broadband predicted to grow from 19% to 37% of households by 2009. ""Year-on-year we are continuing to see a seismic shift in where, when and how Europe's population consume media for information and entertainment and this has big implications for TV, newspaper and radio,"" said Jupiter Research analyst Olivier Beauvillian.
","The number of Europeans with broadband has exploded over the past 12 months, with the web eating into TV viewing habits, research suggests.It found that a quarter of web users said they spent less time watching TV in favour of the net  The report by Nielsen/NetRatings found that the number of people with fast internet access had risen by 60% over the past year.The threat to TV was greatest in countries where broadband was on the up, in particular the UK, France and Spain, said the report.In homes with broadband, 40% said they were spending less time watching TV.The total number of Europeans online rose by 12% to 100 million over the past year, the report showed, with the biggest rise in France, Italy, Britain and Germany.A study by analysts Jupiter Research suggested that broadband was challenging television viewing habits.Just over 54 million people are hooked up to the net via broadband, up from 34 million a year ago, according to market analysts Nielsen/NetRatings."
"Freeze on anti-spam campaign

A campaign by Lycos Europe to target spam-related websites appears to have been put on hold.

Earlier this week the company released a screensaver that bombarded the sites with data to try to bump up the running costs of the websites. But the site hosting the screensaver now displays a pink graphic and the words ""Stay tuned"". No one at Lycos was available for comment on latest developments in its controversial anti-spam campaign.

Lycos Europe's ""Make love not spam"" campaign was intended as a way for users to fight back against the mountain of junk mail flooding inboxes. People were encouraged to download the screensaver which, when their PC was idle, would then send lots of data to sites that peddle the goods and services mentioned in spam messages. Lycos said the idea was to get the spam sites running at 95% capacity and generate big bandwidth bills for the spammers behind the sites. But the plan has proved controversial.

Monitoring firm Netcraft analysed response times for some of the sites targeted by the screensaver and found that a number were completely knocked offline.

The downing of the sites could dent Lycos claims that what it is doing does not amount to a distributed denial of service attack. In such attacks thousands of computers bombard sites with data in an attempt to overwhelm them. Laws in many countries do not explicitly outlaw such attacks but many nations are re-drafting computer use laws to make them specific offences. Lycos Europe now appears to have put the plan on hold. The site hosting the screensaver currently shows a holding page, with the words, ""Stay tuned"". The numerical internet address of the site has also changed. This is likely to be in response to spammers who have reportedly redirected traffic from their sites back to the Lycos screensaver site. The campaign has come under fire from some corners of the web. Many discussion groups have said that it set a dangerous precedent and could incite vigilantism. ""Attacking a spammer's website is like poking a grizzly bear sleeping in your back garden with a pointy stick,"" said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for Sophos. ""Not only is this screensaver similar in its approach to a potentially illegal distributed denial of service attack, but it also is in danger of turning innocent computer users into vigilantes, who may not be prepared for whatever retaliation the spammers care to dream up.""
","This is likely to be in response to spammers who have reportedly redirected traffic from their sites back to the Lycos screensaver site.The downing of the sites could dent Lycos claims that what it is doing does not amount to a distributed denial of service attack.Lycos said the idea was to get the spam sites running at 95% capacity and generate big bandwidth bills for the spammers behind the sites.But the site hosting the screensaver now displays a pink graphic and the words ""Stay tuned"".The site hosting the screensaver currently shows a holding page, with the words, ""Stay tuned"".A campaign by Lycos Europe to target spam-related websites appears to have been put on hold.In such attacks thousands of computers bombard sites with data in an attempt to overwhelm them.People were encouraged to download the screensaver which, when their PC was idle, would then send lots of data to sites that peddle the goods and services mentioned in spam messages."
"ITunes user sues Apple over iPod

A user of Apple's iTunes music service is suing the firm saying it is unfair he can only use an iPod to play songs.

He says Apple is breaking anti-competition laws in refusing to let other music players work with the site. Apple, which opened its online store in 2003 after launching the iPod in 2001, uses technology to ensure each song bought only plays on the iPod. Californian Thomas Slattery filed the suit in the US District Court in San Jose and is seeking damages.

""Apple has turned an open and interactive standard into an artifice that prevents consumers from using the portable hard drive digital music player of their choice,"" the lawsuit states. The key to such a lawsuit would be convincing a court that a single brand like iTunes is a market in itself separate from the rest of the online music market, according to Ernest Gellhorn, an anti-trust law professor at George Mason University. ""As a practical matter, the lower courts have been highly sceptical of such claims,"" Prof Gellhorn said. Apple has sold more than six million iPods since the gadget was launched and has an 87% share of the market for portable digital music players, market research firm NPD Group has reported.

More than 200 million songs have been sold by the iTunes music store since it was launched. ""Apple has unlawfully bundled, tied, and/or leveraged its monopoly in the market for the sale of legal online digital music recordings to thwart competition in the separate market for portable hard drive digital music players, and vice-versa,"" the lawsuit said. Mr Slattery called himself an iTunes customer who ""was also forced to purchase an Apple iPod"" if he wanted to take his music with him to listen to. A spokesman for Apple declined to comment. Apple's online music store uses a different format for songs than Napster, Musicmatch, RealPlayer and others. The rivals use the MP3 format or Microsoft's WMA format while Apple uses AAC, which it says helps thwart piracy. The WMA format also includes so-called Digital Rights Management which is used to block piracy.
","""Apple has unlawfully bundled, tied, and/or leveraged its monopoly in the market for the sale of legal online digital music recordings to thwart competition in the separate market for portable hard drive digital music players, and vice-versa,"" the lawsuit said.Apple has sold more than six million iPods since the gadget was launched and has an 87% share of the market for portable digital music players, market research firm NPD Group has reported.Apple's online music store uses a different format for songs than Napster, Musicmatch, RealPlayer and others.Mr Slattery called himself an iTunes customer who ""was also forced to purchase an Apple iPod"" if he wanted to take his music with him to listen to.""Apple has turned an open and interactive standard into an artifice that prevents consumers from using the portable hard drive digital music player of their choice,"" the lawsuit states.Apple, which opened its online store in 2003 after launching the iPod in 2001, uses technology to ensure each song bought only plays on the iPod."
"Microsoft gets the blogging bug

Software giant Microsoft is taking the plunge into the world of blogging.

It is launching a test service to allow people to publish blogs, or online journals, called MSN Spaces. Microsoft is trailing behind competitors like Google and AOL, which already offer services which make it easy for people to set up web journals. Blogs, short for web logs, have become a popular way for people to talk about their lives and express opinions online.

MSN Spaces is free to anyone with a Hotmail or MSN Messenger account. People will be able to choose a layout for the page, upload images and share photo albums and music playlists. The service will be supported by banner ads. ""This is a simple tool for people to express themselves,"" said MSN's Blake Irving. This is Microsoft's first foray into blogging, which has taken off as a web phenomenon in the past year. Competitors like Google already offer free services through its Blogger site, while AOL provides its members with journals. Accurate figures for the number of blogs in existence are hard to come by. According to blog analysis firm Technorati, the so-called blogosphere, has doubled every five and a half months for the last 18 months. It now estimates that the number of blogs in existence has exceeded 4.8 million, although some speculate that less than a quarter are regularly maintained.
","Microsoft is trailing behind competitors like Google and AOL, which already offer services which make it easy for people to set up web journals.It is launching a test service to allow people to publish blogs, or online journals, called MSN Spaces.Competitors like Google already offer free services through its Blogger site, while AOL provides its members with journals.Blogs, short for web logs, have become a popular way for people to talk about their lives and express opinions online.It now estimates that the number of blogs in existence has exceeded 4.8 million, although some speculate that less than a quarter are regularly maintained.Accurate figures for the number of blogs in existence are hard to come by."
"Broadband fuels online change

Fast web access is encouraging more people to express themselves online, research suggests.

A quarter of broadband users in Britain regularly upload content and have personal sites, according to a report by UK think-tank Demos. It said that having an always-on, fast connection is changing the way people use the internet. More than five million households in the UK have broadband and that number is growing fast.

The Demos report looked at the impact of broadband on people's net habits. It found that more than half of those with broadband logged on to the web before breakfast. One in five even admitted to getting up in the middle of the night to browse the web.

More significantly, argues the report, broadband is encouraging people to take a more active role online. It found that one in five post something on the net everyday, ranging from comments or opinions on sites to uploading photographs. ""Broadband is putting the 'me' in media as it shifts power from institutions and into the hands of the individual,"" said John Craig, co-author of the Demos report. ""From self-diagnosis to online education, broadband creates social innovation that moves the debate beyond simple questions of access and speed."" The Demos report, entitled Broadband Britain: The End Of Asymmetry?, was commissioned by net provider AOL. ""Broadband is moving the perception of the internet as a piece of technology to an integral part of home life in the UK,"" said Karen Thomson, Chief Executive of AOL UK, ""with many people spending time on their computers as automatically as they might switch on the television or radio."" According to analysts Nielsen//NetRatings, more than 50% of the 22.8 million UK net users regularly accessing the web from home each month are logging on at high speed They spend twice as long online than people on dial-up connections, viewing an average of 1,444 pages per month. The popularity of fast net access is growing, partly fuelled by fierce competition over prices and services.
","More than five million households in the UK have broadband and that number is growing fast.The Demos report looked at the impact of broadband on people's net habits.More significantly, argues the report, broadband is encouraging people to take a more active role online.The Demos report, entitled Broadband Britain: The End Of Asymmetry?, was commissioned by net provider AOL.A quarter of broadband users in Britain regularly upload content and have personal sites, according to a report by UK think-tank Demos.Fast web access is encouraging more people to express themselves online, research suggests."
"'Blog' picked as word of the year

The term ""blog"" has been chosen as the top word of 2004 by a US dictionary publisher.

Merriam-Webster said ""blog"" headed the list of most looked-up terms on its site during the last twelve months. During 2004 blogs, or web logs, have become hugely popular and some have started to influence mainstream media. Other words on the Merriam-Webster list were associated with major news events such as the US presidential election or natural disasters that hit the US.

Merriam-Webster defines a blog as: ""a Web site that contains an online personal journal with reflections, comments and often hyperlinks"". Its list of most looked-up words is drawn up every year and it discounts terms such as swear words, that everyone likes to look up, or those that always cause problems, such as ""affect"" and ""effect"".

Merriam-Webster said ""blog"" was the word that people have asked to be defined or explained most often over the last 12 months. The word will now appear in the 2005 version of Merriam-Webster's printed dictionary. However, the word is already included in some printed versions of the Oxford English Dictionary. A spokesman for the Oxford University Press said that the word was now being put into other dictionaries for children and learners, reflecting its mainstream use. ""I think it was the word of last year rather than this year,"" he said. ""Now we're getting words that derive from it such as 'blogosphere' and so on,"" he said. ""But,"" he added, ""it's a pretty recent thing and in the way that this happens these days it's got established very quickly.""

Blogs come in many different forms. Many act as news sites for particular groups or subjects, some are written from a particular political slant and others are simply lists of interesting sites. Other terms in the top 10 were related to natural disasters that have struck the US, such as ""hurricane"" or were to do with the US election. Words such as ""incumbent"", ""electoral"" and ""partisan"" reflected the scale of interest in the vote. Blogs also proved very useful to both sides in the US election battle because many pundits who maintain their own journals were able to air opinions that would never appear in more mainstream media. Speculation that President Bush was getting help during debates via a listening device was first aired on web logs. Online journals also raised doubts about documents used by US television news organisation CBS in a story about President Bush's war record. The immediacy of many blogs also helped some wield influence over topics that made it in to national press.

This is despite the fact that the number of people reading even the most influential blogs is tiny. Statistics by web influence ranking firm HitWise reveal that the most popular political blog racks up only 0.0051% of all net visits per day. One of the reasons that blogs and regularly updated online journals have become popular is because the software used to put them together make it very easy for people to air their views online. According to blog analysis firm Technorati the number of blogs in existence, the blogosphere, has doubled every five and a half months for the last 18 months. Technorati now estimates that the number of blogs in existence has exceeded 4.8 million. Some speculate that less than a quarter of this number are regularly maintained. According to US research firm Pew Internet & American Life a blog is created every 5.8 seconds. Another trend this year has been the increasing numbers of weblogs that detail the daily lives of many ordinary workers in jobs that few people know much about. In many repressive regimes and developing nations, blogs have been embraced by millions of people keen to give their plight a voice.
","The term ""blog"" has been chosen as the top word of 2004 by a US dictionary publisher.Merriam-Webster said ""blog"" was the word that people have asked to be defined or explained most often over the last 12 months.According to blog analysis firm Technorati the number of blogs in existence, the blogosphere, has doubled every five and a half months for the last 18 months.Merriam-Webster said ""blog"" headed the list of most looked-up terms on its site during the last twelve months.Other words on the Merriam-Webster list were associated with major news events such as the US presidential election or natural disasters that hit the US.Technorati now estimates that the number of blogs in existence has exceeded 4.8 million.""I think it was the word of last year rather than this year,"" he said.Merriam-Webster defines a blog as: ""a Web site that contains an online personal journal with reflections, comments and often hyperlinks"".A spokesman for the Oxford University Press said that the word was now being put into other dictionaries for children and learners, reflecting its mainstream use.Statistics by web influence ranking firm HitWise reveal that the most popular political blog racks up only 0.0051% of all net visits per day.According to US research firm Pew Internet & American Life a blog is created every 5.8 seconds.The immediacy of many blogs also helped some wield influence over topics that made it in to national press."
"New Year's texting breaks record

A mobile phone was as essential to the recent New Year's festivities as a party mood and Auld Lang Syne, if the number of text messages sent is anything to go by.

Between midnight on 31 December and midnight on 1 January, 133m text messages were sent in the UK. It is the highest ever daily total recorded by the Mobile Data Association (MDA). It represents an increase of 20% on last year's figures.

Wishing a Happy New Year to friends and family via text message has become a staple ingredient of the year's largest party. While texting has not quite overtaken the old-fashioned phone call, it is heading that way, said Mike Short, chairman of the MDA. ""In the case of a New Years Eve party, texting is useful if you are unable to speak or hear because of a noisy background,"" he said. There were also lots of messages sent internationally, where different time zones made traditional calls unfeasible, he said. The British love affair with texting shows no signs of abating and the annual total for 2004 is set to exceed 25bn, according to MDA. The MDA predicts that 2005 could see more than 30bn text messages sent in the UK. ""We thought texting might slow down as MMS took off but we have seen no sign of that,"" said Mr Short. More and more firms are seeing the value in mobile marketing. Restaurants are using text messages to tell customers about special offers and promotions.

Anyone in need of a bit of January cheer now the party season is over, can use a service set up by Jongleurs comedy club, which will text them a joke a day. For those still wanting to drink and be merry as the long days of winter draw in, the Good Pub Guide offers a service giving the location and address of their nearest recommended pub. Users need to text the word GOODPUB to 85130. If they want to turn the evening into a pub crawl, they simply text the word NEXT. And for those still standing at the end of the night, a taxi service in London is available via text, which will locate the nearest available black cab.
","The MDA predicts that 2005 could see more than 30bn text messages sent in the UK.A mobile phone was as essential to the recent New Year's festivities as a party mood and Auld Lang Syne, if the number of text messages sent is anything to go by.Wishing a Happy New Year to friends and family via text message has become a staple ingredient of the year's largest party.Between midnight on 31 December and midnight on 1 January, 133m text messages were sent in the UK.Restaurants are using text messages to tell customers about special offers and promotions.Users need to text the word GOODPUB to 85130.Anyone in need of a bit of January cheer now the party season is over, can use a service set up by Jongleurs comedy club, which will text them a joke a day.""In the case of a New Years Eve party, texting is useful if you are unable to speak or hear because of a noisy background,"" he said."
"DS aims to touch gamers

The mobile gaming industry is set to explode in 2005 with a number of high-profile devices offering a range of gaming and other features such as movie and music playback. Market leader Nintendo, however, is releasing a handheld console that it says will revolutionise the way games are played.

The first striking thing about the DS is how retro it looks. Far from looking like a mould-breaking handheld, it looks more like Nintendo dug out a mould from a 1980s handheld prototype. The lightweight clam shell device opens up to reveal two screens, and when switched on it instantly reveals its pedigree. Both screens are crisp and clear while the bottom of the two is touch sensitive. Nintendo has given developers free rein to utilise the dual screens and ability to control the action by simply touching the screen.

The Japanese gaming giant hopes the DS will maintain the firm's pre-eminence in an increasingly-competitive mobile gaming market.

Nintendo first launched its GameBoy console in 1989 and has dominated the market ever since. But its lead can no longer be taken for granted. Sony will enter the market later this year with its PlayStation Portable, while start-up companies Gizmondo and Tapwave Zodiac are also offering hybrid devices. ""We believe the DS will appeal to all ages, both genders and gamers of any skill,"" said David Yarnton, Nintendo Europe's general manager said at the recent press launch for the handheld. With its two screens, wireless connectivity and backwards compatibility with the GameBoy Advance, the DS certainly has a number of unique selling points. It went on sale in the US in mid-November priced $150 and Nintendo says sales have exceeded expectations, without giving detailed figures. Japan and Europe will have to wait until the first quarter of 2005 to get the device. With more than two million pre-orders for the device in Japan, Nintendo is confident it will keep its number one spot. But will the device prove to be as revolutionary as claimed? The game ships with a demo of Metroid Hunters - a 3D action title which can be played alone or with a group of friends using the machine's wireless capabilities. It certainly looks impressive on the small machine and plays smoothly even with a group of people.

The game can be controlled by using the supplied stylus to aim. The top screen is used to navigate the action while the bottom screen offers a top-down map and the ability to switch weapons. It is certainly a unique control method and while it makes aiming more controlled it can be a little disorientating. Super Mario 64 DS is a faithful re-creation of the Nintendo 64 classic with a host of new mini-games and new levels. The game looks stunning on the portable machine and the sound too is impressive for such a small machine. One thing is for certain. Hardened gamers will have to learn to adapt to a new way of playing while it could prove to be an accessible way in to gaming for novices, Ultimately the success or failure of the device lies in the hands of developers. If they manage to create titles which use the Nintendo DS's key features then a whole new market of gamers could open up. The fear is that the touch screen and voice recognition are treated as little more than gimmicks.
","With more than two million pre-orders for the device in Japan, Nintendo is confident it will keep its number one spot.Market leader Nintendo, however, is releasing a handheld console that it says will revolutionise the way games are played.Nintendo first launched its GameBoy console in 1989 and has dominated the market ever since.Nintendo has given developers free rein to utilise the dual screens and ability to control the action by simply touching the screen.If they manage to create titles which use the Nintendo DS's key features then a whole new market of gamers could open up.With its two screens, wireless connectivity and backwards compatibility with the GameBoy Advance, the DS certainly has a number of unique selling points.Hardened gamers will have to learn to adapt to a new way of playing while it could prove to be an accessible way in to gaming for novices, Ultimately the success or failure of the device lies in the hands of developers.Super Mario 64 DS is a faithful re-creation of the Nintendo 64 classic with a host of new mini-games and new levels.The mobile gaming industry is set to explode in 2005 with a number of high-profile devices offering a range of gaming and other features such as movie and music playback.Both screens are crisp and clear while the bottom of the two is touch sensitive.The Japanese gaming giant hopes the DS will maintain the firm's pre-eminence in an increasingly-competitive mobile gaming market.The game looks stunning on the portable machine and the sound too is impressive for such a small machine."
"No half measures with Half-Life 2

Could Half-Life 2 possibly live up to the hype? After almost two years of tantalising previews and infuriating delays it's safe to say that this is the most highly-anticipated computer game of all time.

Fortunately, it doesn't merely live up to its promise, but exceeds it. No-one who plays the finished product will wonder why it took so long. The impression is of a game that has been endlessly refined to get as close to perfection as could realistically be hoped. All the money - or indeed time - is on the screen. The player sees things through the eyes of Gordon Freeman, the bespectacled scientist who starred in the original 1998 Half-Life. Having survived that skirmish in an desolate monster-infested research facility, he's back in another foreboding troublespot - the enigmatic City 17. It has the look of a beautiful Eastern European city, but as soon as your train pulls in to the station, it's clear that all is not well here. Sinister police patrol the unkempt streets, and the oppressive atmosphere clobbers you like a sledgehammer. A casual smattering of the nightmarish creatures from the first game makes this an even less pleasant place to be.

You are herded around like a prisoner and have to mingle with a few freedom-fighting civilians to gather information and progress in your task. It is not immediately explained what your objectives are, nor precisely why everything is so ravaged. Finding out step-by-step is all part of the experience, although you never fully get to understand what it was all about. That does not really matter. HL2 does not waste energy blinding you with plot. Underplaying the narrative in this way is gloriously effective, and immerses the player in the most vivid, convincing and impressive virtual world they are likely to have seen. There are no cut-scenes to interrupt the flow. Exposition is accomplished by other characters stopping to talk directly to you.

Whereas the highly impressive Doom III felt like a top-notch theme park thrill-ride, wandering through Half-Life's world truly does feel like being part of a movie.

Considering its sophistication, the game runs surprisingly well on computers that only just match the modest minimum specifications. But if ever there was an incentive to upgrade your PC's components, this is it. On our test machine - an Alienware system with an Athlon 3500+ processor and ATI's Radeon X800 video card - everything ran at full quality without trouble, and the visual experience was simply jaw-dropping. It is not simply that the surfaces, textures and light effects push the technical envelope without mercy, but that such care and artistic flair has gone into designing them. The haunting, grim landscapes become strangely beautiful. Luckily you get time to pause mid-task and marvel at the awesome graphical flourishes of your surroundings. So impressive are the physics that you'll find yourself hurling bits of rubbish around and prodding floating corpses just to marvel at the lifelike way they move. There are puzzles to be solved along the way, pitched at about the right difficulty, but most progress is achieved by force. Freeman is quickly reunited with the original game's famous crowbar, and an array of more sophisticated weapons soon follow.

Virtually anything not nailed to the floor can be interacted with, and in realistic fashion. You will be wowed by the attention-to-detail as you chip bits of plaster off walls, chase a pigeon out of your way, or dodge exploding barrels as they ping around at deadly speed. At times Half-Life 2 feels like one of those annoying people who are unfeasibly brilliant at everything they turn their hand to, and in a curious way, its unrelenting goodness actually becomes almost tiresome. Running around on foot is great enough, but jumping into vehicles proves even more fun. Human foes are rendered just as well as alien ones. The stealth sections are as exhilarating as the open gun battles. In gameplay terms, HL2 somehow gets almost everything perfect. And without resorting to the zombies-leaping-out-of-shadows approach of Doom III, it's all incredibly unsettling. The vacant environment is distinctly eerie, and at one point I even caught myself hesitating to go down a murky tunnel for fear of what might be inside.

The game does have a couple of problems. Firstly, the carefully-scripted way that you progress through each level might irk some people.

A lot of things are meticulously choreographed to happen on cue, which makes for exciting moments, but may be an annoyance to some players and limit the appeal of playing again once you've completed it. If you like things open-ended and free-ranging, Far Cry will be a lot more pleasing. But the real downside is the hassle of getting the game to run. Installing it proved a life-draining siege that would test a saint's patience. Developer Valve has rashly assumed that everyone wanting to play the game will have an internet connection and it forces you to go online to authenticate your copy. The box does warn you of this anti-piracy measure, but does not say just how many components have to be downloaded. The time spent doing this will depend on your connection speed, the temperamental Valve servers and the time of day, but it can take hours. It would take a mighty piece of work to feel worthwhile after such annoyances - but luckily, Half-Life 2 is up to the challenge. It is surely the best thing in its genre, and possibly, many will feel, of any genre. The bar has been raised, and so far out of sight that you have to sympathise with any game that tries to do anything remotely similar in the near future.

Half-Life 2 is out now for the PC
","At times Half-Life 2 feels like one of those annoying people who are unfeasibly brilliant at everything they turn their hand to, and in a curious way, its unrelenting goodness actually becomes almost tiresome.The game does have a couple of problems.Whereas the highly impressive Doom III felt like a top-notch theme park thrill-ride, wandering through Half-Life's world truly does feel like being part of a movie.The impression is of a game that has been endlessly refined to get as close to perfection as could realistically be hoped.Developer Valve has rashly assumed that everyone wanting to play the game will have an internet connection and it forces you to go online to authenticate your copy.After almost two years of tantalising previews and infuriating delays it's safe to say that this is the most highly-anticipated computer game of all time.The bar has been raised, and so far out of sight that you have to sympathise with any game that tries to do anything remotely similar in the near future.Could Half-Life 2 possibly live up to the hype?It has the look of a beautiful Eastern European city, but as soon as your train pulls in to the station, it's clear that all is not well here.The player sees things through the eyes of Gordon Freeman, the bespectacled scientist who starred in the original 1998 Half-Life.Considering its sophistication, the game runs surprisingly well on computers that only just match the modest minimum specifications.It would take a mighty piece of work to feel worthwhile after such annoyances - but luckily, Half-Life 2 is up to the challenge.The box does warn you of this anti-piracy measure, but does not say just how many components have to be downloaded.But the real downside is the hassle of getting the game to run.In gameplay terms, HL2 somehow gets almost everything perfect.Luckily you get time to pause mid-task and marvel at the awesome graphical flourishes of your surroundings.The time spent doing this will depend on your connection speed, the temperamental Valve servers and the time of day, but it can take hours.If you like things open-ended and free-ranging, Far Cry will be a lot more pleasing.A casual smattering of the nightmarish creatures from the first game makes this an even less pleasant place to be.Half-Life 2 is out now for the PCOn our test machine - an Alienware system with an Athlon 3500+ processor and ATI's Radeon X800 video card - everything ran at full quality without trouble, and the visual experience was simply jaw-dropping."
"Games win for Blu-ray DVD format

The next-generation DVD format Blu-ray is winning more supporters than its rival, according to its backers.

Blu-ray, backed by 100 firms including Sony, is competing against Toshiba and NEC-backed HD-DVD to be the format of choice for future films and games. The Blu-Ray Association said on Thursday that games giants Electronic Arts and Vivendi would both support its DVD format. The next generation of DVDs will hold high-definition video and sound. This offers incredible 3D-like quality of pictures which major Hollywood studios and games publishers are extremely keen to exploit in the coming year. In a separate press conference at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Toshiba announced that DVD players for its technology would be on the market by the end of 2005.

""As we move from standard definition video images to high-definition images, we have a much greater need for storage,"" Richard Doherty, from Panasonic's Hollywood Laboratories, one of the pioneers of Blu-ray, told the BBC news website. ""So by utilising blue laser-based technology we can make an optical laser disc that can hold six times as much as today's DVD."" A Blu-ray disc will be able to store 50GB of high-quality data, while Toshiba's HD-DVD will hold 30GB. Mr Doherty added that it was making sure the discs could satisfy all high-definition needs, including the ability to record onto the DVDs and smaller discs to fit into camcorders. Both Toshiba and Blu-ray are hopeful that the emerging DVD format war, akin to the Betamax and VHS fight in the 1980s, can be resolved over the next year when next-generation DVD players start to come out. When players do come out, they will be able to play standard DVDs too, which is good news for those who have huge libraries of current DVDs.

But the support from Vivendi and Electronics Arts is a big boost to Blu-ray in the battle for supremacy.

Gaming is a $20 billion industry worldwide, so is as crucial as the film industry in terms of money to be made. ""The technical requirement for game development today demands more advanced optical-disc technologies,"" said Michael Heilmann, chief technology officer for Vivendi Universal. ""Blu-ray offers the capacity, performance and high-speed internet connectivity to take us into the future of gaming."" EA, a leading games developer and publisher, added that the delivery of high-definition games of the future was vital and Blu-ray had the capacity, functionality and interactivity needed for the kinds of projects it was planning. Sony recently announced it would be using the technology in its next generation of PlayStations. Mr Doherty said gamers were ""ravenous"" for high-quality graphics and technology for the next generation of titles. ""Gamers, especially those working on PCs, are always focused on more capacity to deliver textures, deeper levels, for delivering higher-resolution playback.""

He added: ""The focus for games moving forward on increased immersion.

""Gaming companies really like to focus on creating a world which involves creating complicated 3D models and textures and increasing the resolution, increasing the frame rate - all of these are part of getting a more immersive experience."" Fitting these models on current DVD technologies means compressing the graphics so much that much of this quality is lost. As games move to more photo-real capability, the current technology is limiting. ""They are thrilled at the advanced capacity to start to build these immersive environments,"" said Mr Doherty. Currently, graphics-intensive PC games also require multiple discs for installation. High-definition DVDs will cut down on that need. Likewise, consoles rely on single discs, so DVDs that can hold six times more data mean much better, high-resolution games. Blu-ray has already won backing from major Hollywood studios, such as MGM Studios, Disney, and Buena Vista, as well as top technology firms like Dell, LG, Samsung and Phillips amongst others. While Toshiba's HD-DVD technology has won backing from Paramount, Universal and Warner Bros. ""The real world benefits (of HD-DVD) are apparent and obvious,"" said Jim Cardwell, president of Warner Home Video. Mr Cardwell added that rapid time to market and dependability were significant factors in choosing to go with HD-DVD. Both formats are courting Microsoft to be the format of choice for the next generation Xbox, but discussions are still on-going. Next generation DVDs will also be able to store images and other data. CES is the largest consumer electronics show in the world, and runs from 6 to 9 January.
","The Blu-Ray Association said on Thursday that games giants Electronic Arts and Vivendi would both support its DVD format.Mr Doherty said gamers were ""ravenous"" for high-quality graphics and technology for the next generation of titles.The next generation of DVDs will hold high-definition video and sound.Both Toshiba and Blu-ray are hopeful that the emerging DVD format war, akin to the Betamax and VHS fight in the 1980s, can be resolved over the next year when next-generation DVD players start to come out.Next generation DVDs will also be able to store images and other data.EA, a leading games developer and publisher, added that the delivery of high-definition games of the future was vital and Blu-ray had the capacity, functionality and interactivity needed for the kinds of projects it was planning.Blu-ray, backed by 100 firms including Sony, is competing against Toshiba and NEC-backed HD-DVD to be the format of choice for future films and games.A Blu-ray disc will be able to store 50GB of high-quality data, while Toshiba's HD-DVD will hold 30GB.""So by utilising blue laser-based technology we can make an optical laser disc that can hold six times as much as today's DVD.""Sony recently announced it would be using the technology in its next generation of PlayStations.In a separate press conference at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Toshiba announced that DVD players for its technology would be on the market by the end of 2005.Fitting these models on current DVD technologies means compressing the graphics so much that much of this quality is lost.As games move to more photo-real capability, the current technology is limiting.Mr Doherty added that it was making sure the discs could satisfy all high-definition needs, including the ability to record onto the DVDs and smaller discs to fit into camcorders."
"File-swappers ready new network

Legal attacks on websites that help people swap pirated films have forced the development of a system that could be harder to shut down.

One site behind the success of the BitTorrent file-swapping system is producing its own software that avoids the pitfalls of the earlier program. A test version of the new Exeem program will be released in late January. But doubts remain about the new networks ability to ensure files being swapped are ""quality copies"".

In late December movie studios launched a legal campaign against websites that helped people swap pirated movies using the BitTorrent network. The legal campaign worked because of the way that BitTorrent is organised. That file-sharing system relies on links called ""trackers"" that point users to others happy to share the file they are looking for. Shutting down sites that listed trackers crippled the BitTorrent network. One of the sites shut down by the legal campaign was suprnova.org which helped boost the popularity of the BitTorrent system by checking that trackers led to the movies or TV programmes they claimed to.

Now the man behind suprnova.org, who goes by the nickname Sloncek, is preparing to release software for a new file-swapping network dubbed Exeem. In an interview with Novastream web radio, Sloncek said Exeem would combine ideas from the BitTorrent and Kazaa file-sharing systems. Like BitTorrent, Exeem will have trackers that help point people toward the file they want. Like Kazaa these trackers will be held by everyone. There will be no centrally maintained list. This, said Sloncek, should make the system less vulnerable to legal action aimed at stopping people swapping pirated movies and music. The Exeem software has been under development for a few months and is currently being tested by a closed group of users. An early public version of the software should be available before February. Sloncek said that currently only a Windows version of the software was in development. There were no plans for a Linux or Mac version. He said that costs of writing the software will be paid for by adverts appearing in the finished version of the program. Despite Suprnova administrator Sloncek's involvement with Exeem, the basic technology appears to have been developed by a firm called Swarm Systems that is based on Caribbean island Saint Kitts and Nevis.

Users of the Exeem system will be able to rate files being swapped to help stop the spread of fake files, Sloncek told Novastream.

Dr Johan Pouwelse, a researcher at the Delft University of Technology who studies peer-to-peer networks, said Exeem was the next evolution in file-sharing systems. But, he said, it would struggle to be as popular as BitTorrent and Suprnova because early versions were not taking enough care to make sure good copies of files were being shared. ""Exeem cannot prevent pollution,"" he said. ""The rating system in Exeem seems flawed because it is easy to insert both fake files and fake ratings,"" he said. Studies have shown that organisations working for record labels and movie studios have worked to undermine Kazaa by putting in fakes. By contrast moderators on Suprnova made sure files being shared were high quality. ""The moderators are the difference between having a system that works and one that's full of crap like Kazaa,"" he said. ""There is a fundamental tension between distribution and integrity,"" he said. Mr Pouwelse said that future versions of file-sharing systems are likely to incorporate some kind of distributed reputation system that lets moderators prove who they are to the network and rate which files are worth downloading. When big files were being shared moderation systems were key, said Mr Pouwelse. He added that the legal attacks on BitTorrent had driven people away from sites such as Suprnova but many users had simply migrated to other tracker listing sites many of which have seen huge increases in traffic. ""It's hard to compete with free,"" he said. No-one from the Motion Picture Association of America was immediately available for comment on the file-sharing development.
","Sloncek said that currently only a Windows version of the software was in development.Mr Pouwelse said that future versions of file-sharing systems are likely to incorporate some kind of distributed reputation system that lets moderators prove who they are to the network and rate which files are worth downloading.In an interview with Novastream web radio, Sloncek said Exeem would combine ideas from the BitTorrent and Kazaa file-sharing systems.Like BitTorrent, Exeem will have trackers that help point people toward the file they want.But, he said, it would struggle to be as popular as BitTorrent and Suprnova because early versions were not taking enough care to make sure good copies of files were being shared.When big files were being shared moderation systems were key, said Mr Pouwelse.""The rating system in Exeem seems flawed because it is easy to insert both fake files and fake ratings,"" he said.This, said Sloncek, should make the system less vulnerable to legal action aimed at stopping people swapping pirated movies and music.One of the sites shut down by the legal campaign was suprnova.org which helped boost the popularity of the BitTorrent system by checking that trackers led to the movies or TV programmes they claimed to.""The moderators are the difference between having a system that works and one that's full of crap like Kazaa,"" he said.Users of the Exeem system will be able to rate files being swapped to help stop the spread of fake files, Sloncek told Novastream.""Exeem cannot prevent pollution,"" he said.He said that costs of writing the software will be paid for by adverts appearing in the finished version of the program.One site behind the success of the BitTorrent file-swapping system is producing its own software that avoids the pitfalls of the earlier program."
"Online games play with politics

After bubbling under for some time, online games broke through onto the political arena in 2004.

The US presidential election provided a showcase for many, aimed at talking directly to a generation that has grown up with joysticks and gamepads. Experts say this reflects how video games are becoming a mainstream part of culture and society. The first official political campaign game was technically launched during the last week of 2003: the Iowa Game, commissioned by the Democrat hopeful Howard Dean. More than 20 followed suit, including Frontrunner, eLections, President Forever and The Political Machine, which allowed players to run an entire presidential campaign, including having to cope with the media. Others helped raise the stakes during the Bush/Kerry contest by highlighting a candidate's virtues or his vices.

The phenomenon has astonished the forefathers of political games, a handful of multi-discipline games enthusiasts keen to push frontiers.

""When I started researching political games at the university, about five years ago, I thought it was going to be something that would take decades to happen,"" said Gonzalo Frasca, computer games specialist at the Information Technology University of Copenhagen. ""I must admit that I was the first person to be surprised at seeing how fast they have evolved,"" added the Uruguayan-born researcher, who has so far created games for two political campaigns. Many artists and designers are experimenting with this form of gaming with an agenda in projects such as newsgaming.com. The aim is to comment on international news events via games.

The ability of games to simulate reality makes them a powerful modelling tool to interact with actual situations in an original way.

""Video games generate strong reactions mainly because they are new, but also because our culture needs to learn how to deal with simulation,"" Mr Frasca told the BBC News website. This was the case with the one he created for a political party in Uruguay, Cambiemos, an online puzzle game that offered a view on how the country's problems could be solved by working together. ""It's up to us to explore what we can learn from ourselves through play and video games."" Ultimately, Dr Frasca sees games as a small laboratory where we can play with our hopes, fears and beliefs. ""Children learn a lot about the world through play. There is no reason why we adults should stop doing it as we grow up.""

But experts estimate it will still take at least about a decade until this new breed of video gaming communication become a common tool for political campaigns.

This is hardly surprising, compared to other forms of mass media like the worldwide web. Only a few years ago, most politicians did not have a webpage, while now it is almost a must-have. Dr Frasca said: ""Political campaigns will continue to experiment with video games. They represent a new tool of communication that can reach a younger audience in a language that can clearly speak to them."" ""It will not replace other forms of political propaganda, but it will integrate itself on to the media ecology of political campaigns.""
","Dr Frasca said: ""Political campaigns will continue to experiment with video games.""When I started researching political games at the university, about five years ago, I thought it was going to be something that would take decades to happen,"" said Gonzalo Frasca, computer games specialist at the Information Technology University of Copenhagen.The first official political campaign game was technically launched during the last week of 2003: the Iowa Game, commissioned by the Democrat hopeful Howard Dean.""It will not replace other forms of political propaganda, but it will integrate itself on to the media ecology of political campaigns.""The phenomenon has astonished the forefathers of political games, a handful of multi-discipline games enthusiasts keen to push frontiers.After bubbling under for some time, online games broke through onto the political arena in 2004.But experts estimate it will still take at least about a decade until this new breed of video gaming communication become a common tool for political campaigns.""I must admit that I was the first person to be surprised at seeing how fast they have evolved,"" added the Uruguayan-born researcher, who has so far created games for two political campaigns.""Video games generate strong reactions mainly because they are new, but also because our culture needs to learn how to deal with simulation,"" Mr Frasca told the BBC News website.""It's up to us to explore what we can learn from ourselves through play and video games."""
"Broadband challenges TV viewing

The number of Europeans with broadband has exploded over the past 12 months, with the web eating into TV viewing habits, research suggests.

Just over 54 million people are hooked up to the net via broadband, up from 34 million a year ago, according to market analysts Nielsen/NetRatings. The total number of people online in Europe has broken the 100 million mark. The popularity of the net has meant that many are turning away from TV, say analysts Jupiter Research. It found that a quarter of web users said they spent less time watching TV in favour of the net

The report by Nielsen/NetRatings found that the number of people with fast internet access had risen by 60% over the past year.

The biggest jump was in Italy, where it rose by 120%. Britain was close behind, with broadband users almost doubling in a year. The growth has been fuelled by lower prices and a wider choice of always-on, fast-net subscription plans. ""Twelve months ago high speed internet users made up just over one third of the audience in Europe; now they are more than 50% and we expect this number to keep growing,"" said Gabrielle Prior, Nielsen/NetRatings analyst. ""As the number of high-speed surfers grows, websites will need to adapt, update and enhance their content to retain their visitors and encourage new ones."" The total number of Europeans online rose by 12% to 100 million over the past year, the report showed, with the biggest rise in France, Italy, Britain and Germany.

The ability to browse web pages at high speed, download files such as music or films and play online games is changing what people do in their spare time.

A study by analysts Jupiter Research suggested that broadband was challenging television viewing habits. In homes with broadband, 40% said they were spending less time watching TV. The threat to TV was greatest in countries where broadband was on the up, in particular the UK, France and Spain, said the report. It said TV companies faced a major long-term threat over the next five years, with broadband predicted to grow from 19% to 37% of households by 2009. ""Year-on-year we are continuing to see a seismic shift in where, when and how Europe's population consume media for information and entertainment and this has big implications for TV, newspaper and radio,"" said Jupiter Research analyst Olivier Beauvillian.
","The number of Europeans with broadband has exploded over the past 12 months, with the web eating into TV viewing habits, research suggests.It found that a quarter of web users said they spent less time watching TV in favour of the net  The report by Nielsen/NetRatings found that the number of people with fast internet access had risen by 60% over the past year.The threat to TV was greatest in countries where broadband was on the up, in particular the UK, France and Spain, said the report.In homes with broadband, 40% said they were spending less time watching TV.The total number of Europeans online rose by 12% to 100 million over the past year, the report showed, with the biggest rise in France, Italy, Britain and Germany.A study by analysts Jupiter Research suggested that broadband was challenging television viewing habits.Just over 54 million people are hooked up to the net via broadband, up from 34 million a year ago, according to market analysts Nielsen/NetRatings."
"Freeze on anti-spam campaign

A campaign by Lycos Europe to target spam-related websites appears to have been put on hold.

Earlier this week the company released a screensaver that bombarded the sites with data to try to bump up the running costs of the websites. But the site hosting the screensaver now displays a pink graphic and the words ""Stay tuned"". No one at Lycos was available for comment on latest developments in its controversial anti-spam campaign.

Lycos Europe's ""Make love not spam"" campaign was intended as a way for users to fight back against the mountain of junk mail flooding inboxes. People were encouraged to download the screensaver which, when their PC was idle, would then send lots of data to sites that peddle the goods and services mentioned in spam messages. Lycos said the idea was to get the spam sites running at 95% capacity and generate big bandwidth bills for the spammers behind the sites. But the plan has proved controversial.

Monitoring firm Netcraft analysed response times for some of the sites targeted by the screensaver and found that a number were completely knocked offline.

The downing of the sites could dent Lycos claims that what it is doing does not amount to a distributed denial of service attack. In such attacks thousands of computers bombard sites with data in an attempt to overwhelm them. Laws in many countries do not explicitly outlaw such attacks but many nations are re-drafting computer use laws to make them specific offences. Lycos Europe now appears to have put the plan on hold. The site hosting the screensaver currently shows a holding page, with the words, ""Stay tuned"". The numerical internet address of the site has also changed. This is likely to be in response to spammers who have reportedly redirected traffic from their sites back to the Lycos screensaver site. The campaign has come under fire from some corners of the web. Many discussion groups have said that it set a dangerous precedent and could incite vigilantism. ""Attacking a spammer's website is like poking a grizzly bear sleeping in your back garden with a pointy stick,"" said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for Sophos. ""Not only is this screensaver similar in its approach to a potentially illegal distributed denial of service attack, but it also is in danger of turning innocent computer users into vigilantes, who may not be prepared for whatever retaliation the spammers care to dream up.""
","This is likely to be in response to spammers who have reportedly redirected traffic from their sites back to the Lycos screensaver site.The downing of the sites could dent Lycos claims that what it is doing does not amount to a distributed denial of service attack.Lycos said the idea was to get the spam sites running at 95% capacity and generate big bandwidth bills for the spammers behind the sites.But the site hosting the screensaver now displays a pink graphic and the words ""Stay tuned"".The site hosting the screensaver currently shows a holding page, with the words, ""Stay tuned"".A campaign by Lycos Europe to target spam-related websites appears to have been put on hold.In such attacks thousands of computers bombard sites with data in an attempt to overwhelm them.People were encouraged to download the screensaver which, when their PC was idle, would then send lots of data to sites that peddle the goods and services mentioned in spam messages."
"Halo 2 sells five million copies

Microsoft is celebrating bumper sales of its Xbox sci-fi shooter, Halo 2.

The game has sold more than five million copies worldwide since it went on sale in mid-November, the company said. Halo 2 has proved popular online, with gamers notching up a record 28 million hours playing the game on Xbox Live. According to Microsoft, nine out of 10 Xbox Live members have played the game for an average of 91 minutes per session.

The sequel to the best-selling Need for Speed: Underground has inched ahead of the competition to take the top slot in the official UK games charts. The racing game moved up one spot to first place, nudging GTA: San Andreas down to second place. Halo 2 dropped one place to five, while Half-Life 2 fell to number nine. Last week's new releases, GoldenEye: Rogue Agent and Killzone, both failed to make it into the top 10, debuting at number 11 and 12 respectively.

Record numbers of Warcraft fans are settling in the games online world. On the opening day of the World of Warcraft massive multi-player online game more than 200,000 players signed up to play. On the evening of the first day more than 100,000 players were in the world, forcing Blizzard to add another 34 servers to cope with the influx. The online game turns the stand alone Warcraft games into a persistent world that players can inhabit not just visit

Europe's gamers could be waiting until January to hear when they can get their mitts on Nintendo's handheld device, Nintendo DS, says gamesindustry.biz. David Yarnton, Nintendo UK general manager, told a press conference to look out for details in the New Year. Its US launch was on Sunday and it goes on sale in Japan on 2 December. Nintendo has a 95% share of the handheld gaming market and said it expected to sell around five million of the DS by March 2005.
","Record numbers of Warcraft fans are settling in the games online world.Halo 2 has proved popular online, with gamers notching up a record 28 million hours playing the game on Xbox Live.The online game turns the stand alone Warcraft games into a persistent world that players can inhabit not just visit  Europe's gamers could be waiting until January to hear when they can get their mitts on Nintendo's handheld device, Nintendo DS, says gamesindustry.biz.On the opening day of the World of Warcraft massive multi-player online game more than 200,000 players signed up to play.The game has sold more than five million copies worldwide since it went on sale in mid-November, the company said.According to Microsoft, nine out of 10 Xbox Live members have played the game for an average of 91 minutes per session."
"When technology gets personal

In 2020, whipping out your mobile phone to make a call will be quaintly passé. By then phones will be printed directly on to wrists, or other parts of the body, says Ian Pearson, BT's resident futurologist.

It's all part of what's known as a ""pervasive ambient world"", where ""chips are everywhere"". Mr Pearson does not have a crystal ball. His job is to formulate ideas based on what science and technology are doing now, to guide industries into the future. Inanimate objects will start to interact with us: we will be surrounded - on streets, in homes, in appliances, on our bodies and possibly in our heads - by things that ""think"". Forget local area networks - these will be body area networks. Ideas about just how smart, small, or even invisible, technology will get are always floating around. Images of devices clumsily bolted on to heads or wrists have pervaded thinking about future technology. But now a new vision is surfacing, where smart fabrics and textiles will be exploited to enhance functionality, form, or aesthetics. Such materials are already starting to change how gadgets and electronics are used and designed.

So MP3 players - the mass gadget of the moment - will disappear and instead become integrated into one's clothing, says Mr Pearson. ""So the gadgets that fill up your handbag, when we integrate those into fabric, we can actually get rid of all that stuff. You won't necessarily see the electronics."" Wearable technology could exploit body heat to charge it up, while ""video tattoos"", or intelligent electronic contact lenses, might function as TV screens for those on the move. However, this future of highly personal devices, where technology is worn, or even fuses with the body itself, raises ethical questions. If technology is going to be increasingly part of clothing, jewellery, and skin, there needs to be some serious thinking about what it means for us as humans, says Baroness Susan Greenfield. At a recent conference for technology, engineering, academic and fashion industry experts, at the Royal Society in London, neuroscientist Baroness Greenfield cautioned we ""can't just sleepwalk into the future"".

Yet this technology is already upon us. Researchers have developed computers and sensors worn in clothing. MP3 jackets, based on the idea that electrically conductive fabric can connect to keyboard sewn into sleeves, have already appeared in shops.

These ""smart fabrics"" have come about through advances in nano- and micro-engineering - the ability to manipulate and exploit materials at micro or molecular scale. At the nanoscale, materials can be ""tuned"" to display unusual properties that can be exploited to build faster, lighter, stronger and more efficient devices and systems. The textile and clothing industry has been one of the first to exploit nanotechnology in quite straightforward ways. Many developments are appearing in real products in the fields of medicine, defence, healthcare, sports, and communications. Professional swimming suits reduce drag by incorporating tiny structures similar to shark skin. Nanoscale titanium dioxide (TiO2) coatings give fabrics antibacterial and anti-odour properties. These have special properties which can be activated in contact with the air or UV light. Such coatings have already been used to stop socks smelling for instance, to turn airline seats into super stain-resistant surfaces, and applied to windows so they clean themselves. Dressings for wounds can now incorporate nanoparticles with biocidal properties and smart patches are being developed to deliver drugs through the skin. But Baroness Greenfield is concerned about how far this more personal contact with technology might affect our very being. If our clothing, skin, and ""personal body networks"" do the talking and the monitoring, everywhere we go, we have to think about what that means for our concept of privacy. Mr Pearson picks up the theme, pointing out there are a lot of issues humans have to iron out before we become ""cyborgian"". His main concern is ""privacy"". ""We are looking at electronics which are really in deep contact with your body and a lot of that information you really don't want every passer-by to know. ""So we have to make sure we build security in this. If you are wearing smart make-up, where electronics are controlling the appearance, you don't want people hacking in and writing messages on your forehead."" As technology infiltrates our biology, how will our brains function differently? ""We cannot arrogantly assume that the human brain will not change with this,"" warns Baroness Greenfield. There have already been successful experiments to grow human nerve cells on circuit boards. This paves the way for brain implants to help paralysed people interface directly with computers. Clearly, the organic, carbon of our bodies and silicon is increasingly merging. The cyborg - a very familiar part-human, part-inorganic science fiction and academic idea - is on its way.
","If technology is going to be increasingly part of clothing, jewellery, and skin, there needs to be some serious thinking about what it means for us as humans, says Baroness Susan Greenfield.If our clothing, skin, and ""personal body networks"" do the talking and the monitoring, everywhere we go, we have to think about what that means for our concept of privacy.But Baroness Greenfield is concerned about how far this more personal contact with technology might affect our very being.However, this future of highly personal devices, where technology is worn, or even fuses with the body itself, raises ethical questions.Yet this technology is already upon us.His job is to formulate ideas based on what science and technology are doing now, to guide industries into the future.Wearable technology could exploit body heat to charge it up, while ""video tattoos"", or intelligent electronic contact lenses, might function as TV screens for those on the move.Such materials are already starting to change how gadgets and electronics are used and designed.At a recent conference for technology, engineering, academic and fashion industry experts, at the Royal Society in London, neuroscientist Baroness Greenfield cautioned we ""can't just sleepwalk into the future"".Ideas about just how smart, small, or even invisible, technology will get are always floating around.As technology infiltrates our biology, how will our brains function differently?So MP3 players - the mass gadget of the moment - will disappear and instead become integrated into one's clothing, says Mr Pearson.By then phones will be printed directly on to wrists, or other parts of the body, says Ian Pearson, BT's resident futurologist.""We are looking at electronics which are really in deep contact with your body and a lot of that information you really don't want every passer-by to know.Images of devices clumsily bolted on to heads or wrists have pervaded thinking about future technology.""We cannot arrogantly assume that the human brain will not change with this,"" warns Baroness Greenfield.MP3 jackets, based on the idea that electrically conductive fabric can connect to keyboard sewn into sleeves, have already appeared in shops."
"Microsoft gets the blogging bug

Software giant Microsoft is taking the plunge into the world of blogging.

It is launching a test service to allow people to publish blogs, or online journals, called MSN Spaces. Microsoft is trailing behind competitors like Google and AOL, which already offer services which make it easy for people to set up web journals. Blogs, short for web logs, have become a popular way for people to talk about their lives and express opinions online.

MSN Spaces is free to anyone with a Hotmail or MSN Messenger account. People will be able to choose a layout for the page, upload images and share photo albums and music playlists. The service will be supported by banner ads. ""This is a simple tool for people to express themselves,"" said MSN's Blake Irving. This is Microsoft's first foray into blogging, which has taken off as a web phenomenon in the past year. Competitors like Google already offer free services through its Blogger site, while AOL provides its members with journals. Accurate figures for the number of blogs in existence are hard to come by. According to blog analysis firm Technorati, the so-called blogosphere, has doubled every five and a half months for the last 18 months. It now estimates that the number of blogs in existence has exceeded 4.8 million, although some speculate that less than a quarter are regularly maintained.
","Microsoft is trailing behind competitors like Google and AOL, which already offer services which make it easy for people to set up web journals.It is launching a test service to allow people to publish blogs, or online journals, called MSN Spaces.Competitors like Google already offer free services through its Blogger site, while AOL provides its members with journals.Blogs, short for web logs, have become a popular way for people to talk about their lives and express opinions online.It now estimates that the number of blogs in existence has exceeded 4.8 million, although some speculate that less than a quarter are regularly maintained.Accurate figures for the number of blogs in existence are hard to come by."
"Doors open at biggest gadget fair

Thousands of technology lovers and industry experts have gathered in Las Vegas for the annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES).

The fair showcases the latest technologies and gadgets that will hit the shops in the next year. About 50,000 new products will be unveiled as the show unfolds. Microsoft chief Bill Gates is to make a pre-show keynote speech on Wednesday when he is expected to announce details of the next generation Xbox.

The thrust of this year's show will be on technologies which put people in charge of multimedia content so they can store, listen to, and watch what they want on devices any time, anywhere. About 120,000 people are expected to attend the trade show which stretches over more than 1.5 million square feet. Highlights will include the latest trends in digital imaging, storage technologies, thinner flat screen and high-definition TVs, wireless and portable technologies, gaming, and broadband technologies. The show also includes several speeches from key technology companies such as Intel, Microsoft, and Hewlett Packard among others. ""The story this year remains all about digital and how that is completely transforming and revolutionising products and the way people interact with them,"" Jeff Joseph, from the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) told the BBC News website. ""It is about personalisation - taking your MP3 player and creating your own playlist, taking your digital video recorder and watch what you want to watch when - you are no longer at the whim of the broadcasters.""

Consumer electronics and gadgets had a phenomenal year in 2004, according to figures released by CES organisers, the CEA, on Tuesday. The gadget explosion signalled the strongest growth yet in the US in 2004. Shipments of consumer electronics rose by almost 11% between 2003 and 2004. That trend is predicted to continue, according to CEA analysts, with wholesale shipments of consumer technologies expected to grow by 11% again in 2005. The fastest-growing technologies in 2004 included blank DVD media, Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) TVs, digital video recorders (DVRs), and portable music players. ""This year we will really begin to see that come to life in what we call place shifting - so if you have your PVR [personal video recorder] in your living room, you can move that content around the house. ""Some exhibitors will be showcasing how you can take that content anywhere,"" said Mr Joseph. He said the products which will be making waves in the next year will be about the ""democratisation"" of content - devices and technologies that will give people the freedom to do more with music, video, and images. There will also be more focus on the design of technologies, following the lead that Apple's iPod made, with ease of use and good looks which appeal to a wider range of people a key concern.

The CEA predicted that there would be several key technology trends to watch in the coming year. Gaming would continue to thrive, especially on mobile devices, and would reach out to more diverse gamers such as women. Games consoles sales have been declining, but the launch of next generation consoles, such as Microsoft's Xbox and PlayStation, could buoy up sales. Although it has been widely predicted that Mr Gates would be showcasing the new Xbox, some media reports have cast doubt on what he would be talking about in the keynote. Some have suggested the announcement may take place at the Games Developers Conference in the summer instead. With more than 52% of US homes expected to have home networks, the CEA suggested hard drive boxes - or media servers - capable of storing thousands of images, video and audio files to be accessed through other devices around the home, will be more commonplace. Portable devices that combine mobile telephony, digital music and video players, will also be more popular in 2005. Their popularity will be driven by more multimedia content and services which will let people watch and listen to films, TV, and audio wherever they are. This means more storage technologies will be in demand, such as external hard drives, and flash memory like SD cards. CES runs officially from 6 to 9 January.
","He said the products which will be making waves in the next year will be about the ""democratisation"" of content - devices and technologies that will give people the freedom to do more with music, video, and images.The CEA predicted that there would be several key technology trends to watch in the coming year.The thrust of this year's show will be on technologies which put people in charge of multimedia content so they can store, listen to, and watch what they want on devices any time, anywhere.That trend is predicted to continue, according to CEA analysts, with wholesale shipments of consumer technologies expected to grow by 11% again in 2005.Consumer electronics and gadgets had a phenomenal year in 2004, according to figures released by CES organisers, the CEA, on Tuesday.Thousands of technology lovers and industry experts have gathered in Las Vegas for the annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES).""The story this year remains all about digital and how that is completely transforming and revolutionising products and the way people interact with them,"" Jeff Joseph, from the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) told the BBC News website.The fair showcases the latest technologies and gadgets that will hit the shops in the next year.The fastest-growing technologies in 2004 included blank DVD media, Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) TVs, digital video recorders (DVRs), and portable music players.The show also includes several speeches from key technology companies such as Intel, Microsoft, and Hewlett Packard among others.Portable devices that combine mobile telephony, digital music and video players, will also be more popular in 2005.Although it has been widely predicted that Mr Gates would be showcasing the new Xbox, some media reports have cast doubt on what he would be talking about in the keynote."
"Who do you think you are?

The real danger is not what happens to your data as it crosses the net, argues analyst Bill Thompson. It is what happens when it arrives at the other end.

The Financial Services Authority has warned banks and other financial institutions that members of criminal gangs may be applying for jobs which give them access to confidential customer data. The fear is not that they will steal money from our bank accounts but that they will instead steal something far more valuable in our digital society - our identities. Armed with the personal details that a bank holds, plus a fake letter or two, it is apparently easy to get a loan, open a bank account with an overdraft or get a credit card in someone else's name. And it is then a simple matter to move the money into another account and leave the unwitting victim to sort out the mess when statements and demands for payment start arriving. Identity theft is an increasingly significant economic crime, and we are all becoming more aware of the dangers of leaving bills, receipts and bank statements unshredded in our rubbish.

But, however careful you may be, if the organisations you trust with your personal data, bank accounts and credit cards are not able to look after their databases properly then you are in trouble. It is surprising that it has taken the gangs so long to realise that a well-placed insider is by far the simplest way to break the security of a computer system. In fact, I suspect that the FSA is probably very late to this particular party and that this sort of thing has been going on for rather a long time. Has anyone checked Bob Cratchit's family links to the criminal underworld, I wonder? And it is hardly likely to be only banks that are being targeted. Health authorities, government agencies and of course the big e-commerce sites like Amazon must also offer rich pickings for the fraudsters. The good news is that better auditing is likely to catch out those who access account details that they are not supposed to. And as we all become aware of the danger of identity theft and look more carefully for unexpected transactions on our statements, banks should have good enough records and logs to trace the people who might have accessed the account details. Fortunately there are now ways to keep bank systems more secure from the sort of data theft that involves taking a portable hard drive or flash memory card into the office, plugging it into a USB slot and sucking down customer files.

Companies like SecureWave, for example, can restrict the use of USB ports just to authorised devices or even to an individual's personal memory card. These solutions are not perfect, but it does not feel like a wave of fraud is about to wash away the entire financial system. However the warning does highlight one of the major issues with e-commerce and online trading - the security or otherwise of the servers and other systems that make up the 'back office'. It has been clear for years that the real danger in paying for goods online with a credit card is not that the number will be intercepted in transit but that the shop you are dealing with will be hacked.

In fact I do not know of a single case where an e-mail containing payment details has led to card fraud.

There are simply too many e-mails passing over the net for interception to be a sensible tool for anyone out to commit fraud. CD Universe, Powergen and many other companies have left their databases open and suffered the consequences. And just last week the online bank Cahoot admitted that its customer account details could be read by anyone who could guess a login name. Whether it is external hackers breaking in because of poor system security or internal staff abusing the access they get as part of their job, the issue is the same: how do we make sure that our personal data is not abused? Any organisation that processes personal data is, of course, bound by the Data Protection Act and must take proper care of it. Unauthorised disclosure is not allowed, but the penalties are small and the process of prosecuting under the Act so convoluted as to be worthless in practice. This is not something we can just leave it to the market. The consequences of having one's identity stolen are too serious, and markets respond too slowly. After all, I bank with Cahoot but it would be so much hassle to move my accounts that I did not even consider it when I heard about their security problems. I doubt many others have closed their accounts, especially when there is little guarantee that other banks are not going to make the same sort of mistake in future. The two options would seem to be more stringent data protection law, so that companies really feel the pressure to improve their internal processes, or a wave of civil lawsuits against financial institutions with sloppy practices whose customers suffer from identity theft. I have never felt comfortable with the US practice of suing everything that moves, partly because it seems to make lawyers richer than their clients, so I know which I'd prefer.

Bill Thompson is a regular commentator on the BBC World Service programme Go Digital.
","But, however careful you may be, if the organisations you trust with your personal data, bank accounts and credit cards are not able to look after their databases properly then you are in trouble.Armed with the personal details that a bank holds, plus a fake letter or two, it is apparently easy to get a loan, open a bank account with an overdraft or get a credit card in someone else's name.Fortunately there are now ways to keep bank systems more secure from the sort of data theft that involves taking a portable hard drive or flash memory card into the office, plugging it into a USB slot and sucking down customer files.The Financial Services Authority has warned banks and other financial institutions that members of criminal gangs may be applying for jobs which give them access to confidential customer data.And just last week the online bank Cahoot admitted that its customer account details could be read by anyone who could guess a login name.After all, I bank with Cahoot but it would be so much hassle to move my accounts that I did not even consider it when I heard about their security problems.And as we all become aware of the danger of identity theft and look more carefully for unexpected transactions on our statements, banks should have good enough records and logs to trace the people who might have accessed the account details.The real danger is not what happens to your data as it crosses the net, argues analyst Bill Thompson.The fear is not that they will steal money from our bank accounts but that they will instead steal something far more valuable in our digital society - our identities.Whether it is external hackers breaking in because of poor system security or internal staff abusing the access they get as part of their job, the issue is the same: how do we make sure that our personal data is not abused?Any organisation that processes personal data is, of course, bound by the Data Protection Act and must take proper care of it.The two options would seem to be more stringent data protection law, so that companies really feel the pressure to improve their internal processes, or a wave of civil lawsuits against financial institutions with sloppy practices whose customers suffer from identity theft.I doubt many others have closed their accounts, especially when there is little guarantee that other banks are not going to make the same sort of mistake in future.In fact I do not know of a single case where an e-mail containing payment details has led to card fraud."
"'Brainwave' cap controls computer

A team of US researchers has shown that controlling devices with the brain is a step closer.

Four people, two of them partly paralysed wheelchair users, successfully moved a computer cursor while wearing a cap with 64 electrodes. Previous research has shown that monkeys can control a computer with electrodes implanted into their brain. The New York team reported their findings in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. ""The results show that people can learn to use scalp-recorded electroencephalogram rhythms to control rapid and accurate movement of a cursor in two directions,"" said Jonathan Wolpaw and Dennis McFarlane. The research team, from New York State Department of Health and State University of New York in Albany, said the research was another step towards people controlling wheelchairs or other electronic devices by thought.

The four people faced a large video screen wearing a special cap which, meant no surgery or implantation was needed.

Brain activity produces electrical signals that can be read by electrodes. Complex algorithms then translate those signals into instructions to direct the computer. Such brain activity does not require the use of any nerves of muscles, so people with stroke or spinal cord injuries could use the cap effectively. ""The impressive non-invasive multidimensional control achieved in the present study suggests that a non-invasive brain control interface could support clinically useful operation of a robotic arm, a motorised wheelchair or a neuroprosthesis,"" said the researchers. The four volunteers also showed that they could get better at controlling the cursor the more times they tried. Although the two partially-paralysed people performed better overall, the researchers said this could be because their brains were more used to adapting or that they were simply more motivated. It is not the first time researchers have had this sort of success in brain-control experiments. Some teams have used eye motion and other recording techniques. Earlier this year, a team at the MIT Media Labs Europe demonstrated a wireless cap which read brain waves to control a computer character.
","Although the two partially-paralysed people performed better overall, the researchers said this could be because their brains were more used to adapting or that they were simply more motivated.A team of US researchers has shown that controlling devices with the brain is a step closer.Earlier this year, a team at the MIT Media Labs Europe demonstrated a wireless cap which read brain waves to control a computer character.Four people, two of them partly paralysed wheelchair users, successfully moved a computer cursor while wearing a cap with 64 electrodes.Previous research has shown that monkeys can control a computer with electrodes implanted into their brain.The research team, from New York State Department of Health and State University of New York in Albany, said the research was another step towards people controlling wheelchairs or other electronic devices by thought.Such brain activity does not require the use of any nerves of muscles, so people with stroke or spinal cord injuries could use the cap effectively."
"'Brainwave' cap controls computer

A team of US researchers has shown that controlling devices with the brain is a step closer.

Four people, two of them partly paralysed wheelchair users, successfully moved a computer cursor while wearing a cap with 64 electrodes. Previous research has shown that monkeys can control a computer with electrodes implanted into their brain. The New York team reported their findings in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. ""The results show that people can learn to use scalp-recorded electroencephalogram rhythms to control rapid and accurate movement of a cursor in two directions,"" said Jonathan Wolpaw and Dennis McFarlane. The research team, from New York State Department of Health and State University of New York in Albany, said the research was another step towards people controlling wheelchairs or other electronic devices by thought.

The four people faced a large video screen wearing a special cap which, meant no surgery or implantation was needed.

Brain activity produces electrical signals that can be read by electrodes. Complex algorithms then translate those signals into instructions to direct the computer. Such brain activity does not require the use of any nerves of muscles, so people with stroke or spinal cord injuries could use the cap effectively. ""The impressive non-invasive multidimensional control achieved in the present study suggests that a non-invasive brain control interface could support clinically useful operation of a robotic arm, a motorised wheelchair or a neuroprosthesis,"" said the researchers. The four volunteers also showed that they could get better at controlling the cursor the more times they tried. Although the two partially-paralysed people performed better overall, the researchers said this could be because their brains were more used to adapting or that they were simply more motivated. It is not the first time researchers have had this sort of success in brain-control experiments. Some teams have used eye motion and other recording techniques. Earlier this year, a team at the MIT Media Labs Europe demonstrated a wireless cap which read brain waves to control a computer character.
","Although the two partially-paralysed people performed better overall, the researchers said this could be because their brains were more used to adapting or that they were simply more motivated.A team of US researchers has shown that controlling devices with the brain is a step closer.Earlier this year, a team at the MIT Media Labs Europe demonstrated a wireless cap which read brain waves to control a computer character.Four people, two of them partly paralysed wheelchair users, successfully moved a computer cursor while wearing a cap with 64 electrodes.Previous research has shown that monkeys can control a computer with electrodes implanted into their brain.The research team, from New York State Department of Health and State University of New York in Albany, said the research was another step towards people controlling wheelchairs or other electronic devices by thought.Such brain activity does not require the use of any nerves of muscles, so people with stroke or spinal cord injuries could use the cap effectively."
"Europe backs digital TV lifestyle

How people receive their digital entertainment in the future could change, following the launch of an ambitious European project.

In Nice last week, the European Commission announced its Networked & Electronic Media (NEM) initiative. Its broad scope stretches from the way media is created, through each of the stages of its distribution, to its playback. The Commission wants people to be able to locate the content they desire and have it delivered seamlessly, when on the move, at home or at work, no matter who supplies the devices, network, content, or content protection scheme. More than 120 experts were in Nice to share the vision of interconnected future and hear pledges of support from companies such as Nokia, Intel, Philips, Alcatel, France Telecom, Thomson and Telefonica. It might initially appear to be surprising that companies in direct competition are keen to work together. But again and again, speakers stated they could not see incompatible, stand-alone solutions working. A long-term strategy for the evolution and convergence of technologies and services would be required.

The European Commission is being pragmatic in its approach. They have identified that many groups have defined the forms of digital media in the areas that NEM encompasses. The NEM approach is to take a serious look at what is available and what is in the pipeline, pick out the best, bring them together and identify where the gaps are. Where it finds holes, it will develop standards to fill them. What is significant is that such a large and powerful organisation has stated its desire for digital formats to be open to all and work on any gadget. This is bound to please, if not surprise, many individuals and user organisations who feel that the wishes of the holder of rights to content are normally considered over and above those of the consumer. Many feel that the most difficult and challenging area for the Commission will be to identify a solution for different Digital Rights Management (DRM) schemes. Currently DRM solutions are incompatible, locking certain types of purchased content, making them unplayable on all platforms. With the potential of having a percentage of every media transaction that takes place globally, the prize for being the supplier of the world's dominant DRM scheme is huge. Although entertainment is an obvious first step, it will encompass the remote provisions of healthcare, energy efficiency and control of the smart home. The 10-year plan brings together the work of many currently running research projects that the EC has been funding for a number of years.

Simon Perry is the editor of the Digital Lifestyles website, which covers the impact of technology on media
","Many feel that the most difficult and challenging area for the Commission will be to identify a solution for different Digital Rights Management (DRM) schemes.They have identified that many groups have defined the forms of digital media in the areas that NEM encompasses.How people receive their digital entertainment in the future could change, following the launch of an ambitious European project.The Commission wants people to be able to locate the content they desire and have it delivered seamlessly, when on the move, at home or at work, no matter who supplies the devices, network, content, or content protection scheme.What is significant is that such a large and powerful organisation has stated its desire for digital formats to be open to all and work on any gadget.Simon Perry is the editor of the Digital Lifestyles website, which covers the impact of technology on mediaThe 10-year plan brings together the work of many currently running research projects that the EC has been funding for a number of years.The European Commission is being pragmatic in its approach."
"A decade of good website design

The web looks very different today than it did 10 years ago.

Back in 1994, Yahoo had only just launched, most websites were text-based and Amazon, Google and eBay had yet to appear. But, says usability guru Dr Jakob Nielsen, some things have stayed constant in that decade, namely the principles of what makes a site easy to use. Dr Nielsen has looked back at a decade of work on usability and considered whether the 34 core guidelines drawn up back then are relevant to the web of today. ""Roughly 80% of the things we found 10 years ago are still an issue today,"" he said. ""Some have gone away because users have changed and 10% have changed because technology has changed.""

Some design crimes, such as splash screens that get between a user and the site they are trying to visit, and web designers indulging their artistic urges have almost disappeared, said Dr Nielsen.

""But there's great stability on usability concerns,"" he told the BBC News website. Dr Nielsen said the basic principles of usability, centring around ease of use and clear thinking about a site's total design, were as important as ever. ""It's necessary to be aware of these things as issues because they remain as such,"" he said. They are still important because the net has not changed as much as people thought it would. ""A lot of people thought that design and usability was only a temporary problem because broadband was taking off,"" he said. ""But there are a very small number of cases where usability issues go away because you have broadband.""

Dr Nielsen said the success of sites such as Google, Amazon, eBay and Yahoo showed that close attention to design and user needs was important. ""Those four sites are extremely profitable and extremely successful,"" said Dr Nielsen, adding that they have largely defined commercial success on the net.

""All are based on user empowerment and make it easy for people to do things on the internet,"" he said. ""They are making simple but powerful tools available to the user. ""None of them have a fancy or glamorous look,"" he added, declaring himself surprised that these sites have not been more widely copied. In the future, Dr Nielsen believes that search engines will play an even bigger part in helping people get to grips with the huge amount of information online. ""They are becoming like the operating system to the internet,"" he said. But, he said, the fact that they are useful now does not meant that they could not do better. Currently, he said, search sites did not do a very good job of describing the information that they return in response to queries. Often people had to look at a website just to judge whether it was useful or not. Tools that watch the behaviour of people on websites to see what they actually find useful could also help refine results. Research by Dr Nielsen shows that people are getting more sophisticated in their use of search engines. The latest statistics on how many words people use on search engines shows that, on average, they use 2.2 terms. In 1994 only 1.3 words were used. ""I think it's amazing that we have seen a doubling in a 10-year period of those search terms,"" said Dr Nielsen.

You can hear more from Jakob Nielsen and web design on the BBC World Service programme, Go Digital
","Dr Nielsen said the success of sites such as Google, Amazon, eBay and Yahoo showed that close attention to design and user needs was important.Dr Nielsen said the basic principles of usability, centring around ease of use and clear thinking about a site's total design, were as important as ever.Some design crimes, such as splash screens that get between a user and the site they are trying to visit, and web designers indulging their artistic urges have almost disappeared, said Dr Nielsen.""I think it's amazing that we have seen a doubling in a 10-year period of those search terms,"" said Dr Nielsen.""All are based on user empowerment and make it easy for people to do things on the internet,"" he said.Research by Dr Nielsen shows that people are getting more sophisticated in their use of search engines.But, says usability guru Dr Jakob Nielsen, some things have stayed constant in that decade, namely the principles of what makes a site easy to use.""A lot of people thought that design and usability was only a temporary problem because broadband was taking off,"" he said.""Roughly 80% of the things we found 10 years ago are still an issue today,"" he said.""Those four sites are extremely profitable and extremely successful,"" said Dr Nielsen, adding that they have largely defined commercial success on the net.Dr Nielsen has looked back at a decade of work on usability and considered whether the 34 core guidelines drawn up back then are relevant to the web of today.Often people had to look at a website just to judge whether it was useful or not."
"2D Metal Slug offers retro fun

Like some drill sergeant from the past, Metal Slug 3 is a wake-up call to today's gamers molly-coddled with slick visuals and fancy trimmings.

With its hand-animated sprites and 2D side-scrolling, this was even considered retro when released in arcades four years ago. But a more frantic shooter you will not find at the end of your joypad this year. And yes, that includes Halo 2. Simply choose your grunt and wade through five 2D side-scrolling levels of the most hectic video game blasting you will ever encounter. It is also the toughest game you are likely to play, as hordes of enemies and few lives pile the pressure on.

Players must battle soldiers, snowmen, zombies, giant crabs and aliens, not to mention the huge, screen-filling bosses that guard each of the five levels.

The shoot-anything-that-moves gameplay is peppered with moments of old-school genius. Fans of robotic gastropods should note the title refers, instead, to the vast array of vehicles on offer in a game stuffed with bizarre hardware. Tanks, jets and submarines can be commandeered, as well as cannon-toting camels, elephants and ostriches - more weaponry on offer than in an acre of Iraq. Doling out justice is a joy thanks to ultra responsive controls, and while this is a tough nut to crack, it is addictive enough to have you gagging for that one last go. And at a mere £20, Metal Slug 3 is as cheap as sliced, fried spuds, as the man says. Of course, most of you will ignore this, lacking as it does the visual fireworks of modern blasters. But at a time when blockbuster titles offer only a fresh lick of paint in favour of real innovation, Metal Slug 3 is a fresh gasp of air from an era when the Xbox was not even a twinkle in Bill Gates' eye.
","But at a time when blockbuster titles offer only a fresh lick of paint in favour of real innovation, Metal Slug 3 is a fresh gasp of air from an era when the Xbox was not even a twinkle in Bill Gates' eye.Simply choose your grunt and wade through five 2D side-scrolling levels of the most hectic video game blasting you will ever encounter.Fans of robotic gastropods should note the title refers, instead, to the vast array of vehicles on offer in a game stuffed with bizarre hardware.With its hand-animated sprites and 2D side-scrolling, this was even considered retro when released in arcades four years ago.And at a mere £20, Metal Slug 3 is as cheap as sliced, fried spuds, as the man says.Like some drill sergeant from the past, Metal Slug 3 is a wake-up call to today's gamers molly-coddled with slick visuals and fancy trimmings."
"Casual gaming to 'take off'

Games aimed at ""casual players"" are set to be even bigger in 2005, according to industry experts.

Easy-to-play titles that do not require too much time and that are playable online or downloadable to mobile devices will see real growth in the coming year. The trend shows that gaming is not just about big-hitting, games console titles, which appeal more to ""hardcore"" gamers, said a panel of experts. They were speaking before the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas which showcases the latest trends in gadgets and technologies for 2005. The panel also insisted that casual gamers were not just women, a common misconception which pervades current thinking about gamer demographics.

Casual games like poker, pool, bridge, bingo and puzzle-based titles, which can be played online or downloaded onto mobile devices, were ""gender neutral"" and different genres attracted different players.

Greg Mills, program director at AOL, said its figures suggested that sports-based games attracted 90% of 18 to 24-year-old males, while puzzle games were played by 80% of females. Games like bridge tended to attract the over-50 demographic of gamers.

But hardcore gamers who are more attracted to blockbuster gamers which usually require hi-spec PCs, like Half-Life 2, or Halo 2 on Xbox, also liked to have a different type of gaming experience. ""When hardcore gamers are not playing Halo, they are playing poker and pool, based on our research,"" said Geoff Graber, director of Yahoo Games, which attracts about 12 million gamers a month.

With the growth of powerful PC technology and ownership, broadband take-up, portable players and mobile devices, as well as interactive TV, casual gaming is shaping up to be big business in 2005, according to the panel. The focus for the coming year should be about attracting third-party developers into the field to offer more innovative and multiplayer titles, they agreed. ""We are at a time where we are on the verge of something much bigger,"" said Mr Graber. ""Casual games will get into their stride in 2005, will be really big in 2006 and will be about community."" With more people finding more to do with their gadgets and high-speed connections, casual games would start to open up the world of gaming as a form of mass-market entertainment to more people. Key to these types of titles is the chance they give people who may not see themselves as gamers to dip in and out of games when they liked.

Portal sites which offer casual games, like AOL, Yahoo, and RealArcade, as well as other games-on-demand services, allow people to build up buddy lists so they can return and play against the same people. This aspect of ""community"" is crucial for gamers who just want to have quick access to free or cheap games without committing long periods of time immersed in £30 to £40 console or PC titles, said the panel. About 120,000 people are expected to attend the CES trade show which stretches over more than 1.5 million square feet and which officially runs from 6 to 9 January. The main theme is how new devices are getting better at talking to each other, allowing people to enjoy digital content, like audio, video and images, when they want, and where they want.
","The trend shows that gaming is not just about big-hitting, games console titles, which appeal more to ""hardcore"" gamers, said a panel of experts.This aspect of ""community"" is crucial for gamers who just want to have quick access to free or cheap games without committing long periods of time immersed in £30 to £40 console or PC titles, said the panel.Key to these types of titles is the chance they give people who may not see themselves as gamers to dip in and out of games when they liked.Casual games like poker, pool, bridge, bingo and puzzle-based titles, which can be played online or downloaded onto mobile devices, were ""gender neutral"" and different genres attracted different players.But hardcore gamers who are more attracted to blockbuster gamers which usually require hi-spec PCs, like Half-Life 2, or Halo 2 on Xbox, also liked to have a different type of gaming experience.With more people finding more to do with their gadgets and high-speed connections, casual games would start to open up the world of gaming as a form of mass-market entertainment to more people.""When hardcore gamers are not playing Halo, they are playing poker and pool, based on our research,"" said Geoff Graber, director of Yahoo Games, which attracts about 12 million gamers a month.Portal sites which offer casual games, like AOL, Yahoo, and RealArcade, as well as other games-on-demand services, allow people to build up buddy lists so they can return and play against the same people."
"'Ultimate game' award for Doom 3

Sci-fi shooter Doom 3 has blasted away the competition at a major games ceremony, the Golden Joystick awards.

It was the only title to win twice, winning Ultimate Game of the year and best PC game at the awards, presented by Little Britain star Matt Lucas. The much-anticipated sci-fi horror Doom 3 shot straight to the top of the UK games charts on its release in August. Other winners included Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas which took the Most Wanted for Christmas prize. Only released last week, it was closely followed by Halo 2 and Half-Life 2, which are expected to be big hits when they are unleashed later this month.

But they missed out on the prize for the Most Wanted game of 2005, which went to the Nintendo title, The Legend of Zelda. The original Doom, released in 1994, heralded a new era in computer games and introduced 3D graphics. It helped to establish the concept of the first-person shooter. Doom 3 was developed over four years and is thought to have cost around $15m (£8.3m). The top honour for the best online game of the year went to Battlefield Vietnam. The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay was handed the Unsung Hero Game of 2004. Its release was somewhat eclipsed by Doom 3, which was released on the same week. It was, however, very well received by gamers and was praised for its storyline which differed from the film released around the same time. Electronic Arts was named top publisher of the year, taking the crown from Nintendo which won in 2003. The annual awards are voted for by more than 200,000 readers of computer and video games magazines. Games awards like this have grown in importance. Over the last six years, the UK market for games grew by 100% and was worth a record £1,152m in 2003, according to a recent report by analysts Screen Digest.
","It was the only title to win twice, winning Ultimate Game of the year and best PC game at the awards, presented by Little Britain star Matt Lucas.Its release was somewhat eclipsed by Doom 3, which was released on the same week.The original Doom, released in 1994, heralded a new era in computer games and introduced 3D graphics.Doom 3 was developed over four years and is thought to have cost around $15m (£8.3m).The much-anticipated sci-fi horror Doom 3 shot straight to the top of the UK games charts on its release in August.The top honour for the best online game of the year went to Battlefield Vietnam.The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay was handed the Unsung Hero Game of 2004."
"Gadget show heralds MP3 Christmas

Partners of those who love their hi-tech gear may want to get their presents in early as experts predict a gadget shortage this Christmas.

With Apple's iPod topping wish lists again, there may not be enough iPod minis to go round, predicts Oliver Irish, editor of gadget magazine Stuff. ""The iPod mini is likely to be this year's Tracey Island,"" said Mr Irish. Stuff has compiled a list of the top 10 gadgets for 2004 and the iPod is at number one.

For anyone bewildered by the choice of gadgets on the market, Stuff and What Hi-Fi? are hosting a best-of gadget show in London this weekend. Star of the show will be Sony's Qrio Robot, an all-singing, all-dancing, football-playing man-machine who can even hold intelligent conversations.

But he is not for sale and Sony has no commercial plans for the robot. ""He will greet visitors and is flying in from Japan. He probably has his own airplane seat, that is how highly Sony prize him,"" said Mr Irish. Also on display will be a virtual keyboard which projects itself onto any flat surface. The event will play host to a large collection of digital music players, from companies such as Creative, Sony and Philips as well as the ubiquitously fashionable iPod from Apple. Suggestions that it could be a gaming or wireless Christmas are unlikely to come true as MP3 players remain the most popular stocking filler, said Mr Irish. ""Demand is huge and Apple has promised that it can supply enough but people might struggle to get their hands on iPod minis,"" said Mr Irish.

For those who like their gadgets to be multi-talented, the Gizmondo, a powerful gaming console with GPS and GPRS, that also doubles up as an MP3 player, movie player and camera, could be a must-have. ""What is impressive is how much it can do and how well it can do them,"" said Mr Irish. This Christmas, gadgets will not be an all-male preserve. ""Women will be getting gadgets from husbands and boyfriends as well as buying them for themselves,"" said Mr Irish. ""Gadgets nowadays are lifestyle products rather than just for geeks.""
","""Women will be getting gadgets from husbands and boyfriends as well as buying them for themselves,"" said Mr Irish.He probably has his own airplane seat, that is how highly Sony prize him,"" said Mr Irish.""The iPod mini is likely to be this year's Tracey Island,"" said Mr Irish.""What is impressive is how much it can do and how well it can do them,"" said Mr Irish.""Demand is huge and Apple has promised that it can supply enough but people might struggle to get their hands on iPod minis,"" said Mr Irish.With Apple's iPod topping wish lists again, there may not be enough iPod minis to go round, predicts Oliver Irish, editor of gadget magazine Stuff.Stuff has compiled a list of the top 10 gadgets for 2004 and the iPod is at number one.Suggestions that it could be a gaming or wireless Christmas are unlikely to come true as MP3 players remain the most popular stocking filler, said Mr Irish."
"Supercomputer breaks speed record

The US is poised to push Japan off the top of the supercomputing chart with IBM's prototype Blue Gene/L machine.

It is being assembled for the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, a US Department of Energy (DOE) lab. DOE test results show that Blue Gene/L has managed speeds of 70.72 teraflops. The current top machine, Japan's NEC Earth Simulator, clocks up 35.86. Due next week, the Top 500 list officially charts the fastest computers in the world. It is announced every six months and is worked out using an officially recognised mathematical speed test called Linpack which measures calculations per second. The speeds will most likely make it the fastest computer system on the planet, yet the chip technology powering the machine is the kind which can be found in familiar devices such as games consoles.

The US Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham confirmed that the machine had reached the breakneck speed, according to the Linpack benchmark. Until the official list is published, however, Blue Gene/L's position will not be confirmed, and there are expected to be some other new entries. But the test results raise the bar of supercomputing enormously and signal a remarkable achievement. Surpassing the 40 trillion calculations per second (teraflop) mark has been considered a landmark for some time.

The IBM Blue Gene/L is only a prototype and is one 5th the speed of the full version, due to be completed for the Livermore labs in 2005. Its peak theoretical performance is expected to be 360 teraflops, and will fit into 64 full racks. It will also cut down on the amount of heat generated by the massive power, a big problem for supercomputers. The final machine will help scientists work out the safety, security and reliability requirements for the US's nuclear weapons stockpile, without the need for underground nuclear testing. The Earth Simulator has held on to the top spot since June 2002. It is dedicated to climate modelling and simulating seismic activity. But in September, IBM said that another Blue Gene/L machine clocked up 36.01 teraflops, marginally surpassing the Earth Simulator's performance. This was achieved during internal testing at IBM's production facility in Rochester, Minnesota, though, so was not an official record. Another giant to enter the fray is Silicon Graphics' Columbia supercomputer based at Nasa's Ames Research Center in California. It would be used to model flight missions, climate research, and aerospace engineering. The Linux-based machine was reported to have reached a top speed of 42.7 teraflops in October.

Supercomputers are hugely important for working out very complex problems across science and society. Their massive simulation and processing power means they can improve the accuracy of weather forecasts, help design better cars, and improve disease diagnosis. IBM's senior vice president of technology and manufacturing, Nick Donofrio, believes that by 2006, Blue Gene will be capable of petaflop computing. This means it would be capable of doing 1,000 trillion operations a second. ""When you get a computer as large as a petaflop, you can start to think of simulations that might complement the physical world,"" Mr Donofrio recently told the BBC News website.

""You can start to be more proactive, more interactive and more innovative."" One area where Mr Donofrio sees supercomputing - and Blue Gene machines in particular - as crucial is health. He believes the machines can help scientists understand one of the greatest challenges of the 21st Century: protein folding. ""Health is one of the most important problems, not just mapping the human genome, but also protein structures. ""We are a great believer in simulation. It gives you another tool,"" he said. Once the structures of proteins are understood fully, then drugs can be tailor-made to fight diseases more effectively. Compared with the current fastest supercomputers, Blue Gene is designed to consume one 15th the power and be 10 times more compact. Since the first supercomputer, the Cray-1, was installed at Los Alamos National Laboratory in 1976, computational speed has leaped 500,000 times. The Cray-1 was capable of 80 megaflops (80 million operations a second). The Blue Gene/L machine that will be completed next year will be five million times faster. Started in 1993, the Top 500 list is decided by a group of computer science academics from around the world. It is presented at the International Supercomputer Conference in Pittsburgh.
","The US is poised to push Japan off the top of the supercomputing chart with IBM's prototype Blue Gene/L machine.But in September, IBM said that another Blue Gene/L machine clocked up 36.01 teraflops, marginally surpassing the Earth Simulator's performance.DOE test results show that Blue Gene/L has managed speeds of 70.72 teraflops.The Linux-based machine was reported to have reached a top speed of 42.7 teraflops in October.One area where Mr Donofrio sees supercomputing - and Blue Gene machines in particular - as crucial is health.The IBM Blue Gene/L is only a prototype and is one 5th the speed of the full version, due to be completed for the Livermore labs in 2005.The Blue Gene/L machine that will be completed next year will be five million times faster.Compared with the current fastest supercomputers, Blue Gene is designed to consume one 15th the power and be 10 times more compact.The current top machine, Japan's NEC Earth Simulator, clocks up 35.86.Since the first supercomputer, the Cray-1, was installed at Los Alamos National Laboratory in 1976, computational speed has leaped 500,000 times.Due next week, the Top 500 list officially charts the fastest computers in the world.He believes the machines can help scientists understand one of the greatest challenges of the 21st Century: protein folding.The US Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham confirmed that the machine had reached the breakneck speed, according to the Linpack benchmark.The Cray-1 was capable of 80 megaflops (80 million operations a second).IBM's senior vice president of technology and manufacturing, Nick Donofrio, believes that by 2006, Blue Gene will be capable of petaflop computing.This means it would be capable of doing 1,000 trillion operations a second."
"Gadgets galore on show at fair

The 2005 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas is a geek's paradise with more than 50,000 new gadgets and technologies launched during the four-day event.

Top gadgets at the show are highlighted in the Innovations Showcase, which recognises some of the hottest developments in consumer electronics. The BBC News website took an early pre-show look at some of those technologies that will be making their debut in 2005. 

 

One of the key issues for keen gadget users is how to store all their digital images, audio and video files. The 2.5GB and 5GB circular pocket hard drive from Seagate might help. The external USB drive won a CES best innovations design and engineering award and is small enough to slip into a pocket. ""It is the kind of storage that appeals to people who want their PCs to look cool,"" said Seagate. ""It is all about style but it also has lots of functionality."" ""It is the first time you can say a hard drive is sexy,"" it said. In the centre of the device is a blue light that flashes while data is being written to ensure users do not unplug it when it is busy saving those precious pictures. 

 

Universal Electronics' NevoSL is a universal controller that lets people use one device to get at their multimedia content, such as photos, no matter where it is in their house. It can also act as a remote for home theatre and stereo systems. Working with home broadband networks and PCs, the gadget has built-in wireless and a colourful, simple interface. Paul Arling, UEI chief, said consumers face real problems when trying to get at all the files they own that are typically spread across several different devices. He said the Nevo gave people a simple, single way to regain some control over digital media in the home. The Nevo won two awards at CES, one as a Girl's Best Friend award and another for innovation, design and engineering. The gadget is expected to go on sale before the summer and will cost about $799 (£425). 

 

Hotseat is targeting keen gamers with money to spend with its Solo Chassis gaming chair. The specially-designed chair lets gamers play in surround-sound while stretching out in their own ""space"". It is compatible with all the major games consoles, DVD players and PCs. ""We found that kids love playing in surround sound,"" said Jay LeBoff from Hotseat. ""We are looking at offering different types of seats, depending on the market success of this one."" The chair also lets people experience surround sound while watching videos, with wireless control for six surround sound speakers. And a drinks holder. The chair, which looks like a car seat on a skeletal frame, should go on sale in April and is expected to cost $399 (£211). 

 

Satellite radio is big business in the US. In the UK, the digital radio technology is known as DAB and works on slightly different technology. Eton Corporation's Porsche designed P7131 digital radio set will be launched both as a DAB radio in the UK as well as a satellite radio set in the US. DAB sets have been slow to take-off in the UK, but this one concentrates on sleek looks as much as technology. ""It is for the risqué consumer,"" said an Eton spokesperson. ""We are proud of it because it has the sound quality for the audiophile and the looks for the design-conscious consumer."" The Porsche radio is set to go on sale at the end of January in the US and in the first quarter of 2005 in the UK. In the US is it expected to cost $250 (£133). 

 

The average person has a library of 600 digital images estimates the Consumer Electronics Association, the organisation behind CES. This is expected to grow to a massive 3,420 images - or 7.2GB - in five years' time. One gadget that might help swell that collection is Sanyo's tiny handheld VPC-C4 camcorder which is another innovation in design and engineering award winner. It combines high quality video and stills in a very small device. It takes MPEG4 video quality at 30 frames a second and has a four megapixel still camera. Images and video are stored on SD cards, which have come down in price in recent months. A 512MB card will store about 30 minutes of video and 420 stills. The device is so tiny it can be controlled with one thumb. Because images and video are stored on SD memory, it is portable to other devices and means other data like audio can be stored on the card too. 

 

Wearable technology has always promised much but failed to deliver because of lack of storage capability and poor design. MPIO's tiny digital USB music players come in an array of fashionable colours, taking a leaf out of the Apple iPod mini book of design and reflecting the desire for gadgets that look good. Slung on a cord, the player would not look too geeky dangling discreetly from the neck. Although the pendant design was launched three months ago, the device emphasises large storage as well as good looks for fashion-conscious gadget fiends. An even dinkier model, the FY500, comes out in May and will store about 256MB of music. The range of players recently won an International Forum design award 2005.
","One of the key issues for keen gadget users is how to store all their digital images, audio and video files.MPIO's tiny digital USB music players come in an array of fashionable colours, taking a leaf out of the Apple iPod mini book of design and reflecting the desire for gadgets that look good.""We are proud of it because it has the sound quality for the audiophile and the looks for the design-conscious consumer.""DAB sets have been slow to take-off in the UK, but this one concentrates on sleek looks as much as technology.One gadget that might help swell that collection is Sanyo's tiny handheld VPC-C4 camcorder which is another innovation in design and engineering award winner.The chair, which looks like a car seat on a skeletal frame, should go on sale in April and is expected to cost $399 (£211).Although the pendant design was launched three months ago, the device emphasises large storage as well as good looks for fashion-conscious gadget fiends.The gadget is expected to go on sale before the summer and will cost about $799 (£425).The Nevo won two awards at CES, one as a Girl's Best Friend award and another for innovation, design and engineering.In the UK, the digital radio technology is known as DAB and works on slightly different technology.Eton Corporation's Porsche designed P7131 digital radio set will be launched both as a DAB radio in the UK as well as a satellite radio set in the US.""It is the kind of storage that appeals to people who want their PCs to look cool,"" said Seagate.The Porsche radio is set to go on sale at the end of January in the US and in the first quarter of 2005 in the UK.The average person has a library of 600 digital images estimates the Consumer Electronics Association, the organisation behind CES.The 2005 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas is a geek's paradise with more than 50,000 new gadgets and technologies launched during the four-day event.Because images and video are stored on SD memory, it is portable to other devices and means other data like audio can be stored on the card too.The external USB drive won a CES best innovations design and engineering award and is small enough to slip into a pocket.Working with home broadband networks and PCs, the gadget has built-in wireless and a colourful, simple interface.It combines high quality video and stills in a very small device."
"Broadband in the UK growing fast

High-speed net connections in the UK are proving more popular than ever.

BT reports that more people signed up for broadband in the last three months than in any other quarter. The 600,000 connections take the total number of people in the UK signing up for broadband from BT to almost 3.3 million. Nationally more than 5 million browse the net via broadband. Britain now has among the highest number of broadband connections throughout the whole of Europe.

According to figures gathered by industry watchdog, Ofcom, the growth means that the UK has now surpassed Germany in terms of broadband users per 100 people. The UK total of 5.3 million translates into 7.5 connections per 100 people, compared to 6.7 in Germany and 15.8 in the Netherlands. The numbers of people signing up to broadband include those that get their service direct from BT or via the many companies that re-sell BT lines under their own name. Part of the surge in people signing up was due to BT stretching the reach of ADSL - the UK's most widely used way of getting broadband - beyond 6km.

Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line technology lets ordinary copper phone lines support high data speeds. The standard speed is 512kbps, though faster connections are available. ""This breakthrough led to a dramatic increase in orders as we were suddenly able to satisfy the pent-up demand that existed in many areas,"" said Paul Reynolds, chief executive of BT Wholesale which provides phone lines that other firms re-sell. BT Retail, which sells net services under its own name, also had a good quarter and provided about 30% of the new broadband customers. This was a slight increase on the previous three months. Despite the good news about growth in broadband, figures from telecommunications regulator Ofcom show that BT faces increasing competition, and dwindling influence, in other sectors. Local Loop Unbundling, (LLU), in which BT rivals install their hardware in exchanges and take over the line to a customer's home or office, is growing steadily. Cable & Wireless and NTL have announced that they are investing millions to start offering LLU services. By the end of September more than 4.2 million phone lines were using so-called Carrier Pre-Section (CPS) services, such as TalkTalk and One.Tel, which route phone calls across non-BT networks from a local exchange. There are now more than 300 different firms offering CPS services and the percentage of people using BT lines for voice calls has shrunk to 55.4%.
","The 600,000 connections take the total number of people in the UK signing up for broadband from BT to almost 3.3 million.The numbers of people signing up to broadband include those that get their service direct from BT or via the many companies that re-sell BT lines under their own name.BT reports that more people signed up for broadband in the last three months than in any other quarter.There are now more than 300 different firms offering CPS services and the percentage of people using BT lines for voice calls has shrunk to 55.4%.The UK total of 5.3 million translates into 7.5 connections per 100 people, compared to 6.7 in Germany and 15.8 in the Netherlands.BT Retail, which sells net services under its own name, also had a good quarter and provided about 30% of the new broadband customers.Part of the surge in people signing up was due to BT stretching the reach of ADSL - the UK's most widely used way of getting broadband - beyond 6km.Nationally more than 5 million browse the net via broadband."
"US duo in first spam conviction

A brother and sister in the US have been convicted of sending hundreds of thousands of unsolicited e-mail messages to AOL subscribers.

It is the first criminal prosecution of internet spam distributors. Jurors in Virginia recommended that the man, Jeremy Jaynes, serve nine years in prison and that his sister, Jessica DeGroot, be fined $7,500. They were convicted under a state law that bars the sending of bulk e-mails using fake addresses.

They will be formally sentenced next year. A third defendant, Richard Rutkowski, was acquitted. Prosecutors said Jaynes was ""a snake oil salesman in a new format"", using the internet to peddle useless wares, news agency Associated Press reported. A ""Fed-Ex refund processor"" was supposed to allow people to earn $75 an hour working from home. Another item on sale was an ""internet history eraser"". His sister helped him process credit card payments. Jaynes amassed a fortune of $24m from his sales, prosecutors said. ""He's been successful ripping people off all these years,"" AP quoted prosecutor Russell McGuire as saying. Jaynes was also found guilty of breaking a state law which prohibits the sending of more than 100,000 e-mails in 30 days, Virginia State Attorney General Jerry Kilgore reportedly said. Prosecutors had asked for 15 years in jail for Jaynes, and a jail term for his sister. But Jaynes' lawyer David Oblon called the nine-year recommended term ""outrageous"" and said his client believed he was innocent. He pointed out that all three of the accused lived in North Carolina and were unaware of the Virginia state law. Spam messages are estimated to account for at least 60% of all e-mails sent.
","Jaynes was also found guilty of breaking a state law which prohibits the sending of more than 100,000 e-mails in 30 days, Virginia State Attorney General Jerry Kilgore reportedly said.Prosecutors said Jaynes was ""a snake oil salesman in a new format"", using the internet to peddle useless wares, news agency Associated Press reported.Prosecutors had asked for 15 years in jail for Jaynes, and a jail term for his sister.But Jaynes' lawyer David Oblon called the nine-year recommended term ""outrageous"" and said his client believed he was innocent.Jurors in Virginia recommended that the man, Jeremy Jaynes, serve nine years in prison and that his sister, Jessica DeGroot, be fined $7,500.They were convicted under a state law that bars the sending of bulk e-mails using fake addresses.Jaynes amassed a fortune of $24m from his sales, prosecutors said."
"Microsoft debuts security tools

Microsoft is releasing tools that clean up PCs harbouring viruses and spyware.

The virus-fighting program will be updated monthly and is a precursor to Microsoft releasing dedicated anti-virus software. Also being released is a software utility that will help users find and remove any spyware on their home computer. Although initially free it is thought that soon Microsoft will be charging users for the anti-spyware tool.

The anti-spyware tool is available now and the anti-virus utility is expected to be available later this month. Microsoft's Windows operating system has long been a favourite of people who write computer viruses because it is so ubiquitous and has many loopholes that can be exploited. It has proved such a tempting target that there are now thought to be more than 100,000 viruses and other malicious programs in existence. Latest research suggests that new variants of viruses are being cranked out at a rate of up to 200 per week. Spyware is surreptitious software that sneaks on to home computers, often without users' knowledge. In its most benign form it just bombards users with pop-up adverts or hijacks web browser settings. The most malicious forms steal confidential information or log every keystroke that users make. Surveys have shown that most PCs are infested with spyware. Research by technology firms Earthlink and Webroot revealed that 90% of Windows machine have the malicious software on board and, on average, each one harbours 28 separate spyware programs. Before now Microsoft has left the market for PC security software to specialist firms such as Symantec, McAfee, Trend Micro and many others. It said that its virus cleaning program would not stop machines being infected nor remove the need for other anti-virus programs. On spyware freely available programs such as Ad-Aware and Spybot have become widely used by people keen to keep the latest variants at bay. Microsoft's two security tools have emerged as a result of acquisitions the company has made over the last two years. In 2003 it bought Romanian firm GeCAD Software to get hold of its anti-virus technology. In December 2004 it bought New York-based anti-spyware firm Giant Company Software. Last year Microsoft also released the SP2 upgrade for Windows XP that closed many security loopholes in the software and made it easier for people to manage their anti-virus and firewall programs.
","Microsoft is releasing tools that clean up PCs harbouring viruses and spyware.Also being released is a software utility that will help users find and remove any spyware on their home computer.Last year Microsoft also released the SP2 upgrade for Windows XP that closed many security loopholes in the software and made it easier for people to manage their anti-virus and firewall programs.Research by technology firms Earthlink and Webroot revealed that 90% of Windows machine have the malicious software on board and, on average, each one harbours 28 separate spyware programs.The virus-fighting program will be updated monthly and is a precursor to Microsoft releasing dedicated anti-virus software.Before now Microsoft has left the market for PC security software to specialist firms such as Symantec, McAfee, Trend Micro and many others.In 2003 it bought Romanian firm GeCAD Software to get hold of its anti-virus technology.In December 2004 it bought New York-based anti-spyware firm Giant Company Software."
"Slimmer PlayStation triple sales

Sony PlayStation 2's slimmer shape has proved popular with UK gamers, with 50,000 sold in its first week on sale.

Sales have tripled since launch, outstripping Microsoft's Xbox, said market analysts Chart-Track. The numbers were also boosted by the release of the PS2-only game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. The title broke the UK sales record for video games in its first weekend of release. Latest figures suggest it has sold more than 677,000 copies.

""It is obviously very, very encouraging for Sony because Microsoft briefly outsold them last week,"" John Houlihan, editor of Computerandvideogames.com told BBC News. ""And with Halo 2 [for Xbox] out next week, it really is a head-to-head contest between them and Xbox.""

Although Xbox sales over the last week also climbed, PS2 sales were more than double that. The figures mean Sony is reaching the seven million barrier for UK sales of the console. Edinburgh-based developer, Rockstar, which is behind the GTA titles, has seen San Andreas pull in an estimated £24m in gross revenues over the weekend. In comparison, blockbuster films like Harry Potter and The Prisoner Of Azkaban took £11.5m in its first three days at the UK box office. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King took nearly £10m over its opening weekend, although games titles are four to five times more expensive than cinema tickets.

Gangster-themed GTA San Andreas is the sequel to Grand Theft Auto Vice City which previously held the record for the fastest-selling video game ever. The Xbox game Halo 2, released on 11 November in the UK, is also widely tipped to be one of the best-selling games of the year. The original title won universal acclaim in 2001, and sold more than four million copies.

Mr Houlihan added that Sony had done well with the PS2, but it definitely helped that the release of San Andreas coincided with the slimline PS2 hitting the shelves. The run-up to Christmas is a huge battlefield for games consoles and titles. Microsoft's Xbox had been winning the race up until last week in sales. The sales figures also suggest that it may be a largely adult audience driving demand, since GTA San Andreas has an 18 certificate. Sony and Microsoft have both reduced console prices recently and are preparing the way for the launches of their next generation consoles in 2005. ""Both have hit crucial price points at around £100 and that really does open up new consoles to new audience, plus the release of two really important games in terms of development are also driving those sales,"" said Mr Houlihan.
","The title broke the UK sales record for video games in its first weekend of release.Although Xbox sales over the last week also climbed, PS2 sales were more than double that.Sony PlayStation 2's slimmer shape has proved popular with UK gamers, with 50,000 sold in its first week on sale.The sales figures also suggest that it may be a largely adult audience driving demand, since GTA San Andreas has an 18 certificate.The Xbox game Halo 2, released on 11 November in the UK, is also widely tipped to be one of the best-selling games of the year.The numbers were also boosted by the release of the PS2-only game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.The figures mean Sony is reaching the seven million barrier for UK sales of the console.""Both have hit crucial price points at around £100 and that really does open up new consoles to new audience, plus the release of two really important games in terms of development are also driving those sales,"" said Mr Houlihan.Microsoft's Xbox had been winning the race up until last week in sales."
"Seamen sail into biometric future

The luxury cruise liner Crystal Harmony, currently in the Gulf of Mexico, is the unlikely setting for tests of biometric technology.

As holidaymakers enjoy balmy breezes, their ship's crew is testing prototype versions of the world's first internationally issued biometric ID cards, the seafarer's equivalent of a passport. Along with the owner's picture, name and personal details, the new Seafarers' Identity Document incorporates a barcode representing unique features of its holder's fingerprints. The cards are due to be issued in February next year, in line with the revised UN Convention on Seafarers' Identity Documents of June 2003. Tests currently under way in the Caribbean are designed to ensure that new cards and their machine readers, produced by different companies in different countries, are working to interoperable standards. Results of the current tests, which involve seafarers from a wide range of occupations and nationalities, will be published by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) by the end of November. Crystal Cruises, which operates the Crystal Harmony, is exploring the use of biometrics but has not yet committed to the technology.

Authenti-corp, the US technology consultancy, has been working with the ILO on its technical specifications for the cards.

""If you're issued a seafarer's ID in your country, you want to be sure that when the ship lands in a port in, say, my country you can validate yourself using whatever equipment we have installed,"" Authenti-corp's CEO, Cynthia Musselman, told the BBC's Go Digital programme. She said French, Jordanian and Nigerian nationals would be the first seafarers to get the new ID cards since their countries have already ratified the convention. It aims to combat international terrorism whilst guaranteeing the welfare the one million seafarers estimated to be at sea. The convention highlights the importance of access to shore facilities and shore leave as vital elements to a sailor's wellbeing and, therefore, it says, to safer shipping and cleaner oceans. ""By increasing security on the seas as well as border control and protection, the cards will hopefully reduce the number of piracy problems around the world,"" said Ms Musselman. ""It should be a safer environment for seafarers to work in, and will allow people protecting their borders to have confidence that the people getting off the ship are, in fact, seafarers.""
","She said French, Jordanian and Nigerian nationals would be the first seafarers to get the new ID cards since their countries have already ratified the convention.The cards are due to be issued in February next year, in line with the revised UN Convention on Seafarers' Identity Documents of June 2003.""It should be a safer environment for seafarers to work in, and will allow people protecting their borders to have confidence that the people getting off the ship are, in fact, seafarers.""As holidaymakers enjoy balmy breezes, their ship's crew is testing prototype versions of the world's first internationally issued biometric ID cards, the seafarer's equivalent of a passport.""If you're issued a seafarer's ID in your country, you want to be sure that when the ship lands in a port in, say, my country you can validate yourself using whatever equipment we have installed,"" Authenti-corp's CEO, Cynthia Musselman, told the BBC's Go Digital programme.The luxury cruise liner Crystal Harmony, currently in the Gulf of Mexico, is the unlikely setting for tests of biometric technology."
"US blogger fired by her airline

A US airline attendant suspended over ""inappropriate images"" on her blog - web diary - says she has been fired.

Ellen Simonetti, known as Queen of the Sky, wrote an anonymous semi-fictional account of her life in the sky. She was suspended by Delta in September. In a statement, she said she was initiating legal action against the airline for ""wrongful termination"". A Delta spokesperson confirmed on Wednesday that Ms Simonetti was no longer an employee. Delta has repeatedly declined to elaborate on what it calls ""internal employee matters"". A spokesperson reiterated this position on Wednesday, confirming only that Ms Simonetti was no longer with the company. The spokesperson also confirmed that there were ""very clear rules"" attached to the unauthorised use of Delta branding, including uniforms. Ms Simonetti announced on her blog she had been fired on 1 November.

She said in an official statement: ""As a result of my suspension and subsequent termination without cause by Delta Airlines I am moving forward with filing a discrimination complaint with the Federal Government EEOC [US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission]."" She added she had also hired a Texas-based law firm to initiate legal action for ""wrongful termination, defamation of character and lost future wages."" Ms Simonetti told the BBC News website she had received no warning or further explanation when she was suspended on 25 September. Queen of the Sky has received a lot of support and advice from the global blogging community since news of her suspension was brought to light on the BBC News website and others.

Her story has highlighted concerns amongst the growing blogging community about conflicts of interest, employment law and free speech on personal websites. The blog, which she started in January as a way of getting over her mother's death, contains a mix of fictional and non-fictional accounts. Queen of the Sky developed over the months as a character in her own right, according to Ms Simonetti. In the postings, she made up fictional names for cities and other companies she mentioned to protect anonymity. But some postings contained images of herself in uniform. Of the 10 or so images only one showed Ms Simonetti's flight ""wings"". She removed them as soon as she was informed of her suspension. ""I never meant it as something to harm my company and don't understand how they think it did harm them,"" Ms Simonetti said. A legal expert in the US speculated that Delta might be concerned that the fictional content on the blog may be linked back to the airline after the images were posted.

Delta has been hit recently by pressures of rising fuel costs and fierce competition. It has said it needs to cut between 6,000 and 7,000 jobs and reduce costs by $5bn (£2.7bn) a year. Analysts had warned recently that the airline might have to seek Chapter 11 bankruptcy prevention. Last week, it struck a $1bn cost-cutting deal with its pilots which could save it from bankruptcy. The deal would see pilots accept a 32% pay cut in return for the right to buy 30 million Delta shares, unions said. And on Monday, it negotiated a deal to defer about $135m in debt which was due next year, until 2007. The airline also said it had agreed the terms of a $600m loan from American Express.
","A Delta spokesperson confirmed on Wednesday that Ms Simonetti was no longer an employee.A spokesperson reiterated this position on Wednesday, confirming only that Ms Simonetti was no longer with the company.She was suspended by Delta in September.Ms Simonetti told the BBC News website she had received no warning or further explanation when she was suspended on 25 September.In a statement, she said she was initiating legal action against the airline for ""wrongful termination"".A legal expert in the US speculated that Delta might be concerned that the fictional content on the blog may be linked back to the airline after the images were posted.Ms Simonetti announced on her blog she had been fired on 1 November.Queen of the Sky developed over the months as a character in her own right, according to Ms Simonetti.Queen of the Sky has received a lot of support and advice from the global blogging community since news of her suspension was brought to light on the BBC News website and others.""I never meant it as something to harm my company and don't understand how they think it did harm them,"" Ms Simonetti said.A US airline attendant suspended over ""inappropriate images"" on her blog - web diary - says she has been fired.The deal would see pilots accept a 32% pay cut in return for the right to buy 30 million Delta shares, unions said."
"Mobiles double up as bus tickets

Mobiles could soon double up as travel cards, with Nokia planning to try out a wireless ticket system on German buses.

Early next year travellers in the city of Hanau, near Frankfurt, will be able to pay for tickets by passing their phone over a smart-card reader already installed on the buses. Passengers will need to own a Nokia 3220 handset which will have a special shell attached to it. The system would reduce queues and make travelling easier, said Nokia.

Transport systems around the world are seeing the advantage of using ticketless smartcards. Using a mobile phone is the next step, said Gerhard Romen, head of market development at Nokia.

The ticketless trial will start early in 2005 and people will also be able to access transport information and timetables via their phones. Nokia has worked with electronics giant Philips to develop a shell for the mobile phone that will be compatible with Hanau's existing ticketing system. The system opens up possibilities for mobile devices to be interact with everyday environments, said Mr Romen. ""It could be used in shops to get product information, at bus-stops to get information about the next bus or, for example, by being passed over an advert of a rock star to find out details of concerts or get ringtones,"" he told the BBC News website. He is confident that the trial being run in Germany could be extended to transport systems in other countries. ""The technology offers access to a lot of services and makes it easy to get the information you want,"" he said.
","The system would reduce queues and make travelling easier, said Nokia.Using a mobile phone is the next step, said Gerhard Romen, head of market development at Nokia.Nokia has worked with electronics giant Philips to develop a shell for the mobile phone that will be compatible with Hanau's existing ticketing system.Mobiles could soon double up as travel cards, with Nokia planning to try out a wireless ticket system on German buses.The system opens up possibilities for mobile devices to be interact with everyday environments, said Mr Romen."
"Mobile gig aims to rock 3G

Forget about going to a crowded bar to enjoy a gig by the latest darlings of the music press.

Now you could also be at a live gig on your mobile, via the latest third generation (3G) video phones. Rock outfit Rooster are playing what has been billed as the first ever concert broadcast by phone on Tuesday evening from a London venue. The 45-minute gig is due to be ""phone cast"" by the 3G mobile phone operator, 3. 3G technology lets people take, watch and send video clips on their phones, as well as swap data much faster than with 2G networks like GSM. People with 3G phones in the UK can already download football and music clips on their handsets.

Some 1,000 fans of the London-based band will have to pay five pounds for a ticket and need a 3G handset.

""Once you have paid, you can come and go as much as you like, because we expect the customers to be mobile,"" said 3 spokesperson Belinda Henderson. ""It's like going to a concert hall, except that you are virtually there."" The company behind the trial hopes to learn more about how people use their video phones. ""We are looking on how long people will stay on average on the streams. Some people may stay the whole time, some may dip in and out,"" said Ms Henderson. ""We actually expect people to dip in and out because they are mobile and they will be doing other things."" 3 is looking to music as a way of persuading more people to take up the latest video phones. It is already planning regular gigs throughout 2005. And during the intermission, of course, you would still be able to make a phone call.
","People with 3G phones in the UK can already download football and music clips on their handsets.3 is looking to music as a way of persuading more people to take up the latest video phones.3G technology lets people take, watch and send video clips on their phones, as well as swap data much faster than with 2G networks like GSM.The 45-minute gig is due to be ""phone cast"" by the 3G mobile phone operator, 3.Now you could also be at a live gig on your mobile, via the latest third generation (3G) video phones.""We actually expect people to dip in and out because they are mobile and they will be doing other things.""The company behind the trial hopes to learn more about how people use their video phones."
"Consumers 'snub portable video'

Consumers want music rather than movies while on the move, says a report.

Produced by Jupiter Research the analysis of the portable media player market found only 13% of Europeans want to watch video while out and about. By contrast, almost a third are interested in listening to music on a portable player such as an iPod. The firm said gadget makers should avoid hybrid devices and instead make sure music reproduction was as good as possible.

The report concluded that the driving force behind the growth of Europe's portable player market was likely to be music, rather than films or any combination of the two. Barely 5% of those questioned said they wanted a player that could play back both music and movies. Only 7% wanted a player that could handle games and video.

""Dedicated music players are the only established digital media players in Europe today despite their high prices,"" said Ian Fogg, Jupiter analyst. Mr Fogg said although video players and smartphones were trying to cash in on this success they faced a tough job because of the compromises that had to be made when creating a dual-purpose device. ""Europeans care most about music playback,"" he said. The report showed that 27% of consumers asked are interested in portable music players. The research revealed that French, 39%, and British, 31%, consumers were most interested in music players. Mr Fogg said portable video players were likely to remain a niche product that would not be able to compete with devices dedicated to music playback.

A separate report by Jupiter forecasts that the European digital music market will grow to 836m euros (£581m) by 2009. At the end of 2003, the market was worth 10.6m euros (£7.36m). Digital music players will be behind this market growth said Jupiter . Apple's iPod was launched in October 2001, but the portable music player market has been growing steadily since the launch of the Creative Nomad Jukebox in mid-2000. Now consumers face an almost overwhelming choice of high-capacity portable music players that let them store every track on every CD that they own.
","Digital music players will be behind this market growth said Jupiter .The report concluded that the driving force behind the growth of Europe's portable player market was likely to be music, rather than films or any combination of the two.Mr Fogg said portable video players were likely to remain a niche product that would not be able to compete with devices dedicated to music playback.""Dedicated music players are the only established digital media players in Europe today despite their high prices,"" said Ian Fogg, Jupiter analyst.By contrast, almost a third are interested in listening to music on a portable player such as an iPod.Barely 5% of those questioned said they wanted a player that could play back both music and movies.The report showed that 27% of consumers asked are interested in portable music players.Apple's iPod was launched in October 2001, but the portable music player market has been growing steadily since the launch of the Creative Nomad Jukebox in mid-2000."
"Learning to love broadband

We are reaching the point where broadband is a central part of daily life, at least for some, argues technology analyst Bill Thompson.

One of the nice things about being a writer is that I rarely have to go to an office to work. I can sit in a café or a library, with or without a wi-fi connection, and research and write articles. If I am passing through Kings Cross station on my way to a meeting then I can log on from the platform. And I can spend the day working with my girlfriend Anne, a children's writer, at her house in Cambridge, sharing her wireless network. But just over a week ago I arrived at her house to find that there was no network connection.

We checked the cable modem and noticed that it had no power, and when she changed the power lead it sparked at her in a way which made it abundantly clear that it was never going to talk to the internet again. She called her service provider, and they told her it would be five days before an engineer would show up with a new cable modem. This did not seem too bad, but in fact she really suffered until her connection was restored on Wednesday. With no modem installed in her computer, she had to borrow internet access from friends or use the dial-up connection on her daughter's laptop, so she had to choose between copying her files onto her USB memory card or accepting a slower and flakier net connection. As a result she did not submit the pictures she wanted to use for a book on earthquakes because they were too big to send over dial-up.

She could not research other material because she is used to having easy access to a fast link that lets her search quickly and effectively. But the impact spread into her personal life too. She did not take her children to the cinema during half-term because she could not find out which films were showing at the local cinemas. She planned a trip to Norfolk but did not check the weather because the only place she knows to look for weather information is the BBC website. And she did not know where to go fossil-hunting on the trip because she could not type ""fossils Norfolk"" into Google. Of course, she readily admits, she could have answered these questions if she had looked in the local paper, listened to the radio or found a book on fossils. But she did not, because having fast, always on, and easy access to the net has become part of the routine of her daily life, and when it was taken away it was too much effort to go back to the old ways of doing things. She may be unusual, but I do not think Anne is alone.

According to Ofcom there were almost four million broadband users in the UK in April 2004, and numbers are climbing fast. There will certainly be five million by the end of the year. Dial-up users are switching to broadband. My dad finally made the change earlier this month and new net users are selecting broadband from the start. More and more of these broadband users are beginning to mould their daily lives around the availability of broadband internet connections, and they too will find it difficult to cope if they cannot get online for any reason.

It is part of the process of adaptation, and it is a vital step in the growth of broadband in the UK and elsewhere. People who have integrated net access into their daily lives tell their friends about it, and show off the cool stuff they can do. They encourage other people to get broadband so that they can share digital photos and do all of the other things that need fast and reliable connectivity. Of course, broadband in the UK is laughably slow compared to other parts of the world. In South Korea, Japan and Hong Kong normal connection speeds are measured in megabits, or millions of bits, a second rather than the thousands that we are supposed to be happy with. But speed is only a small part of the attraction of broadband, and when it comes to checking websites for film times, looking at weather forecasts, or all of the other small things that make a real difference to the routines and habits of our daily lives, even UK speeds are sufficient. It may not be the brave new world of streaming full-screen video and superfast file downloads, but it will do for now. And it is certainly better than slow access or no access. Just ask Anne.

Bill Thompson is a regular commentator on the BBC World Service programme Go Digital.
","But she did not, because having fast, always on, and easy access to the net has become part of the routine of her daily life, and when it was taken away it was too much effort to go back to the old ways of doing things.More and more of these broadband users are beginning to mould their daily lives around the availability of broadband internet connections, and they too will find it difficult to cope if they cannot get online for any reason.Of course, broadband in the UK is laughably slow compared to other parts of the world.Dial-up users are switching to broadband.We are reaching the point where broadband is a central part of daily life, at least for some, argues technology analyst Bill Thompson.According to Ofcom there were almost four million broadband users in the UK in April 2004, and numbers are climbing fast.But speed is only a small part of the attraction of broadband, and when it comes to checking websites for film times, looking at weather forecasts, or all of the other small things that make a real difference to the routines and habits of our daily lives, even UK speeds are sufficient.People who have integrated net access into their daily lives tell their friends about it, and show off the cool stuff they can do.With no modem installed in her computer, she had to borrow internet access from friends or use the dial-up connection on her daughter's laptop, so she had to choose between copying her files onto her USB memory card or accepting a slower and flakier net connection.My dad finally made the change earlier this month and new net users are selecting broadband from the start.It is part of the process of adaptation, and it is a vital step in the growth of broadband in the UK and elsewhere.They encourage other people to get broadband so that they can share digital photos and do all of the other things that need fast and reliable connectivity.But just over a week ago I arrived at her house to find that there was no network connection.And she did not know where to go fossil-hunting on the trip because she could not type ""fossils Norfolk"" into Google."
"Nintendo DS aims to touch gamers

The mobile gaming industry is set to explode in 2005 with a number of high-profile devices offering a range of gaming and other features such as movie and music playback. Market leader Nintendo, however, is releasing a handheld console that it says will revolutionise the way games are played.

The first striking thing about the DS is how retro it looks. Far from looking like a mould-breaking handheld, it looks more like Nintendo dug out a mould from a 1980s handheld prototype. The lightweight clam shell device opens up to reveal two screens, and when switched on it instantly reveals its pedigree. Both screens are crisp and clear while the bottom of the two is touch sensitive. Nintendo has given developers free rein to utilise the dual screens and ability to control the action by simply touching the screen.

The Japanese gaming giant hopes the DS will maintain the firm's pre-eminence in an increasingly-competitive mobile gaming market.

Nintendo first launched its GameBoy console in 1989 and has dominated the market ever since. But its lead can no longer be taken for granted. Sony will enter the market later this year with its PlayStation Portable, while start-up companies Gizmondo and Tapwave Zodiac are also offering hybrid devices. ""We believe the DS will appeal to all ages, both genders and gamers of any skill,"" said David Yarnton, Nintendo Europe's general manager said at the recent press launch for the handheld. With its two screens, wireless connectivity and backwards compatibility with the GameBoy Advance, the DS certainly has a number of unique selling points. It went on sale in the US in mid-November priced $150 and Nintendo says sales have exceeded expectations, without giving detailed figures. Japan and Europe will have to wait until the first quarter of 2005 to get the device. With more than two million pre-orders for the device in Japan, Nintendo is confident it will keep its number one spot. But will the device prove to be as revolutionary as claimed? The game ships with a demo of Metroid Hunters - a 3D action title which can be played alone or with a group of friends using the machine's wireless capabilities. It certainly looks impressive on the small machine and plays smoothly even with a group of people.

The game can be controlled by using the supplied stylus to aim. The top screen is used to navigate the action while the bottom screen offers a top-down map and the ability to switch weapons. It is certainly a unique control method and while it makes aiming more controlled it can be a little disorientating. Super Mario 64 DS is a faithful re-creation of the Nintendo 64 classic with a host of new mini-games and new levels. The game looks stunning on the portable machine and the sound too is impressive for such a small machine. One thing is for certain. Hardened gamers will have to learn to adapt to a new way of playing while it could prove to be an accessible way in to gaming for novices, Ultimately the success or failure of the device lies in the hands of developers. If they manage to create titles which use the Nintendo DS's key features then a whole new market of gamers could open up. The fear is that the touch screen and voice recognition are treated as little more than gimmicks.
","With more than two million pre-orders for the device in Japan, Nintendo is confident it will keep its number one spot.Market leader Nintendo, however, is releasing a handheld console that it says will revolutionise the way games are played.Nintendo first launched its GameBoy console in 1989 and has dominated the market ever since.Nintendo has given developers free rein to utilise the dual screens and ability to control the action by simply touching the screen.If they manage to create titles which use the Nintendo DS's key features then a whole new market of gamers could open up.With its two screens, wireless connectivity and backwards compatibility with the GameBoy Advance, the DS certainly has a number of unique selling points.Hardened gamers will have to learn to adapt to a new way of playing while it could prove to be an accessible way in to gaming for novices, Ultimately the success or failure of the device lies in the hands of developers.Super Mario 64 DS is a faithful re-creation of the Nintendo 64 classic with a host of new mini-games and new levels.The mobile gaming industry is set to explode in 2005 with a number of high-profile devices offering a range of gaming and other features such as movie and music playback.Both screens are crisp and clear while the bottom of the two is touch sensitive.The Japanese gaming giant hopes the DS will maintain the firm's pre-eminence in an increasingly-competitive mobile gaming market.The game looks stunning on the portable machine and the sound too is impressive for such a small machine."
"China 'blocks Google news site'

China has been accused of blocking access to Google News by the media watchdog, Reporters Without Borders.

The Paris-based pressure group said the English-language news site had been unavailable for the past 10 days. It said the aim was to force people to use a Chinese edition of the site which, according to the watchdog, does not include critical reports. Google told the BBC News website it was aware of the problems and was investigating the causes.

China is believed to extend greater censorship over the net than any other country in the world.

A net police force monitors websites and e-mails, and controls on gateways connecting the country to the global internet are designed to prevent access to critical information. Popular Chinese portals such as Sina.com and Sohu.com maintain a close eye on content and delete politically sensitive comments. And all 110,000 net cafes in the country have to use software to control access to websites considered harmful or subversive.

""China is censoring Google News to force internet users to use the Chinese version of the site which has been purged of the most critical news reports,"" said the group in a statement. ""By agreeing to launch a news service that excludes publications disliked by the government, Google has let itself be used by Beijing,"" it said. For its part, the search giant said it was looking into the issue. ""It appears that many users in China are having difficulty accessing Google News sites in China and we are working to understand and resolve the issue,"" said a Google spokesperson. Google News gathers information from some 4,500 news sources. Headlines are selected for display entirely by a computer algorithm, with no human editorial intervention. It offers 15 editions of the service, including one tailored for China and one for Hong Kong. Google launched a version in simplified Chinese in September. The site does not filter news results to remove politically sensitive information. But Google does not link to news sources which are inaccessible from within China as this would result in broken links.
","""China is censoring Google News to force internet users to use the Chinese version of the site which has been purged of the most critical news reports,"" said the group in a statement.""It appears that many users in China are having difficulty accessing Google News sites in China and we are working to understand and resolve the issue,"" said a Google spokesperson.Google News gathers information from some 4,500 news sources.China has been accused of blocking access to Google News by the media watchdog, Reporters Without Borders.But Google does not link to news sources which are inaccessible from within China as this would result in broken links.The site does not filter news results to remove politically sensitive information.It said the aim was to force people to use a Chinese edition of the site which, according to the watchdog, does not include critical reports.Google told the BBC News website it was aware of the problems and was investigating the causes."
"A question of trust and technology

A major government department is without e-mail for a week, and technology analyst Bill Thompson wants to know what happened.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about how my girlfriend had suffered when her cable modem blew up and she was offline for several days. It seems that thousands of civil servants at the UK's Department of Work and Pensions went through the same thing last week. It has emerged that the internal network crashed in a particularly horrible way, depriving staff of e-mail and access to the application software they use to calculate people's benefit and pension entitlement or note changes in personal circumstances. Senior consultants from EDS, the computer firm which manage the system, and Microsoft, which supplied the software, were running around trying to figure out what had to be done to fix it all, while staff resorted to phone, fax and probably carrier pigeon to get work done. Fortunately the back-office systems which actually pay people their money were still working, so only new claims and updates were affected done properly. This is bad enough for those affected, but it does mean that the impact is not devastating for millions of pensioners. I am sure regular readers will be expecting one of my usual diatribes against poor software, badly specified systems and inadequate disaster recovery plans.

Although the full story has not yet been told, it seems that the problem started when a plan to upgrade some of the computers from Windows 2000 to Windows XP went wrong, and XP code was inadvertently copied to thousands of machines across the network.

This is certainly unfortunate, but I have a lot of sympathy for the network managers and technology staff involved. Today's computer networks are large, complex and occasionally fragile. The interconnectedness that we all value also gives us a degree of instability and unpredictability that we cannot design out of the systems. It is the network equivalent of Godel's Theorem - any system sufficiently complex to be useful is also able to collapse catastrophically. So I will reserve judgment on the technology aspects until we all know what actually happened and whether it was a consequence of software failure or just bad luck. What is really disturbing, and cannot be excused, is the fact that it took four days for news of this systems failure to leak out into the technical press.

It is, without a doubt, a major story and was the second or third lead item on BBC Radio 4's Today programme throughout Friday morning.

So why did not the prime minister's official spokesman mention it at any lobby briefings before Friday? Why was not the pensions minister in Parliament to make an emergency statement on Tuesday, when it was clear that there was a serious problem? If there had been an outbreak of Legionnaire's disease in the air conditioning system we would have been told, but it seems that major technology problems do not merit the same treatment. While EDS and Microsoft will no doubt be looking for technical lessons to learn from their week of pain, we can learn some political lessons too. And the most important is that in this digital world, technology failures are matters of public interest, not something that can be ignored in the hope that nobody will notice, care or understand. That means we need a full report on what went wrong and what was done to fix it. It would be unacceptable for any of the parties involved to hide behind commercial confidentiality or even parliamentary privilege. A major system has evidently collapsed and we need to know what went wrong and what is being done differently. Anything less is a betrayal of public trust.

Bill Thompson is a regular commentator on the BBC World Service programme Go Digital.
","A major system has evidently collapsed and we need to know what went wrong and what is being done differently.That means we need a full report on what went wrong and what was done to fix it.So I will reserve judgment on the technology aspects until we all know what actually happened and whether it was a consequence of software failure or just bad luck.A major government department is without e-mail for a week, and technology analyst Bill Thompson wants to know what happened.Although the full story has not yet been told, it seems that the problem started when a plan to upgrade some of the computers from Windows 2000 to Windows XP went wrong, and XP code was inadvertently copied to thousands of machines across the network.If there had been an outbreak of Legionnaire's disease in the air conditioning system we would have been told, but it seems that major technology problems do not merit the same treatment.Senior consultants from EDS, the computer firm which manage the system, and Microsoft, which supplied the software, were running around trying to figure out what had to be done to fix it all, while staff resorted to phone, fax and probably carrier pigeon to get work done.It is, without a doubt, a major story and was the second or third lead item on BBC Radio 4's Today programme throughout Friday morning.It is the network equivalent of Godel's Theorem - any system sufficiently complex to be useful is also able to collapse catastrophically.Why was not the pensions minister in Parliament to make an emergency statement on Tuesday, when it was clear that there was a serious problem?This is certainly unfortunate, but I have a lot of sympathy for the network managers and technology staff involved."
"Call for action on internet scam

Phone companies are not doing enough to warn customers about internet ""rogue-dialling"" scams, according to premium phone line regulator Icstis.

It has received 45,000 complaints in recent months about dial-up internet connections diverting to premium rate numbers without users' knowledge. Phone companies refuse to pay compensation because they say calls must be paid for. They must warn people earlier about possible fraud, Icstis said.

People who use dial-up connections can be affected by the scams. Without realising, a program can be downloaded which diverts internet calls via a premium phone line. Victims often fail to notice until they receive an unusually high bill. Icstis spokesman Rob Dwight said: ""Phone companies should get in touch with their customers sooner. ""If my bill goes over the usual £50 a month I want to know about it straight away - I don't want to be told when it's hit £750.""

Phone companies had the systems in place to spot fraudulent activity and artificially-inflated traffic, he said. ""We alert them to the numbers that we have under investigation and they should be looking out for these numbers,"" he added.

Telecoms ombudsman Elizabeth France said: ""Certainly I would not be surprised to find my credit card company phoning me if I do something out of the ordinary. ""So I would expect phone companies to be looking to see if they can have a similar approach."" The biggest phone company BT says it is doing what it can to monitor fraud and warn people about rogue dialling. Its advice to customers is to use call barring if they want to prevent calls to premium lines because, under the current system, once the call has been made there's little that can be done.

Gavin Patterson, group managing director for BT Consumer, said ""We do look at customer's calling patterns and we do make interventions when they are out of the ordinary. ""We're looking at the moment at whether we can improve this."" But as BT handled 180 million calls a day monitoring was ""quite a task in itself"", he added. The government has ordered a review of premium line services and is likely to say Icstis should have more power to deal with rogue diallers in future. At the moment, it cannot demand pay-outs on the behalf of customer - it can only close illegal services down.

I use free anti-virus software (AVG) and free firewall protection (ZoneAlarm). Both of these tools have prevented unauthorised access and outgoing calls inadvertently and innocently caused by my daughter's love of music sites. How about ISPs informing all customers of such facilities? The responsibility clearly falls with the customer but many fall prey through simply not knowing how to avoid these issues.

Ignorance is and always has been an expensive business.

Does any one know what happens once this fraud has been committed and recognised? The phone companies pay the people who obtaining money fraudulently, so are these people followed up and prosecuted ?

These diallers are mainly downloaded from sites offering illegal MP3s, porn and pirated software. If people didn't visit such sites they'd be considerably less at risk. Whatever happened to personal responsibility? It seems everyone has to be a 'victim' these days!

Part of the blame has to rest with the manufacturers of home computer operating systems. A secure system should not allow a web page or email to download and install anything without the user's knowledge.

These scams are illegal and telephone companies should have nothing to do with them. They should refuse to pay money over to the perpetrators. Or are they themselves receiving such good returns that it is in their interest to keep the scam going?

Why don't BT et al block all premium numbers by default and only turn it off at the customer's request? To anyone who falls foul of this scam - refuse to pay your telephone provider for these calls. After you notify your telephone provider of these fraudulent transactions, they cannot insist on you paying the bill. To do so would be to knowingly assist the fraudsters to commit the fraud. No customers have yet been taken to court for refusing to pay these bills.

Disable or remove your modem and use broadband instead - then you have nothing to worry about. Or buy some decent firewall software and anti-virus. You would not walk out in the freezing cold without a coat - you would not drive your car without any insurance - so why not protect your PC? Stop blaming the phone companies - it's not their fault!

I was very impressed with our phone company recently. I had kept ringing a hotline number for Kylie tickets and next day they rang back to ask if I was aware there were 40-odd calls to the same number. Great service. And I got the tickets as well!

I have a colleague who has fallen victim to this kind of scam. He informed the phone company about it, they subsequently put a block on premium rate numbers. Three months later another huge bill of over £1,000 came in - the block apparently didn't work and he still has to pay for it, even though a block was in place. Phone companies are probably quite happy for their customers to be hit with a huge bill, otherwise they'd be taking extra steps to prevent this kind of problem.

I have been scammed of £139. The operator will do nothing about this and, to add insult to injury, I was charged VAT by the government.

Premium rate numbers have been subject to various scams ever since they were invented. One example was where thieves would set up a premium rate number and then dial it day and night from phones whose quarterly bills were never paid. The telephone company was the victim here and you can bet that loophole was blocked very quickly.

I know people who have run up large bills, despite being IT-literate. From talking to BT in Belfast, I believe that they will shortly be giving out a free application that can stop you dialling expensive numbers without knowing. It's not the fault of phone companies, and at last they are doing something about it.

It's about time that the profiteering by the 'legitimate' phone companies came to an end, mainly by doing away with dial-up altogether and bring broadband down to the same price as dial-up! Not only will this ruin things for the dialler scammers but also allow people to update and upgrade their security more easily and quickly.

I haven't ""fallen victim to a rogue-dialling scam"" but I think you're seriously remiss in not pointing out that the vast majority of these scams arise from people trying to access services purporting to provide free pornography. In most cases the user is entirely at fault, which is probably why the telephone companies are rightly unwilling to refund them.

My telephone supplier did not inform me that my monthly bill had risen from its normal £3 to £5, to £320. This was because of the scam. They simply billed me. What particularly galls me, over and above having over £300 stolen, is that the supplier and the government (through VAT) are profiting from this crime and will not reimburse me their portion of my losses.

How about an automatic monthly cap of say £20 on premium rate calls that you would have to contact your provider to have lifted? That way you could use legitimate premium rate numbers while limiting fraudulent usage. At least any disputed amount would be limited, far easier for a telecoms operator to write off £20 than it is £750.

A few years back I was also the target of such scams but thank God I have already upgraded to broadband and nothing was connected to my modem so all I heard was the sound of an attempted connection.

How about home users take some responsibility and ensure their anti-virus and firewall software is up to date? That should prevent the vast majority of these scams.
","Phone companies are not doing enough to warn customers about internet ""rogue-dialling"" scams, according to premium phone line regulator Icstis.I was very impressed with our phone company recently.Phone companies refuse to pay compensation because they say calls must be paid for.The biggest phone company BT says it is doing what it can to monitor fraud and warn people about rogue dialling.These scams are illegal and telephone companies should have nothing to do with them.One example was where thieves would set up a premium rate number and then dial it day and night from phones whose quarterly bills were never paid.The phone companies pay the people who obtaining money fraudulently, so are these people followed up and prosecuted ?He informed the phone company about it, they subsequently put a block on premium rate numbers.""So I would expect phone companies to be looking to see if they can have a similar approach.""Stop blaming the phone companies - it's not their fault!The telephone company was the victim here and you can bet that loophole was blocked very quickly.Icstis spokesman Rob Dwight said: ""Phone companies should get in touch with their customers sooner.Phone companies are probably quite happy for their customers to be hit with a huge bill, otherwise they'd be taking extra steps to prevent this kind of problem.This was because of the scam.Its advice to customers is to use call barring if they want to prevent calls to premium lines because, under the current system, once the call has been made there's little that can be done.It has received 45,000 complaints in recent months about dial-up internet connections diverting to premium rate numbers without users' knowledge.Without realising, a program can be downloaded which diverts internet calls via a premium phone line.Phone companies had the systems in place to spot fraudulent activity and artificially-inflated traffic, he said.How about an automatic monthly cap of say £20 on premium rate calls that you would have to contact your provider to have lifted?Premium rate numbers have been subject to various scams ever since they were invented.A few years back I was also the target of such scams but thank God I have already upgraded to broadband and nothing was connected to my modem so all I heard was the sound of an attempted connection.I haven't ""fallen victim to a rogue-dialling scam"" but I think you're seriously remiss in not pointing out that the vast majority of these scams arise from people trying to access services purporting to provide free pornography.The government has ordered a review of premium line services and is likely to say Icstis should have more power to deal with rogue diallers in future.I had kept ringing a hotline number for Kylie tickets and next day they rang back to ask if I was aware there were 40-odd calls to the same number.To anyone who falls foul of this scam - refuse to pay your telephone provider for these calls.I have a colleague who has fallen victim to this kind of scam.Three months later another huge bill of over £1,000 came in - the block apparently didn't work and he still has to pay for it, even though a block was in place.It's about time that the profiteering by the 'legitimate' phone companies came to an end, mainly by doing away with dial-up altogether and bring broadband down to the same price as dial-up!That way you could use legitimate premium rate numbers while limiting fraudulent usage.People who use dial-up connections can be affected by the scams."
"Screensaver tackles spam websites

Net users are getting the chance to fight back against spam websites

Internet portal Lycos has made a screensaver that endlessly requests data from sites that sell the goods and services mentioned in spam e-mail. Lycos hopes it will make the monthly bandwidth bills of spammers soar by keeping their servers running flat out. The net firm estimates that if enough people sign up and download the tool, spammers could end up paying to send out terabytes of data.

""We've never really solved the big problem of spam which is that its so damn cheap and easy to do,"" said Malte Pollmann, spokesman for Lycos Europe. ""In the past we have built up the spam filtering systems for our users,"" he said, ""but now we are going to go one step further.""

""We've found a way to make it much higher cost for spammers by putting a load on their servers."" By getting thousands of people to download and use the screensaver, Lycos hopes to get spamming websites constantly running at almost full capacity. Mr Pollmann said there was no intention to stop the spam websites working by subjecting them with too much data to cope with. He said the screensaver had been carefully written to ensure that the amount of traffic it generated from each user did not overload the web. ""Every single user will contribute three to four megabytes per day,"" he said, ""about one MP3 file."" But, he said, if enough people sign up spamming websites could be force to pay for gigabytes of traffic every single day. Lycos did not want to use e-mail to fight back, said Mr Pollmann. ""That would be fighting one bad thing with another bad thing,"" he said.

The sites being targeted are those mentioned in spam e-mail messages and which sell the goods and services on offer.

Typically these sites are different to those that used to send out spam e-mail and they typically only get a few thousand visitors per day. The list of sites that the screensaver will target is taken from real-time blacklists generated by organisations such as Spamcop. To limit the chance of mistakes being made, Lycos is using people to ensure that the sites are selling spam goods. As these sites rarely use advertising to offset hosting costs, the burden of high-bandwidth bills could make spam too expensive, said Mr Pollmann. Sites will also slow down under the weight of data requests. Early results show that response times of some sites have deteriorated by up to 85%. Users do not have to be registered users of Lycos to download and use the screensaver. While working, the screensaver shows the websites that are being bothered with requests for data. The screensaver is due to be launched across Europe on 1 December and before now has only been trialled in Sweden. Despite the soft launch, Mr Pollmann said that the screensaver had been downloaded more than 20,000 times in the last four days. ""There's a huge user demand to not only filter spam day-by-day but to do something more,"" he said ""Before now users have never had the chance to be a bit more offensive.""
","Net users are getting the chance to fight back against spam websites  Internet portal Lycos has made a screensaver that endlessly requests data from sites that sell the goods and services mentioned in spam e-mail.Mr Pollmann said there was no intention to stop the spam websites working by subjecting them with too much data to cope with.As these sites rarely use advertising to offset hosting costs, the burden of high-bandwidth bills could make spam too expensive, said Mr Pollmann.Lycos did not want to use e-mail to fight back, said Mr Pollmann.Users do not have to be registered users of Lycos to download and use the screensaver.By getting thousands of people to download and use the screensaver, Lycos hopes to get spamming websites constantly running at almost full capacity.""We've never really solved the big problem of spam which is that its so damn cheap and easy to do,"" said Malte Pollmann, spokesman for Lycos Europe.Despite the soft launch, Mr Pollmann said that the screensaver had been downloaded more than 20,000 times in the last four days.He said the screensaver had been carefully written to ensure that the amount of traffic it generated from each user did not overload the web.To limit the chance of mistakes being made, Lycos is using people to ensure that the sites are selling spam goods."
"First look at PlayStation 3 chip

Some details of the chip inside Sony's PlayStation 3 have been revealed.

Sony, IBM and Toshiba have released limited data about the so-called Cell chip that will be able to carry out trillions of calculations per second. The chip will be made of several different processing cores that work on tasks together. The PlayStation 3 is expected in 2006 but developers are expecting to get prototypes early next year to tune games that will appear on it at launch.

The three firms have been working on the chip since 2001 but before now few details have been released about how it might function. In a joint statement the three firms gave hints about how the chip will work but fuller details will be released in February next year at the International Solid State Circuits Conference in San Francisco.

The three firms claim that the Cell chip will be up to 10 times more powerful than existing processors. When put inside powerful computer servers, the Cell consortium expects it to be capable of handling 16 trillion floating point operations, or calculations, every second. The chip has also been refined to be able to handle the detailed graphics common in games and the data demands of films and broadband media. IBM said it would start producing the chip in early 2005 at manufacturing plants in the US. The first machines off the line using the Cell processor will be computer workstations and servers. A working version of the PS3 is due to be shown off in May 2005 but a full launch of the next generation console is not expected to start until 2006. As well as being inside the PlayStation 3, the chip will also be used inside high-definition TVs and powerful computers. ""In the future, all forms of digital content will be converged and fused onto the broadband network,"" said Ken Kutaragi, Chief Operating Officer of Sony. ""Current PC architecture is nearing its limits.""
","Some details of the chip inside Sony's PlayStation 3 have been revealed.The three firms claim that the Cell chip will be up to 10 times more powerful than existing processors.The three firms have been working on the chip since 2001 but before now few details have been released about how it might function.Sony, IBM and Toshiba have released limited data about the so-called Cell chip that will be able to carry out trillions of calculations per second.As well as being inside the PlayStation 3, the chip will also be used inside high-definition TVs and powerful computers.In a joint statement the three firms gave hints about how the chip will work but fuller details will be released in February next year at the International Solid State Circuits Conference in San Francisco."
"Online commons to spark debate

Online communities set up by the UK government could encourage public debate and build trust, says the Institute of Public Policy Research (IPPR).

Existing services such as eBay could provide a good blueprint for such services, says the think-tank. Although the net is becoming part of local and central government, its potential has not yet been fully exploited to create an online ""commons"" for public debate. In its report, Is Online Community A Policy Tool?, the IPPR also asks if ID cards could help create safer online communities. Adopting an eBay-type model would let communities create their own markets for skills and services and help foster a sense of local identity and connection. ""What we are proposing is a civic commons,"" Will Davies, senior research fellow at the IPPR told the BBC News website. ""A single publicly funded and run online community in which citizens can have a single place to go where you can go to engage in diversity and in a way that might have a policy implication - like a pre-legislation discussion.""

The idea of a ""civic commons"" was originally proposed by Stephen Coleman, professor of e-democracy at the Oxford Internet Institute. The IPPR report points to informal, small scale examples of such commons that already exist. It mentions good-practice public initiatives like the BBC's iCan project which connects people locally and nationally who want to take action around important issues.

But he adds, government could play a bigger role in setting up systems of trust for online communities too. Proposals for ID cards, for instance, could also be widened to see if they could be used online. They could provide the basis for a secure authentication system which could have value for peer-to-peer interaction online. ""At the moment they have been presented as a way for government to keep tabs on people and ensuring access to public services,"" said Mr Davies. ""But what has not been explored is how authentication technology may potentially play a role in decentralised online communities."" The key idea to take from systems such as eBay and other online communities is letting members rate each other's reputation by how they treat other members. Using a similar mechanism, trust and cooperation between members of virtual and physical communities could be built. This could mean a civic commons would work within a non-market system which lets people who may disagree with one another interact within publicly-recognised rules.

E-government initiatives over the last decade have very much been about putting basic information and service guides online as well as letting people interact with government via the web. Many online communities, such as chatrooms, mailing lists, community portals, message boards and weblogs often form around common interests or issues.

With 53% of UK households now with access to the net, the government, suggests Mr Davies, could act as an intermediary or ""middleman"" to set up public online places of debate and exchange to encourage more ""cosmopolitan politics"" and public trust in policy. ""Government already plays a critical role in helping citizens trade with each other online. ""But it should also play a role in helping citizens connect to one another in civic, non-market interactions,"" said Mr Davies. There is a role for public bodies like the BBC, libraries, and government to bring people back into public debate again instead of millions of ""cliques"" talking to each other, he added. The paper is part of the IPPR's Digital Society initiative which is producing a number of conferences and research papers leading up to the publication of A Manifesto For A Digital Britain.
","Online communities set up by the UK government could encourage public debate and build trust, says the Institute of Public Policy Research (IPPR).But he adds, government could play a bigger role in setting up systems of trust for online communities too.In its report, Is Online Community A Policy Tool?, the IPPR also asks if ID cards could help create safer online communities.With 53% of UK households now with access to the net, the government, suggests Mr Davies, could act as an intermediary or ""middleman"" to set up public online places of debate and exchange to encourage more ""cosmopolitan politics"" and public trust in policy.""Government already plays a critical role in helping citizens trade with each other online.They could provide the basis for a secure authentication system which could have value for peer-to-peer interaction online.Although the net is becoming part of local and central government, its potential has not yet been fully exploited to create an online ""commons"" for public debate.Proposals for ID cards, for instance, could also be widened to see if they could be used online.There is a role for public bodies like the BBC, libraries, and government to bring people back into public debate again instead of millions of ""cliques"" talking to each other, he added.The key idea to take from systems such as eBay and other online communities is letting members rate each other's reputation by how they treat other members."
"Mobile gaming takes off in India

Gaming on the move is one of the fastest-growing activities among the tech-savvy in India, says a report.

The Indian mobile gaming market is expected to generate about $26m (£13.8m) by the end of 2004, according to market analysts In-Stat/MDR. In October, mobile phone users grew by 1.4 million to 44.9 million, overtaking the number of landlines, said the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India. Analysts say cheap rates and a huge youth market is driving the market. India has a large population of under-25s, and many in urban areas are fast adopting mobiles as must-have gadgets.

India's mobile gaming market will bring in about $336m (£178m) by 2009, according to the report. Mobile gaming is expected to explode globally over the next few years. Analysts predict that 220 million people will be playing games on phones by 2009, generating billions for mobile companies.

Services other than just voice calls which are offered by mobile operators in India have, as a result of the huge rise in subscribers, grown significantly and rapidly. ""The growth of this market sector has attracted publishers, developers, animators, musicians, and content providers, and is also stimulating the development of innovative business models,"" said Clint Wheelock, director of In-Stat/MDR's wireless research group.

""Mobile gaming is not just about fun; it also represents one key element of a rich mobile entertainment experience for consumers, and a lucrative market opportunity for industry players."" Currently, India has six big games developers and four mobile operators that offer games to their subscribers, said the report. According to In-Stat/MDR, it is tipped to make up one of the most important markets in the next wave of mobile multimedia growth.

In January 2003, there were only 10 million mobile subscribers in India. Many choose mobiles in rural areas in order to bypass poorer telecoms infrastructure. Despite this, the penetration rate is still much lower that other countries. Less than 20% of India's total population own a mobile in India, compared to well over 50% in most European countries. The trend echoes the uptake of mobiles in many developing economies, which continues to grow as people opt to leapfrog slower and more expensive state-run fixed-line operators.
","India's mobile gaming market will bring in about $336m (£178m) by 2009, according to the report.In January 2003, there were only 10 million mobile subscribers in India.The Indian mobile gaming market is expected to generate about $26m (£13.8m) by the end of 2004, according to market analysts In-Stat/MDR.""Mobile gaming is not just about fun; it also represents one key element of a rich mobile entertainment experience for consumers, and a lucrative market opportunity for industry players.""According to In-Stat/MDR, it is tipped to make up one of the most important markets in the next wave of mobile multimedia growth.Less than 20% of India's total population own a mobile in India, compared to well over 50% in most European countries.Mobile gaming is expected to explode globally over the next few years.Currently, India has six big games developers and four mobile operators that offer games to their subscribers, said the report."
"Gadget market 'to grow in 2005'

The explosion in consumer technology is to continue into 2005, delegates at the world's largest gadget show, in Las Vegas, have been told.

The number of gadgets in the shops is predicted to grow by 11%, while devices which talk to each other will become increasingly important. ""Everything is going digital,"" Kirsten Pfeifer from the Consumer Electronics Association, told the BBC News website. The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) featured the pick of 2005's products. ""Consumers are controlling what they want and technologies like HDTVs [high-definition TVs], digital radio, and digital cameras will remain strong in 2005. ""All the products on show really showed the breadth and depth of the industry."" Despite showing diversity, some delegates attending complained that the showcase lacked as much ""wow factor"" as in previous years.

The portable technologies on show also reflected one of the buzzwords of CES, which was the ""time and place shifting"" of multimedia content - being able to watch and listen to video and music anywhere, at any time. At the start of last year's CES, the CEA predicted there would be an average growth of 4% in 2004. That figure was surpassed with the rise in popularity of portable digital music players, personal video recorders and digital cameras. It was clear also that gadgets are becoming a lot more about lifestyle choice, with fashion and personalisation becoming increasingly key to the way gadgets are designed. Part of this has been the rise in spending power of the ""generation X-ers"" who have grown up with technology and who now have the spending power and desire for more devices that suit them. More than 57% of the consumer electronics market is made up of female buyers, according to CEA research. Hybrid devices, which combine a number of multimedia functions, were also in evidence on the show floor. ""A lot of this is driven by just the ability to do it,"" said Stephen Baker, a consumer electronics analyst with retail research firm NPD Group. ""Some of these functions cost next to nothing to add.""

As well as the show floor showcasing everything from tiny wearable MP3 players to giant high-definition TVs, several keynote speeches were made by industry leaders, such as Microsoft chief Bill Gates. Despite several embarrassing technical glitches during Mr Gate's pre-show speech, he announced several new partnerships - mainly for the US market. He unveiled new ways of letting people take TV shows recorded on personal video recorders and watch them back on portable devices. He disappointed some, however, by failing to announce any details of the next generation of the Xbox games console. Another disappointment was the lack of exposure Sony's new portable games device, the PSP, had at the show. Sony said the much-anticipated gadget would most likely start shipping in March for the US and Europe. It went on sale in Japan before Christmas. There were only two PSPs embedded in glass cabinets at the show though and no representatives to discuss further details. A Sony representative told the BBC News website this was because Sony did not consider it to be part of their ""consumer technology"" offering.

Elsewhere at the show, there was a plethora of colour and plasma screens, including Samsung's 102-inch (2.6 metre) plasma - the largest in the world. Industry experts were also excited about high-definition technologies coming to the fore in 2005, with new formats for DVDs coming out which will hold six times as much data as conventional DVDs. With so many devices on the move there were a lot of products on show offering external storage, like Seagate's 5GB pocket sized external hard drive, which won an innovation for engineering and design prize. More than 120,000 trade professionals attended CES in Las Vegas, which officially ran from 6 to 9 January.
","The explosion in consumer technology is to continue into 2005, delegates at the world's largest gadget show, in Las Vegas, have been told.The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) featured the pick of 2005's products.The portable technologies on show also reflected one of the buzzwords of CES, which was the ""time and place shifting"" of multimedia content - being able to watch and listen to video and music anywhere, at any time.Another disappointment was the lack of exposure Sony's new portable games device, the PSP, had at the show.A Sony representative told the BBC News website this was because Sony did not consider it to be part of their ""consumer technology"" offering.He unveiled new ways of letting people take TV shows recorded on personal video recorders and watch them back on portable devices.""Everything is going digital,"" Kirsten Pfeifer from the Consumer Electronics Association, told the BBC News website.Hybrid devices, which combine a number of multimedia functions, were also in evidence on the show floor.As well as the show floor showcasing everything from tiny wearable MP3 players to giant high-definition TVs, several keynote speeches were made by industry leaders, such as Microsoft chief Bill Gates.""All the products on show really showed the breadth and depth of the industry.""That figure was surpassed with the rise in popularity of portable digital music players, personal video recorders and digital cameras.More than 57% of the consumer electronics market is made up of female buyers, according to CEA research."
"Swap offer for pirated Windows XP

Computer giant Microsoft has launched a pilot scheme to replace counterfeit versions of Windows XP with legal ones.

The first-time initiative is restricted to the UK and to users with pre-installed copies of the operating system in PCs bought before November. Until December Microsoft said software can be sent to it for analysis if there are doubts about its legitimacy. The company aims to detect illegal traders and turn users of fake versions of Windows into legitimate ones.

The Windows XP Counterfeit Project will mean that software that is found to be counterfeit will be replaced for free, subject to certain conditions, until the end of the year. It is the first time Microsoft has launched a counterfeit product replacement scheme in the world, the company told the BBC News website. In June, the software giant said that the major security update to Windows XP, Service Pack 2, would not work with the most widely pirated versions of its operating system. The upgrade closed security loopholes in XP and added features that made it easier to keep machines safe from viruses and other types of malicious computer code.

The US company invited anyone who had suspicions about their version of Windows XP to submit it for testing as soon as possible. The procedure consists of a series of computer checks, collating documents, and filling out a witness statement. ""This is a great opportunity for users to confirm the authenticity of Windows XP software whilst helping gather vital information about illegal traders"", said Alex Hilton, licence compliance manager at Microsoft. The scheme has also been welcomed by the technology and commerce industry. ""It is important that users ensure that they are legally licensed to avoid the risks of purchasing and using counterfeit products"", said David Frost, director general of the British Chambers of Commerce. The plan would enable Microsoft to gather intelligence about illegal traders in a prompt way, which would allow it to take action against software pirates. Microsoft said it would evaluate the results of the UK programme before setting up similar schemes in other countries.
","Computer giant Microsoft has launched a pilot scheme to replace counterfeit versions of Windows XP with legal ones.In June, the software giant said that the major security update to Windows XP, Service Pack 2, would not work with the most widely pirated versions of its operating system.""This is a great opportunity for users to confirm the authenticity of Windows XP software whilst helping gather vital information about illegal traders"", said Alex Hilton, licence compliance manager at Microsoft.Microsoft said it would evaluate the results of the UK programme before setting up similar schemes in other countries.It is the first time Microsoft has launched a counterfeit product replacement scheme in the world, the company told the BBC News website.The Windows XP Counterfeit Project will mean that software that is found to be counterfeit will be replaced for free, subject to certain conditions, until the end of the year."
"Ban hits Half-Life 2 pirates hard

About 20,000 people have been banned from playing the Half-Life 2 game.

Game maker Valve shut down the online accounts of the players because it had evidence that their copy of the game had been obtained illegally. Copies of Half-Life 2 had been circulating on file-sharing systems soon after it was officially released. Experts said the success of the Half-Life 2 anti-piracy system might tempt other game makers into creating their own version.

Half-Life 2 was officially released on 16 November but before gamers could get to grips with the long-awaited title they were forced to authenticate their copy of the game online. Authentication involved setting up an account with Valve's gaming community system called Steam and letting that check which copy of the game was being run.

In a statement detailing the banning of the accounts Valve said this system helped identify who had got hold of pirated copies. ""The method used was extremely easy for Valve to trace and confirm, and so there is no question that the accounts disabled were used to try and illegally obtain Half-Life 2,"" read the statement. Valve spokesman Doug Lombardi said that the company had not yet released sales figures for the game and would not say what proportion of all Steam players the 20,000 represented. One effect of Steam's popularity has been to limit the copies of the game sold in shops and artificially depress the game's ranking in the top ten. Even so the title debuted at No 3 in the UK charts. Valve also said that a small number of accounts were closed because people were using stolen credit cards to buy copies of the game or were using stolen Steam accounts. Some of those who have been banned by the move protested their innocence in the online forums on the main Steam site and said they were being punished for what other people did with their account.

Some contributors to the forums wondered if the action might force more piracy as people tried to get hold of successive copies of the game to keep ahead of Valve's anti-piracy actions.

In its statement Valve also said that rumours that it distributed fake Half-Life 2 keys, copies of the game or instructions on how to hack the game, just to catch pirates and cheats were false. The company said: ""The hack came from the 'community' as do they all."" It added that most of those banned simply tried to use copies of Half-Life 2 circulating on file-swapping systems such as Bit Torrent rather than use hacks to get around the need for CD keys. Rob Fahey, editor of online news site gamesindustry.biz, said the mass banning showed off the power of the Steam system. Before now, he said, it has been hard for game makers to do anything about piracy once the game was being played. ""But with this, Valve is taking really effective steps against people using illegitimate copies of Half-Life 2,"" he said. If Steam proves effective at cutting the piracy of games to a minimum, said Mr Fahey, other game makers may be tempted to set up copycat systems. ""It's not hard to see a point in the near future when every publisher wants you to run an application on your system purely to allow you to play their games,"" he said. This could mean that computers get cluttered with poorly written Steam-type systems that are used to batter people with adverts. Unless game firms were careful, he said, they could face a backlash from consumers who soon get tired of maintaining different accounts for every game they play.
","In its statement Valve also said that rumours that it distributed fake Half-Life 2 keys, copies of the game or instructions on how to hack the game, just to catch pirates and cheats were false.Before now, he said, it has been hard for game makers to do anything about piracy once the game was being played.Game maker Valve shut down the online accounts of the players because it had evidence that their copy of the game had been obtained illegally.Experts said the success of the Half-Life 2 anti-piracy system might tempt other game makers into creating their own version.Half-Life 2 was officially released on 16 November but before gamers could get to grips with the long-awaited title they were forced to authenticate their copy of the game online.About 20,000 people have been banned from playing the Half-Life 2 game.Unless game firms were careful, he said, they could face a backlash from consumers who soon get tired of maintaining different accounts for every game they play.Valve also said that a small number of accounts were closed because people were using stolen credit cards to buy copies of the game or were using stolen Steam accounts.If Steam proves effective at cutting the piracy of games to a minimum, said Mr Fahey, other game makers may be tempted to set up copycat systems.Authentication involved setting up an account with Valve's gaming community system called Steam and letting that check which copy of the game was being run."
"New browser wins over net surfers

The proportion of surfers using Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE) has dropped to below 90%, say web analysts.

Net traffic monitor, OneStat.com, has reported that the open-source browser Firefox 1.0, released on 9 November, seems to be drawing users away from IE. While IE's market share has dropped 5% since May to 88.9%, Mozilla browsers - including Firefox - have grown by 5%. Firefox is made by the Mozilla Foundation which was set up by former browser maker Netscape in 1998. Although there have been other preview versions of Firefox, version 1.0 was the first complete official program. ""It seems that people are switching from Microsoft's Internet Explorer to Mozilla's new Firefox browser,"" said Niels Brinkman, co-founder of Amsterdam-based OneStat.com.

Mozilla browsers - including Firefox 1.0 - now have 7.4% of the market share, the figures suggest. Mozilla said that more than five million have downloaded the free software since its official release. Supporters of the open-source software in the US managed to raise $250,000 (£133,000) to advertise the release of Firefox 1.0 in The New York Times, and support the Mozilla Foundation. There was a flurry of downloads on its first day of release.

The figures echo similar research from net analyst WebSideStory which suggested that IE had 92.9% of users in October compared to 95.5% in June. Microsoft IE has dominated the browser market for some time after taking the crown from Netscape, and its share of users has always stayed at around the 95% mark. Firefox is attractive to many because it is open-source. That means people are free to adapt the software's core code to create other innovative features, like add-ons or extensions to the program. Fewer security holes have also been discovered so far in Firefox than in IE. Paul Randle, Microsoft Windows Client product manager, responded to the figures: ""We certainly respect that some customers will choose alternative browsers and that choosing a browser is about more than a handful of features. ""Microsoft continues to make significant investments in IE, including Service Pack 2 with advanced security technologies, and continues to encourage a vibrant ecosystem of third party add-ons for Internet Explorer."" Firefox wants to capture 10% of the market by the end of 2005. Other browser software, like Opera and Apple's Safari, are also challenging Microsoft's grip on the browser market. Opera is set to release its version 7.60 by the end of the year. OneStat.com compiled the statistical measurements from two million net users in 100 countries.
","Mozilla browsers - including Firefox 1.0 - now have 7.4% of the market share, the figures suggest.While IE's market share has dropped 5% since May to 88.9%, Mozilla browsers - including Firefox - have grown by 5%.Net traffic monitor, OneStat.com, has reported that the open-source browser Firefox 1.0, released on 9 November, seems to be drawing users away from IE.Firefox is made by the Mozilla Foundation which was set up by former browser maker Netscape in 1998.""It seems that people are switching from Microsoft's Internet Explorer to Mozilla's new Firefox browser,"" said Niels Brinkman, co-founder of Amsterdam-based OneStat.com.Microsoft IE has dominated the browser market for some time after taking the crown from Netscape, and its share of users has always stayed at around the 95% mark.Other browser software, like Opera and Apple's Safari, are also challenging Microsoft's grip on the browser market.Firefox wants to capture 10% of the market by the end of 2005.Supporters of the open-source software in the US managed to raise $250,000 (£133,000) to advertise the release of Firefox 1.0 in The New York Times, and support the Mozilla Foundation."
"Smartphones suffer Skulls attack

Owners of some Nokia smartphones are being warned to watch out for malicious wallpaper.

Those downloading the software could find all the icons on their 7610 phone swapped for images of skulls. When installed the malicious program also locks many of the 7610's functions making it hard to use and harder to repair. The program is only the latest in a series of viruses produced to attack mobile phones.

The file, nicknamed Skulls, is thought to have surfaced on shareware sites where people can pick up free add-ons, such as wallpaper, games and ringtones, for their phones Symbian said that it was not sure if the damage Skulls does was intentional or simply a result of bad programming. Soon after being discovered the file is thought to have been removed from the sites that were unwittingly harbouring it. The program is masquerading as software that creates new background images and themes for the main screen of the 7610 phone. The Skulls program is labelled as a file called: 7610.extended.theme.manager.zip.

Once installed the program replaces all the icons on the main page with skulls and replaces all the working applications, such as contacts, calendar, notebook etc with non-working versions so the phone becomes almost useless. The only thing the phone can do is make and take calls. A statement by Symbian played down the significance of the malicious program and said few people would fall victim to it as users have to go through several steps to install it, one of which includes ignoring a security warning. Symbian said that the spread of the Skulls program was likely to be limited as the program cannot travel from one phone to another by itself. Despite this Finnish anti-virus lab F-Secure said it had sporadic reports of 7610 owners being caught out by it. The firm has produced guidance for users caught out to help them remove the program and get their phone working again. The Skulls program is thought to have been written by a malicious hacker using the alias Tee-222. Symbian phones produced by Sony Ericsson, Motorola, BenQ, Arima and Fujitsu are unaffected by the Skulls program.
","Symbian said that the spread of the Skulls program was likely to be limited as the program cannot travel from one phone to another by itself.Symbian phones produced by Sony Ericsson, Motorola, BenQ, Arima and Fujitsu are unaffected by the Skulls program.The Skulls program is thought to have been written by a malicious hacker using the alias Tee-222.The Skulls program is labelled as a file called: 7610.extended.theme.manager.zip.The firm has produced guidance for users caught out to help them remove the program and get their phone working again.The file, nicknamed Skulls, is thought to have surfaced on shareware sites where people can pick up free add-ons, such as wallpaper, games and ringtones, for their phones Symbian said that it was not sure if the damage Skulls does was intentional or simply a result of bad programming.The program is masquerading as software that creates new background images and themes for the main screen of the 7610 phone."
"Musical future for phones

Analyst Bill Thompson has seen the future and it is in his son's hands.

I bought my son Max a 3G phone, partly because they are so cheap and he needed a phone, and partly because I am supposed to know about the latest technology and thought I should see how they work in real life. After using it for a while I am not at all tempted to get rid of my SonyEricsson P800 smart phone. That has a relatively large screen, even if it does only have slower GPRS access to the network. I can read my e-mail, surf the web using a proper browser and write stuff using the stylus on its touch screen. Last week someone e-mailed me a document that had been compressed into a ZIP file, and I was pleasantly surprised to discover that my phone even knew how to decompress it for me. By contrast the confusing menus, complicated keyboard and truly irritating user interface of Max's 3G phone simply get in the way, and I did not see much value in the paid-for services, especially the limited web access. The videos of entertainment news, horoscopes and the latest celebrity gossip did not appeal, and I did not see how the small screen could be useful for any sort of image, never mind micro-TV.

But then Max started playing, and I realised I was missing the point entirely.

It is certainly not a great overall experience, but that is largely due to the poor menu system and the phone layout: the video content itself is compelling. The quality was at least as good as the video streaming from the BBC website, and the image is about the same size. Max was completely captivated, and I was intrigued to discover that I had nearly missed the next stage of the network revolution. It is easy to be dismissive of small screens, and indeed anyone of my generation, with failing eyesight and the view that 'there's never anything worth watching on TV', is hardly going to embrace these phones. But just as the World Wide Web was the ""killer application"" that drove internet adoption, music videos are going to drive 3G adoption. With Vodafone now pushing its own 3G service, and 3 already established in the UK, video on the phone is clearly going to become a must-have for kids sitting on the school bus, adults waiting outside clubs and anyone who has time to kill and a group of friends to impress.

This will please the network operators, who are looking for some revenue from their expensively acquired 3G licences. But it goes deeper than that: playing music videos on a phone marks the beginning of a move away from the 'download and play' model we have all accepted for our iPods and MP3 players. After all, why should I want to carry 60GB of music and pictures around with me in my pocket when I can simply listen to anything I want, whenever I want, streamed to my phone? Oh - and of course you can always use the phone to make voice calls and send texts, something which ensures that it is always in someone's pocket or handbag, available for other uses too. I have never really approved of using the Internet Protocol (IP), to do either audio or video streaming, and I think that technically it is a disaster to make phone calls over the net using ""voice over IP"".

But I have to acknowledge that the net, at least here in the developed Western countries, is fast and reliable enough to do both.

I stream radio to my computer while I work, and enjoy hearing the bizarre stations from around the world that I can find online but nowhere else. I am even playing with internet telephony, despite my reservations, and I appear on Go Digital on the World Service, streamed over the web each week. But 3G networks have been designed to do this sort of streaming, both for voice and video, which gives them an edge over net-based IP services. The 3G services aren't quite there yet, and there is a lot to be sorted out when it comes to web access and data charges. Vodafone will let you access its services on Vodafone Live! as part of your subscription cost but it makes you pay by the megabyte to download from other sites - this one, for example. This will not matter to business users, but will distort the consumer market and keep people within the phone company's collection of partner sites, something that should perhaps be worrying telecoms regulator Ofcom. But we should not see these new phones simply as cut-down network terminals. If I want fast access to my e-mail I can get a 3G card for my laptop or hook up to a wireless network. The phone is a lot more, and it is as a combination of mini-TV, personal communications device and music/video player that it really works. There is certainly room in the technology ecosystem for many different sorts of devices, accessing a wide range of services over different networks. 3G phones and iPods can co-exist, at least for a while, but if I had to bet on the long term I would go for content on demand over carrying gigabytes in my pocket. Or perhaps some enterprising manufacturer will offer me both. An MP3G player, anyone?

Bill Thompson is a regular commentator on the BBC World Service programme Go Digital.
","I have never really approved of using the Internet Protocol (IP), to do either audio or video streaming, and I think that technically it is a disaster to make phone calls over the net using ""voice over IP"".With Vodafone now pushing its own 3G service, and 3 already established in the UK, video on the phone is clearly going to become a must-have for kids sitting on the school bus, adults waiting outside clubs and anyone who has time to kill and a group of friends to impress.I bought my son Max a 3G phone, partly because they are so cheap and he needed a phone, and partly because I am supposed to know about the latest technology and thought I should see how they work in real life.But we should not see these new phones simply as cut-down network terminals.But just as the World Wide Web was the ""killer application"" that drove internet adoption, music videos are going to drive 3G adoption.But 3G networks have been designed to do this sort of streaming, both for voice and video, which gives them an edge over net-based IP services.3G phones and iPods can co-exist, at least for a while, but if I had to bet on the long term I would go for content on demand over carrying gigabytes in my pocket.By contrast the confusing menus, complicated keyboard and truly irritating user interface of Max's 3G phone simply get in the way, and I did not see much value in the paid-for services, especially the limited web access.If I want fast access to my e-mail I can get a 3G card for my laptop or hook up to a wireless network.But it goes deeper than that: playing music videos on a phone marks the beginning of a move away from the 'download and play' model we have all accepted for our iPods and MP3 players.I am even playing with internet telephony, despite my reservations, and I appear on Go Digital on the World Service, streamed over the web each week.The 3G services aren't quite there yet, and there is a lot to be sorted out when it comes to web access and data charges.After using it for a while I am not at all tempted to get rid of my SonyEricsson P800 smart phone.The quality was at least as good as the video streaming from the BBC website, and the image is about the same size.It is certainly not a great overall experience, but that is largely due to the poor menu system and the phone layout: the video content itself is compelling."
"Multi-purpose TV aids India

Two-thirds of the world's population, 4 billion people, live on $2,000 a year or less.

You might think that the last thing on their minds would be getting a television set or a computer. But that's not the case. Many people in the developing world give up one of their daily meals so they can afford to buy a TV. And now, an Indian-born computer engineer thinks he's come up with a way to give them cheap access to the internet. Carnegie Mellon Professor Raj Reddy has spent the bulk of his professional career trying to find ways to make technology accessible to poor people. The first step is to figure out why poor people would want a personal computer and Professor Reddy thinks he has a pretty good idea of why they might. ""I come from a village,"" says Prof Reddy, ""I know what the population is like, many of them are illiterate, and many of them have other concerns."" ""There, nobody will use it for the conventional uses of a PC, word processing and Powerpoint,"" he said. ""So it's clear to me that if people wanted to use PCs in a village - it has to usable by illiterate people and it must be primarily for entertainment, education, telemedicine, and access to expert advice.""

Prof Reddy also thinks that tying it into some kind of aid package was the wrong approach. After all, he asked -- what aid group could possibly give expensive computers to 250 million less fortunate Indians, let alone the billions of poor people around the world?

Instead, Prof Reddy decided to think of those 250 million Indians as a potential market. The problem then becomes one of making the product compelling enough. ""It must be so compelling that you would give up your third meal in order to have this,"" Prof Reddy says. ""People do this today with television sets. If you go to India, and many other countries, they will first go get a television set before they worry about one more meal. Why? Because personalized entertainment has become very important."" This hatched a completely new idea. He calls it a PCtvt - A personal computer, television and telephone all in one that runs on a normal desktop machine. Literate users can surf through the applications with a keyboard and mouse but illiterate users can use what looks like a television remote control.

On the screen, pictures - not words - designate applications like TV, voice mail, and video e-mail. This dependence on graphics, video and audio means that a computer for an illiterate person needs 100 times more power and more memory than one for a PhD. Prassana Rambathla, one of Prof Reddy's graduate students, says that ""when you're talking illiterate you're talking audio and video, and that demands exponentially high bandwidth.' ""It can't choke at any point in time, and it has to withstand anything no matter what you're pressing."" ""The major part is making it foolproof, very tough, so that it never breaks,"" he says. The Carnegie Mellon team says this project is only possible because PCs are now so much cheaper and have built-in audio and video hardware and software. Limited trials of the PCtvt are due to start this month in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh.

Although Andhra Pradesh has a fairly good infrastructure but work has to be done to ensure reliable connections to the net. Prof Reddy has teamed up with Eric Brewer at the University of California at Berkeley. The answer, says Prof Brewer, is wi-fi.

""We're looking at the thing you'll see in Starbuck's or many other hotspots,"" he says. ""We're doing a lot of work on long-distance wireless and how to make the network work better in the presence of intermittency, when the power goes up and down, and the links go up and down, and the computers you're connected to just get turned off for no reason."" Prof Reddy says he hopes to lease the PCtvts for about $10 a month, and thinks Indians will rent the units for the television and DVD capabilities. Reddy says he can then introduce the PCtvt's other technologies - such as video mail. For example, a farmer could use the PCtvt's webcam to send a picture of a harmful insect to a local official who could send back a proposed course of action to the farmer. Prof Reddy thinks this kind of communication is the real pay-off. ""The underlying problem,"" he says, ""is how you can increase their wealth and reduce their poverty and reduce their illiteracy, and improve their health care.' ""And what I'm postulating is that this is the technology that will enable them. If I didn't have it, it would be an uphill battle. Even with the technology it's an uphill battle. But I have a tool. There is hope. I can reach them in ways that have not been possible before.""

Clark Boyd is technology correspondent for The World, a BBC World Service and WGBH-Boston co-production
","The first step is to figure out why poor people would want a personal computer and Professor Reddy thinks he has a pretty good idea of why they might.Prof Reddy says he hopes to lease the PCtvts for about $10 a month, and thinks Indians will rent the units for the television and DVD capabilities.""It must be so compelling that you would give up your third meal in order to have this,"" Prof Reddy says.""I come from a village,"" says Prof Reddy, ""I know what the population is like, many of them are illiterate, and many of them have other concerns.""Reddy says he can then introduce the PCtvt's other technologies - such as video mail.Carnegie Mellon Professor Raj Reddy has spent the bulk of his professional career trying to find ways to make technology accessible to poor people.Prof Reddy thinks this kind of communication is the real pay-off.Prof Reddy has teamed up with Eric Brewer at the University of California at Berkeley.Instead, Prof Reddy decided to think of those 250 million Indians as a potential market.Many people in the developing world give up one of their daily meals so they can afford to buy a TV.You might think that the last thing on their minds would be getting a television set or a computer.""So it's clear to me that if people wanted to use PCs in a village - it has to usable by illiterate people and it must be primarily for entertainment, education, telemedicine, and access to expert advice.""Prof Reddy also thinks that tying it into some kind of aid package was the wrong approach.Prassana Rambathla, one of Prof Reddy's graduate students, says that ""when you're talking illiterate you're talking audio and video, and that demands exponentially high bandwidth.'After all, he asked -- what aid group could possibly give expensive computers to 250 million less fortunate Indians, let alone the billions of poor people around the world?If you go to India, and many other countries, they will first go get a television set before they worry about one more meal.This dependence on graphics, video and audio means that a computer for an illiterate person needs 100 times more power and more memory than one for a PhD.The answer, says Prof Brewer, is wi-fi.And now, an Indian-born computer engineer thinks he's come up with a way to give them cheap access to the internet."
"Computer grid to help the world

Your computer can now help solve the world's most difficult health and social problems.

Launched this week, the World Community Grid will use idle computer time to test solutions to these problems. The donated processor cycles will help the WCG create virtual supercomputers via the net. The idea follows the success of other similar projects that have used the untapped processing power of millions of desktop PCs. One of the most successful collaboration projects was Seti@home, run by the Search for Extra Terrestrial Life project, which sorted through radio signals looking for signs of alien communication.

Anyone can volunteer to donate the spare time of their computers by downloading a special screensaver from the WGC website. Once installed, the virtual terminal gets a chunk of the computational task to process, and reports back after completing that task. The first WCG problem being tackled will be the Human Proteome Folding Project, which hopes to identify the ways that the proteins in our body fold.

The subjects of study are being selected by an international advisory board of experts specializing in health sciences, and technology. The body will evaluate proposals from leading research, public and not-for-profit organizations, and is expected to oversee up to six projects a year. Organisations also represented on the board include the United Nations Development Programme and the World Health Organisation.

""The World Community Grid will enable researchers around the globe to gather and analyze unprecedented quantities of data to help address important global issues,"" said Elain Gallin, program director for medical research at the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. ""[It] will inspire us to look beyond the technological limitations that have historically restricted us from addressing some of our most intractable problems"", she added. IBM has donated the hardware, software, technical services and expertise to build the basic infrastructure for the grid. The computer company, working with United Devices, previously developed the Smallpox Research Grid, which linked together more than two million volunteers from 226 countries to speed the analysis of some 35 million drug molecules in the search for a treatment for Smallpox.
","Launched this week, the World Community Grid will use idle computer time to test solutions to these problems.Your computer can now help solve the world's most difficult health and social problems.The computer company, working with United Devices, previously developed the Smallpox Research Grid, which linked together more than two million volunteers from 226 countries to speed the analysis of some 35 million drug molecules in the search for a treatment for Smallpox.""The World Community Grid will enable researchers around the globe to gather and analyze unprecedented quantities of data to help address important global issues,"" said Elain Gallin, program director for medical research at the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation.The donated processor cycles will help the WCG create virtual supercomputers via the net.The body will evaluate proposals from leading research, public and not-for-profit organizations, and is expected to oversee up to six projects a year."
"How to make a gigapixel picture

The largest digital panoramic photo in the world has been created by researchers in the Netherlands.

The finished image is 2.5 billion pixels in size - making it about 500 times the resolution of images produced by good consumer digital cameras. The huge image of Delft was created by stitching together 600 single snaps of the Dutch city taken at a fixed spot. If printed out in standard 300 dots per inch resolution, the picture would be 2.5m high and 6m long.

The researchers have put the image on a website which lets viewers explore the wealth of detail that it captures. Tools on the page let viewers zoom in on the city and its surroundings in great detail. The website is already proving popular and currently has more than 200,000 visitors every day.

The image was created by imaging experts from the Dutch research and technology laboratory TNO which created the 2.5 gigapixel photo as a summer time challenge.

The goal of the project was to be one of the first groups to make gigapixel images. The first image of such a size was manually constructed by US photographer Max Lyons in November 2003. That image portrayed Bryce Canyon National Park, in Utah, and was made up of 196 separate photographs. The panorama of Delft is a little staid in contrast to the dramatic rockscape captured in Mr Lyons' image. ""He did it all by hand, which was an enormous effort, and we got the idea that if you use automatic techniques, it would be feasible to build a larger image,"" said Jurgen den Hartog, one of the TNO researchers behind the project. ""We were not competing with Mr Lyons, but it started as a lunchtime bet.""

The Dutch team used already available technologies, although it had to upgrade them to be able to handle the high-resolution image.

""We had to rewrite almost all the tools,"" Me den Hartog told the BBC News website. ""All standard Windows viewers available would not be able to load such a large image, so we had to develop one ourselves."" The 600 component pictures were taken on July 2004 by a computer-controlled camera with a 400 mm lens. Each image was made to slightly overlap so they could be accurately arranged into a composite. The stitching process was also done automatically using five powerful PCs over three days. Following the success of this project, and with promises of help from others, the TNO team is considering creating a full 360-degree panoramic view of another Dutch city, with even higher resolution.
","The huge image of Delft was created by stitching together 600 single snaps of the Dutch city taken at a fixed spot.The image was created by imaging experts from the Dutch research and technology laboratory TNO which created the 2.5 gigapixel photo as a summer time challenge.The first image of such a size was manually constructed by US photographer Max Lyons in November 2003.""He did it all by hand, which was an enormous effort, and we got the idea that if you use automatic techniques, it would be feasible to build a larger image,"" said Jurgen den Hartog, one of the TNO researchers behind the project.The researchers have put the image on a website which lets viewers explore the wealth of detail that it captures.The finished image is 2.5 billion pixels in size - making it about 500 times the resolution of images produced by good consumer digital cameras.""All standard Windows viewers available would not be able to load such a large image, so we had to develop one ourselves.""Each image was made to slightly overlap so they could be accurately arranged into a composite.That image portrayed Bryce Canyon National Park, in Utah, and was made up of 196 separate photographs."
"Remote control rifle range debuts

Soon you could go hunting via the net.

A Texas company is considering letting web users use a remote-controlled rifle to shoot down deer, antelope and wild pigs. For a small fee users will take control of a camera and rifle that they can use to spot and shoot the game animals as they roam around a 133-hectare Texas ranch. The Live-Shot website behind the scheme already lets people practise shooting at targets via the internet.

John Underwood, the man behind the Live-Shot website, said the idea for the remote-control hunting came to him a year ago when he was watching deer via a webcam on another net site. ""We were looking at a beautiful white-tail buck and my friend said 'If you just had a gun for that'. A little light bulb went off in my head,"" Mr Underwood told the Reuters news agency. A year's work and $10,000 has resulted in a remote-controlled rig on which sits a camera and .22 calibre rifle. Mr Underwood is planning to put one of these rigs in a concealed location in a small reserve on his Texas ranch and let people shoot at a variety of game animals. Also needed is a fast net connection so remote hunters can quickly track and aim at passing game animals with the camera and rifle rig. Each remote hunting session will cost $150 with additional fees for meat processing and taxidermy work. Species that can be shot will include barbary, Corsican and mouflon sheep, blackbuck antelope and wild pigs. Already the Live-Shot site lets people shoot 10 rounds at paper and silhouette targets for $5.95 for each 20-minute shooting session. For further fees, users can get the target they shot and a DVD recording of their session. Handlers oversee each shooting session and can stop the gun being fired if it is being aimed off-range or at something it should not be. Mr Underwood said that internet hunting could be popular with disabled hunters unable to get out in the woods or distant hunters who cannot afford a trip to Texas. In a statement the RSPCA said it had ""grave concerns"" about people being allowed to go online and remotely control a rifle. ""We assume it would be extremely difficult to accurately control a gun in this way and therefore it would be difficult to ensure a 'clean kill', something the RSPCA accepts is the intention of those shooting for sport,"" it said. ""Animals hit but not killed would without doubt be caused to suffer unnecessarily,"" said the statement. Mike Berger, wildlife director of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, said current hunting statutes did not cover net or remote hunting. He said state laws on hunting only covered ""regulated animals"" such as native deer and bird species. As such there was nothing to stop Mr Underwood letting people hunt ""unregulated"" imported animals and wild pigs. Mr Underwood also lets people come in person to the ranch to hunt and shoot game animals.
","Mr Underwood also lets people come in person to the ranch to hunt and shoot game animals.Mr Underwood is planning to put one of these rigs in a concealed location in a small reserve on his Texas ranch and let people shoot at a variety of game animals.Mr Underwood said that internet hunting could be popular with disabled hunters unable to get out in the woods or distant hunters who cannot afford a trip to Texas.John Underwood, the man behind the Live-Shot website, said the idea for the remote-control hunting came to him a year ago when he was watching deer via a webcam on another net site.Already the Live-Shot site lets people shoot 10 rounds at paper and silhouette targets for $5.95 for each 20-minute shooting session.For a small fee users will take control of a camera and rifle that they can use to spot and shoot the game animals as they roam around a 133-hectare Texas ranch.As such there was nothing to stop Mr Underwood letting people hunt ""unregulated"" imported animals and wild pigs.A Texas company is considering letting web users use a remote-controlled rifle to shoot down deer, antelope and wild pigs.In a statement the RSPCA said it had ""grave concerns"" about people being allowed to go online and remotely control a rifle.Mike Berger, wildlife director of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, said current hunting statutes did not cover net or remote hunting."
"Gangsters dominate gaming chart

Video games on consoles and computers proved more popular than ever in 2004.

Gamers spent more than £1.34bn in 2004, almost 7% more than they did in 2003 according to figures released by the UK gaming industry's trade body. Sales records were smashed by the top title of the year GTA: San Andreas - in which players got the job of turning central character CJ into a crime boss. The game sold more than 1 million copies in the first nine days that it was on sale. This feat made it the fastest selling video game of all time in the UK. Although only released in November the sprawling story of guns, gangsters game beat off strong competition and by year end had sold more than 1.75 million copies. There were also records set for the number of games that achieved double-platinum status by selling more than 600,000 copies. Five titles, including Sony EyeToy Play and EA's Need for Speed: Underground 2, managed this feat according to figures compiled by Chart-Track for the Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association (Elspa). Electronic Arts, the world's biggest games publisher, had 9 games in the top 20.

2004 was a ""stellar year"" said Roger Bennett, director general of Elspa. ""In a year with no new generation consoles being released, the market continued to be buoyant as the industry matured and the increasingly diverse range of games reached new audiences and broadened its player base - across ages and gender,"" he said. Part of the success of games in 2004 could be due to the fact that so many of them are sequels. 16 out of the top 20 titles were all follow-ups to established franchises or direct sequels to previously popular games. Halo, The Sims, Driver, Need for Speed, Fifa football, Burnout were just a few that proved as popular as the original titles. Despite this fondness for older games, Doom 3 did not make it to the top 20. Movie tie-ins also proved their worth in 2004. Games linked to Shrek, The Incredibles, Spider-Man, Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings were all in the top 20. Elspa noted that sales of Xbox games rose 37.9% during the year. However, Sony's PlayStation 2 was the top seller with 47% of the £1.34bn spent on games in 2004 used to buy titles for that console. Despite winning awards and rave reviews Half-Life 2 did not appear in the list. This was because it was only released on PC and, compared to console titles, sold in relatively small numbers. Also the novel distribution system adopted by developer Valve meant that many players downloaded the title rather than travel to the shops to buy a copy. Valve has yet to release figures which show how many copies of the game were sold in this way.
","However, Sony's PlayStation 2 was the top seller with 47% of the £1.34bn spent on games in 2004 used to buy titles for that console.Electronic Arts, the world's biggest games publisher, had 9 games in the top 20.Video games on consoles and computers proved more popular than ever in 2004.The game sold more than 1 million copies in the first nine days that it was on sale.Elspa noted that sales of Xbox games rose 37.9% during the year.Valve has yet to release figures which show how many copies of the game were sold in this way.Although only released in November the sprawling story of guns, gangsters game beat off strong competition and by year end had sold more than 1.75 million copies.This feat made it the fastest selling video game of all time in the UK.There were also records set for the number of games that achieved double-platinum status by selling more than 600,000 copies.""In a year with no new generation consoles being released, the market continued to be buoyant as the industry matured and the increasingly diverse range of games reached new audiences and broadened its player base - across ages and gender,"" he said."
"British Library gets wireless net

Visitors to the British Library will be able to get wireless internet access alongside the extensive information available in its famous reading rooms.

Broadband wireless connectivity will be made available in the eleven reading rooms, the auditorium, café, restaurant, and outdoor Piazza area. A study revealed that 86% of visitors to the Library carried laptops. The technology has been on trial since May and usage levels make the Library London's most active public hotspot.

Previously many were leaving the building to go to a nearby internet café to access their e-mail, the study found. ""At the British Library we are continually exploring ways in which technology can help us to improve services to our users,"" said Lynne Brindley, chief executive of the British Library. ""Surveys we conducted recently confirmed that, alongside the materials they consult here, our users want to be able to access the internet when they are at the Library for research or to communicate with colleagues,"" she said. The service will be priced at £4.50 for an hour's session or £35 for a monthly pass. The study, conducted by consultancy Building Zones, found that 16% of visitors came to the Library to sit down and use it as a business centre. This could be because of its proximity to busy mainline stations such as Kings Cross and Euston. The study also found that people were spending an average of six hours in the building, making it an ideal wireless hotspot. Since May the service has registered 1,200 sessions per week, making it London's most active public hotspot. The majority of visitors wanted to be able to access their e-mail as well as the British Library catalogue. The service has been rolled out in partnership with wireless provider The Cloud and Hewlett Packard.

It will operate independently from the Library's existing network. The British Library receives around 3,000 visitors each day and serves around 500,000 readers each year. People come to view resources which include the world's largest collection of patents and the UK's most extensive collection of science, technology and medical information. The Library receives between three and four million requests from remote users around the world each year.
","""At the British Library we are continually exploring ways in which technology can help us to improve services to our users,"" said Lynne Brindley, chief executive of the British Library.The majority of visitors wanted to be able to access their e-mail as well as the British Library catalogue.Visitors to the British Library will be able to get wireless internet access alongside the extensive information available in its famous reading rooms.The technology has been on trial since May and usage levels make the Library London's most active public hotspot.The British Library receives around 3,000 visitors each day and serves around 500,000 readers each year.A study revealed that 86% of visitors to the Library carried laptops.The study, conducted by consultancy Building Zones, found that 16% of visitors came to the Library to sit down and use it as a business centre."
"UK broadband gets speed injection

Broadband's rapid rise continues apace as speeds gear up a notch.

An eight megabit service has been launched by internet service provider UK Online. It is 16 times faster than the average broadband package on the market and will pave the way for services such as video-on-demand and broadband TV. The service is possible due to a new regime which allows other operators to use BT's exchanges and will initially only be available in towns.

It represents a ""big leap forward"" for broadband, said Chris Stening, UK Online general manager.

The service comes with a hefty £39.99 monthly price tag but will mean users can download MP3s in seconds and offers TV-quality video streaming. The service includes WiFi as standard, meaning users can connect multiple PCs, laptops and game consoles from any room in the house. Not everybody will be able to take advantage of the service, as it will be restricted to metropolitan areas. The service will initially be available to users within 2km radius of 230 telephone exchanges in areas such as London, Birmingham, Glasgow and Cambridge. That represents about 4.4 million households. The service is possible due to a decision to loosen BT's strangle-hold on telephone exchanges.

The process, known as local loop unbundling, was put in motion by the now defunct telecoms watchdog Oftel but has only proved popular in recent months due to falling costs. UK Online is looking at the possibility of bundling services such as cheap net telephone calls, video-on-demand and TV by 2005 if the service proves popular. ""The service is twice as fast as any other service on offer in the UK and 16 times faster than most broadband services,"" said Mr Stening. ""It takes a big leap for broadband and we are very excited about it,"" he said. Countries such as South Korea and France have found the advantage of upping the speeds of broadband. In South Korea, video-on-demand over the net is cheaper than renting a DVD and online gaming is huge. Mr Stening believes the service will appeal to people in multi-occupancy buildings as well as easing family arguments. ""A typical family with two adults and two children is currently sharing a 512 kilobit service. This will basically give them 2 megabits each,"" he said.
","""The service is twice as fast as any other service on offer in the UK and 16 times faster than most broadband services,"" said Mr Stening.An eight megabit service has been launched by internet service provider UK Online.UK Online is looking at the possibility of bundling services such as cheap net telephone calls, video-on-demand and TV by 2005 if the service proves popular.It is 16 times faster than the average broadband package on the market and will pave the way for services such as video-on-demand and broadband TV.It represents a ""big leap forward"" for broadband, said Chris Stening, UK Online general manager.The service is possible due to a decision to loosen BT's strangle-hold on telephone exchanges.The service is possible due to a new regime which allows other operators to use BT's exchanges and will initially only be available in towns.Not everybody will be able to take advantage of the service, as it will be restricted to metropolitan areas."
"Row brewing over peer-to-peer ads

Music download networks are proving popular not just with an audience of youngsters keen to take advantage of free music but with advertisers equally keen to reach out to a captive audience.

The debate over the legitimacy of file-sharing networks rages on as the music industry continues its threats to close the services down for good. Meanwhile the millions of downloaders are proving both an advertiser's dream come true and a branding nightmare. Paul Myers, chief executive of Wippit - a peer to peer service which provides paid-for music downloads - believes it is time advertisers stopped providing 'oxygen' for companies that support illegal downloading. ""You may be surprised to know that current advertisers on the most popular peer to peer service eDonkey who now steadfastly support copyright theft with real cash money include Nat West, Vodafone, O2, First Direct, NTL, and Renault,"" he said in an open letter to the British Phonographic Industry last month.

He urged people to follow his lead and 'dump' brands associated with companies such as eDonkey. The BPI is equally quick to condemn established brands becoming bedfellows with peer to peer networks. 'Networks like eDonkey, Kazaa and Grokster facilitate illegal filesharing. The BPI strongly believes that any reputable company should look carefully at the support they are giving these networks through their advertising revenue,"" it said in a statement. ""Illegal file-sharers steal millions of pounds worth of music through these services. We are sure that the companies advertising on them would not put up with theft on such a scale from their own businesses,"" it said. But the issue is often more complicated for advertisers, said Mark Mulligan, a music analyst with Jupiter Research. ""This has been a problem for a long time, ever since the days of Napster,"" he told the BBC News website.

The reality is that the millions of downloaders represent a very attractive audience. ""Advertisers probably pay a lot less for putting ads here than on more respected sites and they are reaching the perfect target audience,"" he said. ""If you put the legality issues aside, not to advertise here would mean missing out on a valuable audience,"" he added. Meanwhile companies contacted by the BBC News website insist that they were not directly aware of where their ads have been appearing. OneTel adverts were spotted on eDonkey this week and its response was typical. ""We have investigated this matter and believe that one of our affiliate partners has placed this advert without our knowledge. It is not our policy to advertise through peer-to-peer networks,"" read a statement from the discount phone firm. It has requested the advert be removed immediately, said a spokeswoman. Similarly telecommunications firm NTL blames its media buying agency which places adverts with third party networks featuring thousands of sites. Since the matter was brought to its attention last month, the agency has strict instructions to make sure ads do not appear on such sites, a spokesman told the BBC News website.

However Mr Mulligan was not entirely convinced by these explanations. While smaller brands might not necessarily be aware of where the money they allocate to online advertising actually ends, this is no excuse for well-known brands, he said. ""I would be surprised if these brands didn't have the know-how to prevent this happening,"" he said. At the moment eDonkey is enjoying the benefits of having some very well-known faces advert on its network. ""Many big brands have leveraged the opportunity, including perhaps two of the biggest brands in the world - Senator John Kerry and President George W. Bush,"" said chief executive Sam Yagan. There are some distinct advantages of advertising on such a network, he thinks. ""Peer-to-peer clients offer big brands a unique opportunity to engage with their customers where they're most comfortable: at their desks interacting with their favourite digital media,"" he said.
","The BPI strongly believes that any reputable company should look carefully at the support they are giving these networks through their advertising revenue,"" it said in a statement.We are sure that the companies advertising on them would not put up with theft on such a scale from their own businesses,"" it said.It has requested the advert be removed immediately, said a spokeswoman.""I would be surprised if these brands didn't have the know-how to prevent this happening,"" he said.Music download networks are proving popular not just with an audience of youngsters keen to take advantage of free music but with advertisers equally keen to reach out to a captive audience.""You may be surprised to know that current advertisers on the most popular peer to peer service eDonkey who now steadfastly support copyright theft with real cash money include Nat West, Vodafone, O2, First Direct, NTL, and Renault,"" he said in an open letter to the British Phonographic Industry last month.But the issue is often more complicated for advertisers, said Mark Mulligan, a music analyst with Jupiter Research.At the moment eDonkey is enjoying the benefits of having some very well-known faces advert on its network.While smaller brands might not necessarily be aware of where the money they allocate to online advertising actually ends, this is no excuse for well-known brands, he said.Paul Myers, chief executive of Wippit - a peer to peer service which provides paid-for music downloads - believes it is time advertisers stopped providing 'oxygen' for companies that support illegal downloading.Since the matter was brought to its attention last month, the agency has strict instructions to make sure ads do not appear on such sites, a spokesman told the BBC News website.""Advertisers probably pay a lot less for putting ads here than on more respected sites and they are reaching the perfect target audience,"" he said."
"How to smash a home computer

An executive who froze his broken hard disk thinking it would be fixed has topped a list of the weirdest computer mishaps.

Although computer malfunctions remain the most common cause of file loss, data recovery experts say human behaviour still is to blame in many cases. They say that no matter how effective technology is at rescuing files, users should take more time to back-up and protect important files. The list of the top 10 global data disasters was compiled by recovery company Ontrack.

Careless - and preventable - mistakes that result in data loss range from reckless file maintenance practices to episodes of pure rage towards a computer. This last category includes the case of a man who became so mad with his malfunctioning laptop that he threw it in the lavatory and flushed a couple of times. ""Data can disappear as a result of natural disaster, system fault or computer virus, but human error, including 'computer rage', seems to be a growing problem,"" said Adrian Palmer, managing director of Ontrack Data Recovery.

""Nevertheless, victims soon calm down when they realise the damage they've done and come to us with pleas for help to retrieve their valuable information."" A far more common situation is when a computer virus strikes and leads to precious files being corrupted or deleted entirely. Mr Palmer recalled the case of a couple who had hundreds of pictures of their baby's first three months on their computer, but managed to reformat the hard drive and erase all the precious memories. ""Data can be recovered from computers, servers and even memory cards used in digital devices in most cases,"" said Mr Palmer. ""However, individuals and companies can avoid the hassle and stress this can cause by backing up data on a regular basis.""
","""Data can disappear as a result of natural disaster, system fault or computer virus, but human error, including 'computer rage', seems to be a growing problem,"" said Adrian Palmer, managing director of Ontrack Data Recovery.Although computer malfunctions remain the most common cause of file loss, data recovery experts say human behaviour still is to blame in many cases.Careless - and preventable - mistakes that result in data loss range from reckless file maintenance practices to episodes of pure rage towards a computer.The list of the top 10 global data disasters was compiled by recovery company Ontrack.Mr Palmer recalled the case of a couple who had hundreds of pictures of their baby's first three months on their computer, but managed to reformat the hard drive and erase all the precious memories."
"Mobile picture power in your pocket

How many times have you wanted to have a camera to hand to catch an unexpected event that would make headlines?

With a modern mobile phone that has a camera built in, you no longer need to curse, you can capture the action as it happens. Already on-the-spot snappers are helping newspapers add immediacy to their breaking news stories headlines, where professional photographers only arrive in time for the aftermath. Celebrities might not welcome such a change because they may never be free of a new breed of mobile phone paparazzi making their lives a bit more difficult. Already one tabloid newspaper in LA is issuing photographers with camera phones to help them catch celebrities at play. It could be the start of a trend that only increases as higher resolution phone cameras become more widespread; as video phones catch on and millions of people start carrying the gadgets around.

Only last week, the world media highlighted the killing of the Dutch film maker Theo van Gogh, notorious after making a controversial film about Islamic culture.

One day later De Telegraaf, a daily Amsterdam newspaper, became news on its own when it published a picture taken with a mobile phone of Mr van Gogh's body moments after he was killed. ""This picture was the story"", said De Telegraaf's image editor, Peter Schoonen. Other accounts of such picture phone users witnessing news events, include:


 - A flight from Switzerland to the Dominican Republic which turned around after someone took a picture of a piece of metal falling from the plane as it took off from Zurich (reported by the Swiss daily Le Matin). 
 - Two crooks who robbed a bank in Denmark were snapped before they carried out the crime waiting for the doors of the building to be opened (reported by the Danish regional paper Aarhus Stiftstidende). 
 

But this is not just about traditional media lending immediacy to their stories with content from ordinary people, it is also about first-hand journalism in the form of online diaries or weblogs.

It has been called ""open source news"" or even ""moblog journalism"" and it has flourished in the recent US election campaign. ""Not many people walk around with their cameras, but they always have their mobile phones with them. If something happens, suddenly all these mobiles sort of appear from nowhere, and start taking pictures,"" said digital artist Henry Reichhold. He himself uses mobile phone pictures to create huge panoramic images of events and places. ""You see it in bars, you see it everywhere. It's a massive thing,"" Mr Reichhold told the BBC News website.

With some picture agencies already paying for exclusive phone pictures, especially of celebrities, there are also fears about the possible downside of this phenomenon.

It could become a nuisance for public figures as higher resolution picture phones hit the market, with five megapixel models already being launched in Asia. Already on US photojournal site, Buzznet, there is a public album full of snaps of celebrities, many of which were taken with camera phones. Tabloid newspapers in the UK and many monthly magazines invite readers to send in images of famous people they have seen and snapped. But there are other positive uses of picture mobile phones that may balance these uses. For instance, in Alabama, in the US, camera phones will be used to take snaps at crime scenes involving children, and help the authorities to arrest and prosecute paedophiles. And in China's capital Beijing, courts have adopted mobile phone photos as formal evidence. For Henry Reichhold, this is progress: ""That's the whole thing about the immediacy of the thing. I can see that happening a lot more.""
","But there are other positive uses of picture mobile phones that may balance these uses.He himself uses mobile phone pictures to create huge panoramic images of events and places.""Not many people walk around with their cameras, but they always have their mobile phones with them.One day later De Telegraaf, a daily Amsterdam newspaper, became news on its own when it published a picture taken with a mobile phone of Mr van Gogh's body moments after he was killed.It could be the start of a trend that only increases as higher resolution phone cameras become more widespread; as video phones catch on and millions of people start carrying the gadgets around.Already one tabloid newspaper in LA is issuing photographers with camera phones to help them catch celebrities at play.With a modern mobile phone that has a camera built in, you no longer need to curse, you can capture the action as it happens.With some picture agencies already paying for exclusive phone pictures, especially of celebrities, there are also fears about the possible downside of this phenomenon.It could become a nuisance for public figures as higher resolution picture phones hit the market, with five megapixel models already being launched in Asia.For instance, in Alabama, in the US, camera phones will be used to take snaps at crime scenes involving children, and help the authorities to arrest and prosecute paedophiles.Celebrities might not welcome such a change because they may never be free of a new breed of mobile phone paparazzi making their lives a bit more difficult."
"Man auctions ad space on forehead

A 20-year-old US man is selling advertising space on his forehead to the highest bidder on website eBay.

Andrew Fisher, from Omaha, Nebraska, said he would have a non-permanent logo or brand name tattooed on his head for 30 days. ""The way I see it I'm selling something I already own; after 30 days I get it back,"" he told the BBC Today programme. Mr Fisher has received 39 bids so far, with the largest bid currently at more than $322 (£171). ""The winner will be able to send me a tattoo or have me go to a tattoo parlour and get a temporary ink tattoo on my forehead and this will be something they choose, a company name or domain name, perhaps their logo,"" he told the Radio 4 programme.

On the online auction, Mr Fisher describes himself as an ""average American Joe, give or take"". His sales pitch adds: ""Take advantage of this radical advertising campaign and become a part of history."" Mr Fisher said that while he would accept any brand name or logo, ""I wouldn't go around with a swastika or anything racial"". He added: ""I wouldn't go around with 666, the mark of the beast. ""Other than that I wouldn't promote anything socially unacceptable such as adult websites or stores."" He said he would use the money to pay college - he is planning to study graphic design. The entrepreneur said his mother was initially surprised by his decision but following all the media attention she felt he was ""thinking outside the box"".
","Mr Fisher said that while he would accept any brand name or logo, ""I wouldn't go around with a swastika or anything racial"".Andrew Fisher, from Omaha, Nebraska, said he would have a non-permanent logo or brand name tattooed on his head for 30 days.""The winner will be able to send me a tattoo or have me go to a tattoo parlour and get a temporary ink tattoo on my forehead and this will be something they choose, a company name or domain name, perhaps their logo,"" he told the Radio 4 programme.On the online auction, Mr Fisher describes himself as an ""average American Joe, give or take"".He added: ""I wouldn't go around with 666, the mark of the beast."
"Toxic web links help virus spread

Virus writers have begun using the power of the web to spread their malicious wares.

A Windows virus called Bofra is turning infected machines into distributors of its malicious code. Those clicking on the poisoned links in e-mail messages sent out by infected machines may fall victim to the virus. The trick is being used to prevent the progam being caught by anti-virus software that combs through code contained in e-mail attachments.

The virus that uses this trick is called Bofra and the first member of the family of worms appeared on 10 November. They exploit a Windows vulnerability that was discovered only a few days earlier.

Like many other recent viruses, Bofra plunders the address book in Microsoft Outlook for e-mail addresses and scours other files on an infected machine for fresh target addresses. The virus uses its own mail sending software to despatch e-mail messages to potential victims but, unlike many other recent viruses, does not itself travel via mail. Instead the body of the mail messages sent out contain fake weblinks that, when clicked on, connect back to the machine that distributed that e-mail. Essentially, Bofra turns infected machines into small web servers that happily dole out copies of the virus. The messages try to trick people into clicking on the links by promising pornographic videos and images or by posing as payment confirmation for a Paypal transaction.

Copies of the messages seen by the BBC News website had bright yellow and green backgrounds. Those clicking on the links will inadvertently download the Bofra virus which will then start searching for new addresses to send itself to. Filtering firm Clearswift said this tactic of creating thousands of mini web servers was designed to help the virus spread quickly and avoid attempts to shut it down. In the past other malicious programs have relied on a single web server that downloads viral code to target machines. Shutting down this central server usually stops the virus spreading.

Clearswift said that fact that no viral code travels in the e-mail messages sent out by machines infected by Bofra could hamper effects to limit its spread. Finnish anti-virus firm F-Secure said that, so far, it had not seen many copies of the Bofra virus and its variants in circulation.

Tim Warner, spokesman for anti-virus firm Finjan, said: ""You have people getting very creative now to deliver the virus and get it propagating."" Mr Warner said organisations needed to prepare deep defences to keep out the modern form of malicious mobile code. ""Most firms have secured their e-mail gateway,"" said Mr Warner, ""but the irony is that most of them let malicious content through the web gateways."" He said behavioural systems that monitor what users do can help to spot when viruses have penetrated organisations and have started hunting for other victims. The Bofra family of viruses, which were originally thought to be offshoots of the MyDoom bug, can infect machines running Windows 2000, 95, 98, Me, NT, XP and Server 2003. Users running Windows XP that have applied the SP2 update are not vulnerable to the loophole that Bofra exploits.
","A Windows virus called Bofra is turning infected machines into distributors of its malicious code.Those clicking on the poisoned links in e-mail messages sent out by infected machines may fall victim to the virus.Clearswift said that fact that no viral code travels in the e-mail messages sent out by machines infected by Bofra could hamper effects to limit its spread.Essentially, Bofra turns infected machines into small web servers that happily dole out copies of the virus.Finnish anti-virus firm F-Secure said that, so far, it had not seen many copies of the Bofra virus and its variants in circulation.Filtering firm Clearswift said this tactic of creating thousands of mini web servers was designed to help the virus spread quickly and avoid attempts to shut it down.Those clicking on the links will inadvertently download the Bofra virus which will then start searching for new addresses to send itself to.The virus uses its own mail sending software to despatch e-mail messages to potential victims but, unlike many other recent viruses, does not itself travel via mail.The virus that uses this trick is called Bofra and the first member of the family of worms appeared on 10 November.The Bofra family of viruses, which were originally thought to be offshoots of the MyDoom bug, can infect machines running Windows 2000, 95, 98, Me, NT, XP and Server 2003."
"Millions to miss out on the net

By 2025, 40% of the UK's population will still be without internet access at home, says a study.

Around 23 million Britons will miss out on a wide range of essential services such as education and medical information, predicts the report by telecoms giant BT. It compares to 27 million, or 50%, of the UK, who are not currently online. The idea that the digital divide will evaporate with time is ""wishful thinking"", the report concludes.

The study calls on the government and telecoms industry to come up with new ways to lure those that have been bypassed by the digital revolution. Although the percentage of Britons without home access will have fallen slightly, those that remain digital refuseniks will miss out on more, the report suggests. As more and more everyday tasks move online and offline services become less comprehensive, the divide will become more obvious and more burdensome for those that have not got net access, it predicts.

The gap between ""have-nets"" and ""have-nots"" has been much talked about, but predictions about how such a divide will affect future generations has been less discussed. BT set out to predict future patterns based on current information and taking account of the way technology is changing. Optimists who predict that convergence and the emergence of more user-friendly technology will bridge the digital divide could be way off mark, the report suggests. ""Internet access on other devices tends to be something taken up by those who already have it,"" said Adrian Hosford, director of corporate responsibility at BT. Costs of internet access have fallen dramatically and coverage in remote areas have vastly improved over the last year but the real barrier remains psychological. ""There is a hard rump of have-nots who are not engaging with the net. They don't have the motivation or skills or perceive the benefits,"" said Mr Hosford.

As now, the most disadvantaged groups are likely to remain among low income families, the older generation and the disabled.

Those on low incomes will account for a quarter of the digital have-nots, the disabled will make up 16% and the elderly nearly a third by 2025, the report forecasts. Organisations such as BT have a responsibility to help tackle the problem, said Mr Hosford. The telco has seen positive results with its Everybody Online project which offers internet access to people in eight deprived communities around Britain. In one area of Cornwall with high levels of unemployment, online training helped people rewrite CVs and learn skills to get new jobs, explained Mr Hosford. Such grassroot activity addressing the specific needs of individual communities is essential is the problem of the digital divide is to be overcome, he said. ""If we don't address this problem now, it will get a lot worse and people will find it more difficult to find jobs, education opportunities will be limited and they'll simply not be able to keep up with society,"" he said. The Alliance for Digital Inclusion, an independent body with members drawn from government, industry and the voluntary sector has recently been set up to tackle some of the issues faced by the digital refuseniks.
","Although the percentage of Britons without home access will have fallen slightly, those that remain digital refuseniks will miss out on more, the report suggests.""Internet access on other devices tends to be something taken up by those who already have it,"" said Adrian Hosford, director of corporate responsibility at BT.Optimists who predict that convergence and the emergence of more user-friendly technology will bridge the digital divide could be way off mark, the report suggests.Organisations such as BT have a responsibility to help tackle the problem, said Mr Hosford.Such grassroot activity addressing the specific needs of individual communities is essential is the problem of the digital divide is to be overcome, he said.The idea that the digital divide will evaporate with time is ""wishful thinking"", the report concludes.Those on low incomes will account for a quarter of the digital have-nots, the disabled will make up 16% and the elderly nearly a third by 2025, the report forecasts.As more and more everyday tasks move online and offline services become less comprehensive, the divide will become more obvious and more burdensome for those that have not got net access, it predicts.The telco has seen positive results with its Everybody Online project which offers internet access to people in eight deprived communities around Britain."
"Lifestyle 'governs mobile choice'

Faster, better or funkier hardware alone is not going to help phone firms sell more handsets, research suggests.

Instead, phone firms keen to get more out of their customers should not just be pushing the technology for its own sake. Consumers are far more interested in how handsets fit in with their lifestyle than they are in screen size, onboard memory or the chip inside, shows an in-depth study by handset maker Ericsson. ""Historically in the industry there has been too much focus on using technology,"" said Dr Michael Bjorn, senior advisor on mobile media at Ericsson's consumer and enterprise lab. ""We have to stop saying that these technologies will change their lives,"" he said. ""We should try to speak to consumers in their own language and help them see how it fits in with what they are doing,"" he told the BBC News website.

For the study, Ericsson interviewed 14,000 mobile phone owners on the ways they use their phone. ""People's habits remain the same,"" said Dr Bjorn. ""They just move the activity into the mobile phone as it's a much more convenient way to do it.""

One good example of this was diary-writing among younger people, he said. While diaries have always been popular, a mobile phone -- especially one equipped with a camera -- helps them keep it in a different form. Youngsters' use of text messages also reflects their desire to chat and keep in contact with friends and again just lets them do it in a slightly changed way. Dr Bjorn said that although consumers do what they always did but use a phone to do it, the sheer variety of what the new handset technologies make possible does gradually drive new habits and lifestyles. Ericsson's research has shown that consumers divide into different ""tribes"" that use phones in different ways. Dr Bjorn said groups dubbed ""pioneers"" and ""materialists"" were most interested in trying new things and were behind the start of many trends in phone use. ""For instance,"" he said, ""older people are using SMS much more than they did five years ago."" This was because younger users, often the children of ageing mobile owners, encouraged older people to try it so they could keep in touch.

Another factor governing the speed of change in mobile phone use was the simple speed with which new devices are bought by pioneers and materialists. Only when about 25% of people have handsets with new innovations on them, such as cameras, can consumers stop worrying that if they send a picture message the person at the other end will be able to see it.

Once this significant number of users is passed, use of new innovations tends to take off. Dr Bjorn said that early reports of camera phone usage in Japan seemed to imply that the innovation was going to be a flop. However, he said, now 45% of the Japanese people Ericsson questioned use their camera phone at least once a month. In 2003 the figure was 29%. Similarly, across Europe the numbers of people taking snaps with cameras is starting to rise. In 2003 only 4% of the people in the UK took a phonecam snap at least once a month. Now the figure is 14%. Similar rises have been seen in many other European nations. Dr Bjorn said that people also used their camera phones in very different ways to film and even digital cameras. ""Usage patterns for digital cameras are almost exactly replacing usage patterns for analogue cameras,"" he said. Digital cameras tend to be used on significant events such as weddings, holidays and birthdays. By contrast, he said, camera phones were being used much more to capture a moment and were being woven into everyday life.
","Dr Bjorn said that people also used their camera phones in very different ways to film and even digital cameras.However, he said, now 45% of the Japanese people Ericsson questioned use their camera phone at least once a month.Dr Bjorn said that early reports of camera phone usage in Japan seemed to imply that the innovation was going to be a flop.Dr Bjorn said that although consumers do what they always did but use a phone to do it, the sheer variety of what the new handset technologies make possible does gradually drive new habits and lifestyles.For the study, Ericsson interviewed 14,000 mobile phone owners on the ways they use their phone.Dr Bjorn said groups dubbed ""pioneers"" and ""materialists"" were most interested in trying new things and were behind the start of many trends in phone use.By contrast, he said, camera phones were being used much more to capture a moment and were being woven into everyday life.While diaries have always been popular, a mobile phone -- especially one equipped with a camera -- helps them keep it in a different form.""Historically in the industry there has been too much focus on using technology,"" said Dr Michael Bjorn, senior advisor on mobile media at Ericsson's consumer and enterprise lab.Another factor governing the speed of change in mobile phone use was the simple speed with which new devices are bought by pioneers and materialists.One good example of this was diary-writing among younger people, he said.""They just move the activity into the mobile phone as it's a much more convenient way to do it.""""People's habits remain the same,"" said Dr Bjorn."
"Search sites get closer to users

Search sites want to get to know you better.

Not content with providing access to the millions of websites, many now offer ways that do a better job of remembering, cataloguing and managing all the information you come across. Some of the latest to update their search systems are Ask Jeeves and Blinkx, which have both released a series of utilities that try to help people get more from the web. ""The future is all about developing your own personal web,"" said Tony Macklin, spokesman for Ask Jeeves.

Mr Macklin said that too often when people use a search engine it was like the first time they ever used it, because there was no memory of what they had searched for before. ""Each time you go back in you have to start all over again,"" he said. The series of updates to its service, collected under the My Ask Jeeves banner, would help people remember where they had been before.

Ask Jeeves has added the ability to ""save"" websites of interest so the next time a users visits the site they can search through the sites they have previously found. Sites saved in this way can be arranged in folders and have notes attached to them to explain why they were saved. Mr Macklin said many people wanted to save sites they had seen but did not want to add them to their bookmarks or favourites not least because such lists cannot be easily searched. On average, said Mr Macklin, users conduct between five and 10 searches per day and the tools in My Ask Jeeves should stop them having to do searches twice and get to what they want much more easily. Under My Ask Jeeves users can search the web or through the results they have already noted as interesting. ""It's about finding again what you found before,"" he said. The My Ask Jeeves service lets people store up to a 1000 web links or 5000 if they sign up to the free service. By way of comparison Google's Desktop search tool catalogues search histories informally and lets people look through the sites they have visited.

At the same time, search start-up Blinkx has released a second version of its eponymous software. Blinkx is desktop search software that watches what someone is working on, be it a document or e-mail, and suggests websites, video clips, blogs or documents on a PC that are relevant to it.

Since Blinkx launched it has faced increased competition from firms such as Google, Copernic, Enfish, X1 and Apple all of whom now have programs that let people search their PC as well as the web. ""The competition has validated the problem we tackle,"" said Suranga Chandratillake, co-founder of Blinkx. In the latest release of Blinkx, the company has added what it calls smart folders. Once created the folders act as persistent queries that automatically sweep the web for pages related to their subject and catalogues relevant information, documents or incoming e-mails, on hard drives too. What users do with Blinkx and other desktop search engines shows that people tend to be very promiscuous in their use of search engines. ""Blinkx users do not stop using other web search systems,"" he said. ""They might use Google to look up a company, or Yahoo for travel because they know they are good at that,"" he said. ""The classic thing we have seen recently, is people using Blinkx to look at the things they have searched on,"" he said. The variety of ways to search data was only helping users, said Mr Chandratillake and that it was likely that in the future people would use different ones for different tasks.
","""Blinkx users do not stop using other web search systems,"" he said.Some of the latest to update their search systems are Ask Jeeves and Blinkx, which have both released a series of utilities that try to help people get more from the web.On average, said Mr Macklin, users conduct between five and 10 searches per day and the tools in My Ask Jeeves should stop them having to do searches twice and get to what they want much more easily.What users do with Blinkx and other desktop search engines shows that people tend to be very promiscuous in their use of search engines.By way of comparison Google's Desktop search tool catalogues search histories informally and lets people look through the sites they have visited.Mr Macklin said that too often when people use a search engine it was like the first time they ever used it, because there was no memory of what they had searched for before.Under My Ask Jeeves users can search the web or through the results they have already noted as interesting.Ask Jeeves has added the ability to ""save"" websites of interest so the next time a users visits the site they can search through the sites they have previously found.The variety of ways to search data was only helping users, said Mr Chandratillake and that it was likely that in the future people would use different ones for different tasks.Since Blinkx launched it has faced increased competition from firms such as Google, Copernic, Enfish, X1 and Apple all of whom now have programs that let people search their PC as well as the web.""The future is all about developing your own personal web,"" said Tony Macklin, spokesman for Ask Jeeves."
"Anti-spam screensaver scrapped

A contentious campaign to bump up the bandwidth bills of spammers by flooding their sites with data has been dropped.

Lycos Europe's Make Love, Not Spam campaign began in late November but its tactics proved controversial. Lycos has shut down the campaign saying it had been started to stimulate debate about anti-spam measures and had now achieved this aim. The anti-spammer screensaver came under fire for encouraging vigilante activity and skirting the edge of the law.

Through the Make Love, Not Spam website, users could download a screensaver that would endlessly request data from the net sites mentioned in many junk mail messages. More than 100,000 people are thought to have downloaded the screensaver that Lycos Europe offered.

The company wanted to keep the spam sites running at near total capacity to make it much less financially attractive to spammers to operate the sites. But the campaign was controversial from the moment it kicked off and many net veterans criticised it for using spamming-type tactics against the senders of junk mail. Some net service firms began blocking access to the Lycos Europe site in protest at the action. Monitoring firm Netcraft found that the anti-spam campaign was proving a little too successful. According to response-time figures gathered by Netcraft, some of the sites that the screensaver targeted were being knocked offline by the constant data requests. In a statement from Lycos Europe announcing the scrapping of the scheme, the company denied that this was its fault. ""There is nothing to suggest that Make Love, Not Spam has brought down any of the sites that it has targeted,"" it said. ""At the time that Netcraft measured the sites it claims may have been brought down, they were not in fact part of the Make Love, Not Spam attack cycle,"" it added. The statement issued by Lycos also said that the centralised database it used ensured that traffic to the target sites left them with 5% spare capacity. ""The idea was simply to slow spammers' sites and this was achieved by the campaign,"" the company said. Many security organisations said users should not participate in the Lycos Europe campaign. The closure comes only days after the campaign was suspended following the outbreak of criticism.
","""The idea was simply to slow spammers' sites and this was achieved by the campaign,"" the company said.Lycos Europe's Make Love, Not Spam campaign began in late November but its tactics proved controversial.Many security organisations said users should not participate in the Lycos Europe campaign.""There is nothing to suggest that Make Love, Not Spam has brought down any of the sites that it has targeted,"" it said.Through the Make Love, Not Spam website, users could download a screensaver that would endlessly request data from the net sites mentioned in many junk mail messages.Some net service firms began blocking access to the Lycos Europe site in protest at the action.A contentious campaign to bump up the bandwidth bills of spammers by flooding their sites with data has been dropped.In a statement from Lycos Europe announcing the scrapping of the scheme, the company denied that this was its fault."
"Europe backs digital TV lifestyle

How people receive their digital entertainment in the future could change, following the launch of an ambitious European project.

In Nice last week, the European Commission announced its Networked & Electronic Media (NEM) initiative. Its broad scope stretches from the way media is created, through each of the stages of its distribution, to its playback. The Commission wants people to be able to locate the content they desire and have it delivered seamlessly, when on the move, at home or at work, no matter who supplies the devices, network, content, or content protection scheme. More than 120 experts were in Nice to share the vision of interconnected future and hear pledges of support from companies such as Nokia, Intel, Philips, Alcatel, France Telecom, Thomson and Telefonica. It might initially appear to be surprising that companies in direct competition are keen to work together. But again and again, speakers stated they could not see incompatible, stand-alone solutions working. A long-term strategy for the evolution and convergence of technologies and services would be required.

The European Commission is being pragmatic in its approach. They have identified that many groups have defined the forms of digital media in the areas that NEM encompasses. The NEM approach is to take a serious look at what is available and what is in the pipeline, pick out the best, bring them together and identify where the gaps are. Where it finds holes, it will develop standards to fill them. What is significant is that such a large and powerful organisation has stated its desire for digital formats to be open to all and work on any gadget. This is bound to please, if not surprise, many individuals and user organisations who feel that the wishes of the holder of rights to content are normally considered over and above those of the consumer. Many feel that the most difficult and challenging area for the Commission will be to identify a solution for different Digital Rights Management (DRM) schemes. Currently DRM solutions are incompatible, locking certain types of purchased content, making them unplayable on all platforms. With the potential of having a percentage of every media transaction that takes place globally, the prize for being the supplier of the world's dominant DRM scheme is huge. Although entertainment is an obvious first step, it will encompass the remote provisions of healthcare, energy efficiency and control of the smart home. The 10-year plan brings together the work of many currently running research projects that the EC has been funding for a number of years.

Simon Perry is the editor of the Digital Lifestyles website, which covers the impact of technology on media
","Many feel that the most difficult and challenging area for the Commission will be to identify a solution for different Digital Rights Management (DRM) schemes.They have identified that many groups have defined the forms of digital media in the areas that NEM encompasses.How people receive their digital entertainment in the future could change, following the launch of an ambitious European project.The Commission wants people to be able to locate the content they desire and have it delivered seamlessly, when on the move, at home or at work, no matter who supplies the devices, network, content, or content protection scheme.What is significant is that such a large and powerful organisation has stated its desire for digital formats to be open to all and work on any gadget.Simon Perry is the editor of the Digital Lifestyles website, which covers the impact of technology on mediaThe 10-year plan brings together the work of many currently running research projects that the EC has been funding for a number of years.The European Commission is being pragmatic in its approach."
"TV future in the hands of viewers

With home theatre systems, plasma high-definition TVs, and digital video recorders moving into the living room, the way people watch TV will be radically different in five years' time.

That is according to an expert panel which gathered at the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas to discuss how these new technologies will impact one of our favourite pastimes. With the US leading the trend, programmes and other content will be delivered to viewers via home networks, through cable, satellite, telecoms companies, and broadband service providers to front rooms and portable devices.

One of the most talked-about technologies of CES has been digital and personal video recorders (DVR and PVR). These set-top boxes, like the US's TiVo and the UK's Sky+ system, allow people to record, store, play, pause and forward wind TV programmes when they want.

Essentially, the technology allows for much more personalised TV. They are also being built-in to high-definition TV sets, which are big business in Japan and the US, but slower to take off in Europe because of the lack of high-definition programming. Not only can people forward wind through adverts, they can also forget about abiding by network and channel schedules, putting together their own a-la-carte entertainment. But some US networks and cable and satellite companies are worried about what it means for them in terms of advertising revenues as well as ""brand identity"" and viewer loyalty to channels. Although the US leads in this technology at the moment, it is also a concern that is being raised in Europe, particularly with the growing uptake of services like Sky+. ""What happens here today, we will see in nine months to a years' time in the UK,"" Adam Hume, the BBC Broadcast's futurologist told the BBC News website. For the likes of the BBC, there are no issues of lost advertising revenue yet. It is a more pressing issue at the moment for commercial UK broadcasters, but brand loyalty is important for everyone. ""We will be talking more about content brands rather than network brands,"" said Tim Hanlon, from brand communications firm Starcom MediaVest. ""The reality is that with broadband connections, anybody can be the producer of content."" He added: ""The challenge now is that it is hard to promote a programme with so much choice.""

What this means, said Stacey Jolna, senior vice president of TV Guide TV group, is that the way people find the content they want to watch has to be simplified for TV viewers. It means that networks, in US terms, or channels could take a leaf out of Google's book and be the search engine of the future, instead of the scheduler to help people find what they want to watch. This kind of channel model might work for the younger iPod generation which is used to taking control of their gadgets and what they play on them. But it might not suit everyone, the panel recognised. Older generations are more comfortable with familiar schedules and channel brands because they know what they are getting. They perhaps do not want so much of the choice put into their hands, Mr Hanlon suggested. ""On the other end, you have the kids just out of diapers who are pushing buttons already - everything is possible and available to them,"" said Mr Hanlon. ""Ultimately, the consumer will tell the market they want.""

Of the 50,000 new gadgets and technologies being showcased at CES, many of them are about enhancing the TV-watching experience. High-definition TV sets are everywhere and many new models of LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) TVs have been launched with DVR capability built into them, instead of being external boxes. One such example launched at the show is Humax's 26-inch LCD TV with an 80-hour TiVo DVR and DVD recorder. One of the US's biggest satellite TV companies, DirectTV, has even launched its own branded DVR at the show with 100-hours of recording capability, instant replay, and a search function. The set can pause and rewind TV for up to 90 hours. And Microsoft chief Bill Gates announced in his pre-show keynote speech a partnership with TiVo, called TiVoToGo, which means people can play recorded programmes on Windows PCs and mobile devices. All these reflect the increasing trend of freeing up multimedia so that people can watch what they want, when they want.
","What this means, said Stacey Jolna, senior vice president of TV Guide TV group, is that the way people find the content they want to watch has to be simplified for TV viewers.These set-top boxes, like the US's TiVo and the UK's Sky+ system, allow people to record, store, play, pause and forward wind TV programmes when they want.Essentially, the technology allows for much more personalised TV.With home theatre systems, plasma high-definition TVs, and digital video recorders moving into the living room, the way people watch TV will be radically different in five years' time.It means that networks, in US terms, or channels could take a leaf out of Google's book and be the search engine of the future, instead of the scheduler to help people find what they want to watch.High-definition TV sets are everywhere and many new models of LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) TVs have been launched with DVR capability built into them, instead of being external boxes.One such example launched at the show is Humax's 26-inch LCD TV with an 80-hour TiVo DVR and DVD recorder.One of the US's biggest satellite TV companies, DirectTV, has even launched its own branded DVR at the show with 100-hours of recording capability, instant replay, and a search function.All these reflect the increasing trend of freeing up multimedia so that people can watch what they want, when they want.But some US networks and cable and satellite companies are worried about what it means for them in terms of advertising revenues as well as ""brand identity"" and viewer loyalty to channels.With the US leading the trend, programmes and other content will be delivered to viewers via home networks, through cable, satellite, telecoms companies, and broadband service providers to front rooms and portable devices.They perhaps do not want so much of the choice put into their hands, Mr Hanlon suggested.One of the most talked-about technologies of CES has been digital and personal video recorders (DVR and PVR)."
"Cyber criminals step up the pace

So-called phishing attacks that try to trick people into handing over confidential details have boomed in 2004, say security experts.

The number of phishing e-mail messages stopped by security firm MessageLabs has risen more than tenfold in less than 12 months. In 2004 it detected more than 18 million phishing e-mail messages. Other statistics show that in 2004 73% of all e-mail was spam and one in 16 messages were infected with a virus.

In its end-of-year report, MessageLabs said that phishing had become the top security threat and most popular form of attack among cyber criminals. In September 2003, MessageLabs caught only 273 phishing e-mails that tried to make people visit fake versions of the websites run by real banks and financial organisations. But by September 2004 it was stopping more than two million phishing related e-mail messages per month. Worryingly, said the firm, phishing gangs were using increasingly sophisticated techniques to harvest useful information such as login details or personal data.

Older attacks relied on users not spotting the fact that the site they were visiting was fake, but more recent phishing e-mails simply try to steal details as soon as a message is opened. Other phishing scams try to recruit innocent people into acting as middlemen for laundering money or goods bought with stolen credit cards. ""E-mail security attacks remain unabated in their persistence and ferocity,"" said Mark Sunner, chief technology officer at MessageLabs. ""In just 12 months phishing has firmly established itself as a threat to any organisation or individual conducting business online,"" he said. Mr Sunner said MessageLabs was starting to see some phishing attacks become very focused on one company or organisation. ""Already particular businesses are threatened and blackmailed, indicating a shift from the random, scattergun approach, to customised attacks designed to take advantage of the perceived weaknesses of some businesses,"" he said. Although phishing attacks grew substantially throughout 2004, viruses and spam remain popular with cyber-criminals and vandals. One of the biggest outbreaks took place in January when the MyDoom virus started circulating. To date the company has caught more than 60 million copies of the virus. Also up this year was the amount of spam in circulation. In 2003 only 40% of messages were spam. But by the end of 2004, almost three-quarters of messages were junk.
","But by September 2004 it was stopping more than two million phishing related e-mail messages per month.Mr Sunner said MessageLabs was starting to see some phishing attacks become very focused on one company or organisation.Other statistics show that in 2004 73% of all e-mail was spam and one in 16 messages were infected with a virus.The number of phishing e-mail messages stopped by security firm MessageLabs has risen more than tenfold in less than 12 months.Older attacks relied on users not spotting the fact that the site they were visiting was fake, but more recent phishing e-mails simply try to steal details as soon as a message is opened.In 2004 it detected more than 18 million phishing e-mail messages.Although phishing attacks grew substantially throughout 2004, viruses and spam remain popular with cyber-criminals and vandals.In its end-of-year report, MessageLabs said that phishing had become the top security threat and most popular form of attack among cyber criminals."
"Gritty return for Prince of Persia

Still basking in the relatively recent glory of last year's Sands Of Time, the dashing Prince of Persia is back in Warrior Within, and in a more bellicose mood than last time.

This sequel gives the franchise a grim, gritty new look and ramps up the action and violence. As before, you control the super-athletic prince from a third-person perspective. The time-travelling plot hinges on the Dahaka, an all-consuming monster pursuing our hero through the ages. The only way to dispel it is to turn back the clock again and kill the sultry Empress Of Time before she ever creates the Sands of Time that caused the great beast's creation.

Studiously structured though this back story is, everything boils down to old-fashioned fantasy gameplay which proves, on the whole, as dependable as it needs to be. Ever since the series' then-groundbreaking beginnings on the Commodore Amiga, Prince of Persia has always been about meticulously-animated acrobatic moves, that provide an energetic blend of leaping preposterously between pieces of scenery and lopping off enemies' body parts.

Those flashy moves are back in full evidence, and tremendous fun to perform and perfect. Combining them at speed is the best fun, although getting a handle of doing so takes practice and plenty of skill. Until you reach that point, it is a haphazard business. All too often, you will perform a stunning triple somersault, pirouette off a wall, knock out three enemies in one glorious swoop, before plummeting purposefully over a cliff to your doom. That in turn can mean getting set back an annoyingly long distance, for you can only save at the fountains dotted along the path. The expected fiendish puzzles are all present and correct, but combat is what is really been stepped up, and there is more of it than before. The game's developers have combined acrobatic flair with gruesome slaying techniques in some wonderfully imaginative ways. Slicing foes down the middle is one particularly entertaining method of seeing them off.

Warrior Within is a very slick package; the game's intro movie is so phenomenally good that it actually does an ultimate disservice once the game itself commences.

It is on a par with the jaw-dropping opening sequence of Onimusha 3 earlier this year, and when the game begins, it is something of an anti-climax. That said, the graphics are excellent, and indeed among the most striking and satisfying elements of the game. The music is probably the worst aspect - a merit-free heavy metal soundtrack that you will swiftly want to turn off. There is something strangely unsatisfying about the game. Perhaps precisely because its graphics and mechanics are so good that the story and overall experience are not quite as engaging as they should be. Somehow it adds up to less than the sum of its parts, and is more technically impressive than it is outright enjoyable. But that is not to say Warrior Within is anything other than a superb adventure that most will thoroughly enjoy. It just does not quite take the character to the new heights that might have been hoped for.
","Still basking in the relatively recent glory of last year's Sands Of Time, the dashing Prince of Persia is back in Warrior Within, and in a more bellicose mood than last time.Warrior Within is a very slick package; the game's intro movie is so phenomenally good that it actually does an ultimate disservice once the game itself commences.The only way to dispel it is to turn back the clock again and kill the sultry Empress Of Time before she ever creates the Sands of Time that caused the great beast's creation.Those flashy moves are back in full evidence, and tremendous fun to perform and perfect.That in turn can mean getting set back an annoyingly long distance, for you can only save at the fountains dotted along the path.There is something strangely unsatisfying about the game.It just does not quite take the character to the new heights that might have been hoped for.Ever since the series' then-groundbreaking beginnings on the Commodore Amiga, Prince of Persia has always been about meticulously-animated acrobatic moves, that provide an energetic blend of leaping preposterously between pieces of scenery and lopping off enemies' body parts.It is on a par with the jaw-dropping opening sequence of Onimusha 3 earlier this year, and when the game begins, it is something of an anti-climax.That said, the graphics are excellent, and indeed among the most striking and satisfying elements of the game."
"Disney backs Sony DVD technology

A next generation DVD technology backed by Sony has received a major boost.

Film giant Disney says it will produce its future DVDs using Sony's Blu-ray Disc technology, but has not ruled out a rival format developed by Toshiba. The two competing DVD formats, Blu-ray developed by Sony and others, and Toshiba's HD-DVD, have been courting top film studios for several months. The next generation of DVDs promise very high quality pictures and sound, as well as a lot of data. Both technologies use a blue laser to write information. It has a shorter wavelength so more data can be stored. Disney is the latest studio to announce which technology it is backing in a format battle which mirrors the 1980s Betamax versus VHS war. Sony lost out to JVC in that fight.

The current battle for Hollywood's hearts and minds is a crucial one because high-definition films will bring in billions of revenue and the studios would prefer to use one standard. Last month, Paramount, Universal and Warner Brothers said they were opting for the Toshiba and NEC-backed format, HD-DVD high-definition discs.

Those studios currently produce about 45% of DVD content. Sony Pictures Entertainment and MGM Studios have already staked their allegiance with the Blu-ray Disc Association, whose members also include technology companies Dell, Samsung and Matsushita. Twentieth Century Fox is still to announce which technology it will be supporting. If Fox decided to go with Blu-ray too, it would mean the format would have a 47% share of DVD content. Disney said its films would be available on the Blu-ray format when DVD players for the standard went on sale on North America and Japan, expected in 2006. Universal is to start producing films on the HD-DVD format in 2005, and Paramount will start releasing titles using the standard in 2006. Toshiba expects sales of HD-DVDs to reach 300bn yen ($2.9bn, £1.5bn) by 2010.
","Film giant Disney says it will produce its future DVDs using Sony's Blu-ray Disc technology, but has not ruled out a rival format developed by Toshiba.A next generation DVD technology backed by Sony has received a major boost.Disney said its films would be available on the Blu-ray format when DVD players for the standard went on sale on North America and Japan, expected in 2006.The two competing DVD formats, Blu-ray developed by Sony and others, and Toshiba's HD-DVD, have been courting top film studios for several months.If Fox decided to go with Blu-ray too, it would mean the format would have a 47% share of DVD content.Disney is the latest studio to announce which technology it is backing in a format battle which mirrors the 1980s Betamax versus VHS war.Universal is to start producing films on the HD-DVD format in 2005, and Paramount will start releasing titles using the standard in 2006."
"Britons growing 'digitally obese'

Gadget lovers are so hungry for digital data many are carrying the equivalent of 10 trucks full of paper in ""weight"".

Music, images, e-mails, and texts are being hoarded on mobiles, cameras laptops and PDAs (Personal Digital Assistants), a Toshiba study found. It found that more than 60% kept 1,000 to 2,000 music files on their devices, making the UK ""digitally fat"". ""Virtual weight"" measurements are based on research by California Institute of Technology professor Roy Williams. He calculated physical comparisons for digital data in the mid-1990s. He worked out that one gigabyte (1,000,000,000 bytes) was the equivalent of a pick-up truck filled with paper. The amount of data people are squirreling away on their gadgets is clearly a sign that people are finding more things to do with their shiny things.

If digital hoarding habits continue on this scale, people could be carrying around a ""digitally obese"" 20 gigabytes by next year. ""Britain has become a nation of information hoarders with a ferocious appetite for data,"" said Martin Larsson, general manager of Toshiba's European storage device division.

""As storage capabilities increase and the features and functionalities of mobile devices expand to support movie files and entire libraries of multi-media content, we will all become virtually obese,"" he told the BBC News website. The survey reflects the increasing trend for portable devices with built-in hard drives like music and media players from Apple, Creative Labs, Archos, iRiver and others. This trend is set to grow, according to analysts. They suggest the number of hard drives in consumer electronics gadgets could grow from 17 million last year to 55 million in 2006. ""Consumers are driving the move towards smaller devices that have greater functionality, and industry is trying to keep up,"" said Mr Larsson. ""People are looking for more than just phone calls and text messages on the move, they want things like web browsing, e-mailing, music, photos and more.""

Many are finding memory keys and memory sticks are simply not big enough to hold everything.

""Floppies and memory keys have their place, but they don't have anything like the capacity or flexibility of a hard drive so are unable to meet the demand for more and more storage capacity in consumer devices,"" said Mr Larsson. The cost of making hard drives has dropped and is continuing to do so because of improved technologies so they are proving to be more cost-effective than other forms of memory, he added. The amount of data that can be stored has grown by 400% in the last three years, while the cost for every gigabyte has fallen by 80%. It is also getting easier to transfer files from one device to another, which has traditionally been a slow and problematic area. ""Transfer of data between different memory types has improved significantly in recent times, and will be further helped by the standards for hard drives which are currently being developed by the major manufacturers,"" said Mr Larsson. According to technology analysts IDC, a fifth of all hard drives produced will be used in consumer electronics by 2007.
","""Transfer of data between different memory types has improved significantly in recent times, and will be further helped by the standards for hard drives which are currently being developed by the major manufacturers,"" said Mr Larsson.The cost of making hard drives has dropped and is continuing to do so because of improved technologies so they are proving to be more cost-effective than other forms of memory, he added.""Floppies and memory keys have their place, but they don't have anything like the capacity or flexibility of a hard drive so are unable to meet the demand for more and more storage capacity in consumer devices,"" said Mr Larsson.Gadget lovers are so hungry for digital data many are carrying the equivalent of 10 trucks full of paper in ""weight"".They suggest the number of hard drives in consumer electronics gadgets could grow from 17 million last year to 55 million in 2006.""Britain has become a nation of information hoarders with a ferocious appetite for data,"" said Martin Larsson, general manager of Toshiba's European storage device division.According to technology analysts IDC, a fifth of all hard drives produced will be used in consumer electronics by 2007.The survey reflects the increasing trend for portable devices with built-in hard drives like music and media players from Apple, Creative Labs, Archos, iRiver and others.The amount of data that can be stored has grown by 400% in the last three years, while the cost for every gigabyte has fallen by 80%."
"Halo 2 heralds traffic explosion

The growing popularity of online gaming could spell problems for net service firms, warns network monitoring company Sandvine.

It issued the warning following analysis which shows that traffic on the Xbox game network increased fourfold on the launch day of Halo 2. The 9 November traffic explosion has continued into December, said Sandvine. Service providers now need to make sure that their networks can cope with the increasing demands for bandwidth. As well as being a popular single-player title, Halo 2 can be connected to Microsoft's subscription-based broadband network, Xbox Live. Gamers who want to play online can create their own clan, or team, and take on others to see how well they compare.

But the surge in numbers and huge demands for bandwidth should be a wake-up call to the industry which must ensure that their networks can cope with the increases in traffic, said Sandvine's chief technology officer Marc Morin.

In a bid to cope and ease congestion, providers are increasingly making their networks intelligent, finding out who is using bandwidth and for what. It could become common to charge people for the amount of bandwidth they use. ""The explosion in Xbox Live traffic attributed to Halo 2 should be seen as a clarion call,"" he said. ""ISPs need to enhance the broadband experience for these high-end users by prioritising or reserving bandwidth for games,"" he added.

One of the main factors that spoils online gaming is ""lag"" in which there is a noticeable delay between a gamer clicking on a mouse or keyboard and what happens in the online gaming world. Gamers tend to migrate toward networks with the lowest ""lag"". Analysing traffic will become increasingly important for service providers if they are to hold on to bandwidth-hungry gamers said Lindsay Schroth, an analyst with research firm The Yankee Group. ""In the competitive broadband environment, operators need to differentiate the way they offer access to services like live-play gaming,"" she said. In countries such as Korea, which has high levels of fast net connections to homes, online gaming is hugely popular.
","Service providers now need to make sure that their networks can cope with the increasing demands for bandwidth.The growing popularity of online gaming could spell problems for net service firms, warns network monitoring company Sandvine.But the surge in numbers and huge demands for bandwidth should be a wake-up call to the industry which must ensure that their networks can cope with the increases in traffic, said Sandvine's chief technology officer Marc Morin.""The explosion in Xbox Live traffic attributed to Halo 2 should be seen as a clarion call,"" he said.As well as being a popular single-player title, Halo 2 can be connected to Microsoft's subscription-based broadband network, Xbox Live.In a bid to cope and ease congestion, providers are increasingly making their networks intelligent, finding out who is using bandwidth and for what.Analysing traffic will become increasingly important for service providers if they are to hold on to bandwidth-hungry gamers said Lindsay Schroth, an analyst with research firm The Yankee Group."
"Media gadgets get moving

Pocket-sized devices that let people carry around video and images are set to have a big year in 2005, according to industry experts.

Last year saw the emergence of portable media players, such as the Windows-based Creative Zen portable media player, the Samsung Yepp, the iRiver PMC-100, and the Archos AV400 series among others. But this year, they are set to get smarter and more connected, to allow people to find more video to watch on them. Archos launched its latest range of its Linux-based portable media devices at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas on Friday. Dubbed the Pocket Media Assistant PMA430, it crucially has wi-fi capability built-in for the first time. ""Consumers are showing a great thirst for devices that store all their media in one place for anywhere access,"" said Henri Crohas, chief of Archos. ""And now those consumers can stay connected and productive at the same time."" Archos said the focus for the device is to be the second gadget in people's pockets, after the mobile.

Unlike Windows-based players, the Archos AV400 series devices have always been able to record from any video source, such as TVs, as well as playback. The content put onto the devices is copy protected so cannot then be swapped to another device.

Recording is perhaps a crucial functionality for those who have not seen the point of portable video if there is not a lot of video to watch on it. And wi-fi connectivity opens up the possibility of content delivery via a high-speed wireless link. Archos also announced that it would open up the software development kit to Linux developers so that more applications could be created for the device. Microsoft also made some announcements in the portable media arena at CES, primarily for US consumers though. It has agreed a content deal with personal video recorder company TiVo, which Bill Gates also showcased in his keynote speech at CES. The TiVo To Go service means that US consumers will be able to take any programmes they record on their TiVos and transfer it for free to watch on any of the Windows-based portable media players or smartphones. It also said it had launched a service with MTV to let people watch Comedy Central, VH1 and Country Music TV on its devices. And a service is launching with MSN to provide people with shortened versions of news, entertainment and other video on a subscription basis for download via the PC onto the portable devices. But the ability to record directly from TV, VCR, and digital cable and satellite boxes, which Windows-based devices do not offer, certainly gives people more content to watch on the go too.

The increased capability of these devices, and the content deals that are being done, may go some way to persuading people to use them. Recent research by Jupiter suggested that people would prefer a device that was dedicated to music. Only 13% of Europeans wanted to watch video while on the move. More seemed interested in spending their cash on music-only devices.

""This year, we are ready for an explosion of portable media,"" Microsoft's Mike Coleman told the BBC News website. ""We are very bullish about it. The fact that I can put photos on here too and share them is super-cool to the consumer,"" he added. The fact that Europeans are far larger public transport users than Americans is one reason why portable media will take off in the coming year too. There is a burgeoning market there for commuters to watch news and other programmes on their way to work. Although Microsoft's content distribution deals are for the US market at the moment, talks were ""always on-going"" with European content suppliers to offer similar services. Various rights management issues have to be ironed out first however. But that does not prevent people from finding ways to create their own content to share online and swap on portable devices, particularly via those which are wi-fi enabled. The possibility is open for non-professional makers of video and audio to take advantage of the growing portable media market to distribute their work. CES, which runs from 6 to 9 January, showcases more than 50,000 new gadgets that will be hitting the shelves in 2005.
","The TiVo To Go service means that US consumers will be able to take any programmes they record on their TiVos and transfer it for free to watch on any of the Windows-based portable media players or smartphones.Archos launched its latest range of its Linux-based portable media devices at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas on Friday.But that does not prevent people from finding ways to create their own content to share online and swap on portable devices, particularly via those which are wi-fi enabled.But the ability to record directly from TV, VCR, and digital cable and satellite boxes, which Windows-based devices do not offer, certainly gives people more content to watch on the go too.But this year, they are set to get smarter and more connected, to allow people to find more video to watch on them.And a service is launching with MSN to provide people with shortened versions of news, entertainment and other video on a subscription basis for download via the PC onto the portable devices.The possibility is open for non-professional makers of video and audio to take advantage of the growing portable media market to distribute their work.Last year saw the emergence of portable media players, such as the Windows-based Creative Zen portable media player, the Samsung Yepp, the iRiver PMC-100, and the Archos AV400 series among others.Recording is perhaps a crucial functionality for those who have not seen the point of portable video if there is not a lot of video to watch on it.Microsoft also made some announcements in the portable media arena at CES, primarily for US consumers though.Pocket-sized devices that let people carry around video and images are set to have a big year in 2005, according to industry experts.Unlike Windows-based players, the Archos AV400 series devices have always been able to record from any video source, such as TVs, as well as playback.It also said it had launched a service with MTV to let people watch Comedy Central, VH1 and Country Music TV on its devices.The increased capability of these devices, and the content deals that are being done, may go some way to persuading people to use them."
"Satellite mapping aids Darfur relief

Aid workers trying to house, feed and clothe millions of homeless refugees in the Sudanese region of Darfur are getting a helping hand from advanced mapping technology.

A European consortium of companies and university groups known as Respond is working to provide accurate and up to date maps. The aim is to overcome some of the huge logistical challenges in getting supplies to where they are needed. Respond is using satellite imagery to produce accurate maps that can be used in the field rapidly. ""Respond has produced very detailed maps for example for the road networks, for the rivers and for the villages, to more large-scale maps useful for very general planning purposes,"" said Einar Bjorgo from Unosat, the UN satellite mapping organisation that is part of the Respond consortium.

The group uses satellites from Nasa, the European Space Agency and the Disaster Monitoring Constellation. The satellite data is transmitted to ground stations. From there, the information makes its way to Respond organisations that specialise in interpreting such data. ""You have to convert the data into images, then the interpreter has to convert all this into crisis, damage, or situation maps,"" said Stefan Voigt, who works in the remote sensing department of one of those organisations, the German Aerospace Centre.

This kind of detailed analysis usually takes a couple of months but Respond gets it done in about 12 hours. ""Our users are usually not so much familiar with reading satellite imagery, reading satellite maps, so it's our task to transfer the data into information that non-technical people can read and understand easily and very, very efficiently,"" said Mr Voigt. Respond supplies maps to aid groups via the web, and on compact disc. But the best map is one you can hold in your hands, especially in remote areas where internet connections and laptops are scarce. ""A map is a working document,"" explains Herbert Hansen of Respond's Belgian partner Keyobs. ""You need to use it, you need to write on it, correct, give feedback and so on, so you need paper to write on. ""We print maps, we laminate the maps, we encapsulate the maps if needed so you can take a shower with the map, it's completely protected.""

Humanitarian groups in Darfur have been making good use of Respond's maps. They have come in especially handy during Sudan's rainy season, when normally dry riverbeds, or wadis, became flooded. ""These wadis had a very small amount of flooding, generally, in terms of depth, but greatly impeded the transport capabilities and capacities of the humanitarian groups on the ground,"" says Stephen Candillon of Respond imaging partner Sertit. Respond's rapid imaging has allowed aid groups to find ways around the wadis, allowing then to mark on their maps which roads were washed out at which times. Aid groups say that combination of satellite technology and on-the-ground observation helped keep relief flowing to those who needed it.

Clark Boyd is technology correspondent for The World, a BBC World Service and WGBH-Boston co-production
","Respond supplies maps to aid groups via the web, and on compact disc.""Respond has produced very detailed maps for example for the road networks, for the rivers and for the villages, to more large-scale maps useful for very general planning purposes,"" said Einar Bjorgo from Unosat, the UN satellite mapping organisation that is part of the Respond consortium.Respond is using satellite imagery to produce accurate maps that can be used in the field rapidly.Respond's rapid imaging has allowed aid groups to find ways around the wadis, allowing then to mark on their maps which roads were washed out at which times.""We print maps, we laminate the maps, we encapsulate the maps if needed so you can take a shower with the map, it's completely protected.""A European consortium of companies and university groups known as Respond is working to provide accurate and up to date maps.Aid groups say that combination of satellite technology and on-the-ground observation helped keep relief flowing to those who needed it.Humanitarian groups in Darfur have been making good use of Respond's maps.""Our users are usually not so much familiar with reading satellite imagery, reading satellite maps, so it's our task to transfer the data into information that non-technical people can read and understand easily and very, very efficiently,"" said Mr Voigt."
"Disney backs Sony DVD technology

A next generation DVD technology backed by Sony has received a major boost.

Film giant Disney says it will produce its future DVDs using Sony's Blu-ray Disc technology, but has not ruled out a rival format developed by Toshiba. The two competing DVD formats, Blu-ray developed by Sony and others, and Toshiba's HD-DVD, have been courting top film studios for several months. The next generation of DVDs promises very high quality pictures and sound, as well as a lot of data. Both technologies use a blue laser to write information. It has a shorter wavelength so more data can be stored. Disney is the latest studio to announce which technology it is backing in a format battle which mirrors the 1980s Betamax versus VHS war. Sony lost out to JVC in that fight.

The current battle for Hollywood's hearts and minds is a crucial one because high-definition films will bring in billions of revenue and the studios would prefer to use one standard. Last month, Paramount, Universal and Warner Brothers said they were opting for the Toshiba and NEC-backed format, HD-DVD high-definition discs.

Those studios currently produce about 45% of DVD content. Sony Pictures Entertainment and MGM Studios have already staked their allegiance with the Blu-ray Disc Association, whose members also include technology companies Dell, Samsung and Matsushita. Twentieth Century Fox is still to announce which technology it will be supporting. If Fox decided to go with Blu-ray too, it would mean the format would have a 47% share of DVD content. Disney said its films would be available on the Blu-ray format when DVD players for the standard went on sale on North America and Japan, expected in 2006. Universal is to start producing films on the HD-DVD format in 2005, and Paramount will start releasing titles using the standard in 2006. Toshiba expects sales of HD-DVDs to reach 300bn yen ($2.9bn, £1.5bn) by 2010.
","Film giant Disney says it will produce its future DVDs using Sony's Blu-ray Disc technology, but has not ruled out a rival format developed by Toshiba.A next generation DVD technology backed by Sony has received a major boost.Disney said its films would be available on the Blu-ray format when DVD players for the standard went on sale on North America and Japan, expected in 2006.The two competing DVD formats, Blu-ray developed by Sony and others, and Toshiba's HD-DVD, have been courting top film studios for several months.If Fox decided to go with Blu-ray too, it would mean the format would have a 47% share of DVD content.Disney is the latest studio to announce which technology it is backing in a format battle which mirrors the 1980s Betamax versus VHS war.Universal is to start producing films on the HD-DVD format in 2005, and Paramount will start releasing titles using the standard in 2006."
"Lifestyle 'governs mobile choice'

Faster, better or funkier hardware alone is not going to help phone firms sell more handsets, research suggests.

Instead, phone firms keen to get more out of their customers should not just be pushing the technology for its own sake. Consumers are far more interested in how handsets fit in with their lifestyle than they are in screen size, onboard memory or the chip inside, shows an in-depth study by telecommunications company Ericsson. ""Historically in the industry there has been too much focus on using technology,"" said Dr Michael Bjorn, senior advisor on mobile media at Ericsson's consumer and enterprise lab. ""We have to stop saying that these technologies will change their lives,"" he said. ""We should try to speak to consumers in their own language and help them see how it fits in with what they are doing,"" he told the BBC News website.

For the study, Ericsson interviewed 14,000 mobile phone owners on the ways they use their phone. ""People's habits remain the same,"" said Dr Bjorn. ""They just move the activity into the mobile phone as it's a much more convenient way to do it.""

One good example of this was diary-writing among younger people, he said. While diaries have always been popular, a mobile phone -- especially one equipped with a camera -- helps them keep it in a different form. Youngsters' use of text messages also reflects their desire to chat and keep in contact with friends and again just lets them do it in a slightly changed way. Dr Bjorn said that although consumers do what they always did but use a phone to do it, the sheer variety of what the new handset technologies make possible does gradually drive new habits and lifestyles. Ericsson's research has shown that consumers divide into different ""tribes"" that use phones in different ways. Dr Bjorn said groups dubbed ""pioneers"" and ""materialists"" were most interested in trying new things and were behind the start of many trends in phone use. ""For instance,"" he said, ""older people are using SMS much more than they did five years ago."" This was because younger users, often the children of ageing mobile owners, encouraged older people to try it so they could keep in touch.

Another factor governing the speed of change in mobile phone use was the simple speed with which new devices are bought by pioneers and materialists. Only when about 25% of people have handsets with new innovations on them, such as cameras, can consumers stop worrying that if they send a picture message the person at the other end will be able to see it.

Once this significant number of users is passed, use of new innovations tends to take off. Dr Bjorn said that early reports of camera phone usage in Japan seemed to imply that the innovation was going to be a flop. However, he said, now 45% of the Japanese people Ericsson questioned use their camera phone at least once a month. In 2003 the figure was 29%. Similarly, across Europe the numbers of people taking snaps with cameras is starting to rise. In 2003 only 4% of the people in the UK took a phonecam snap at least once a month. Now the figure is 14%. Similar rises have been seen in many other European nations. Dr Bjorn said that people also used their camera phones in very different ways to film and even digital cameras. ""Usage patterns for digital cameras are almost exactly replacing usage patterns for analogue cameras,"" he said. Digital cameras tend to be used on significant events such as weddings, holidays and birthdays. By contrast, he said, camera phones were being used much more to capture a moment and were being woven into everyday life.
","Dr Bjorn said that people also used their camera phones in very different ways to film and even digital cameras.However, he said, now 45% of the Japanese people Ericsson questioned use their camera phone at least once a month.Dr Bjorn said that early reports of camera phone usage in Japan seemed to imply that the innovation was going to be a flop.Dr Bjorn said that although consumers do what they always did but use a phone to do it, the sheer variety of what the new handset technologies make possible does gradually drive new habits and lifestyles.For the study, Ericsson interviewed 14,000 mobile phone owners on the ways they use their phone.Dr Bjorn said groups dubbed ""pioneers"" and ""materialists"" were most interested in trying new things and were behind the start of many trends in phone use.By contrast, he said, camera phones were being used much more to capture a moment and were being woven into everyday life.While diaries have always been popular, a mobile phone -- especially one equipped with a camera -- helps them keep it in a different form.""Historically in the industry there has been too much focus on using technology,"" said Dr Michael Bjorn, senior advisor on mobile media at Ericsson's consumer and enterprise lab.Another factor governing the speed of change in mobile phone use was the simple speed with which new devices are bought by pioneers and materialists.One good example of this was diary-writing among younger people, he said.""They just move the activity into the mobile phone as it's a much more convenient way to do it.""""People's habits remain the same,"" said Dr Bjorn."
"Millions to miss out on the net

By 2025, 40% of the UK's population will still be without internet access at home, says a study.

Around 23 million Britons will miss out on a wide range of essential services such as education and medical information, predicts the report by telecoms giant BT. It compares to 27 million, or 50%, of the UK, who are not currently online. The idea that the digital divide will evaporate with time is ""wishful thinking"", the report concludes.

The study calls on the government and telecoms industry to come up with new ways to lure those that have been bypassed by the digital revolution. Although the percentage of Britons without home access will have fallen slightly, those that remain digital refuseniks will miss out on more, the report suggests. As more and more everyday tasks move online and offline services become less comprehensive, the divide will become more obvious and more burdensome for those that have not got net access, it predicts.

The gap between ""have-nets"" and ""have-nots"" has been much talked about, but predictions about how such a divide will affect future generations has been less discussed. BT set out to predict future patterns based on current information and taking account of the way technology is changing. Optimists who predict that convergence and the emergence of more user-friendly technology will bridge the digital divide could be way off mark, the report suggests. ""Internet access on other devices tends to be something taken up by those who already have it,"" said Adrian Hosford, director of corporate responsibility at BT. Costs of internet access have fallen dramatically and coverage in remote areas have vastly improved over the last year but the real barrier remains psychological. ""There is a hard rump of have-nots who are not engaging with the net. They don't have the motivation or skills or perceive the benefits,"" said Mr Hosford.

As now, the most disadvantaged groups are likely to remain among low income families, the older generation and the disabled.

Those on low incomes will account for a quarter of the digital have-nots, the disabled will make up 16% and the elderly nearly a third by 2025, the report forecasts. Organisations such as BT have a responsibility to help tackle the problem, said Mr Hosford. The telco has seen positive results with its Everybody Online project which offers internet access to people in eight deprived communities around Britain. In one area of Cornwall with high levels of unemployment, online training helped people rewrite CVs and learn skills to get new jobs, explained Mr Hosford. Such grassroot activity addressing the specific needs of individual communities is essential is the problem of the digital divide is to be overcome, he said. ""If we don't address this problem now, it will get a lot worse and people will find it more difficult to find jobs, education opportunities will be limited and they'll simply not be able to keep up with society,"" he said. The Alliance for Digital Inclusion, an independent body with members drawn from government, industry and the voluntary sector has recently been set up to tackle some of the issues faced by the digital refuseniks.
","Although the percentage of Britons without home access will have fallen slightly, those that remain digital refuseniks will miss out on more, the report suggests.""Internet access on other devices tends to be something taken up by those who already have it,"" said Adrian Hosford, director of corporate responsibility at BT.Optimists who predict that convergence and the emergence of more user-friendly technology will bridge the digital divide could be way off mark, the report suggests.Organisations such as BT have a responsibility to help tackle the problem, said Mr Hosford.Such grassroot activity addressing the specific needs of individual communities is essential is the problem of the digital divide is to be overcome, he said.The idea that the digital divide will evaporate with time is ""wishful thinking"", the report concludes.Those on low incomes will account for a quarter of the digital have-nots, the disabled will make up 16% and the elderly nearly a third by 2025, the report forecasts.As more and more everyday tasks move online and offline services become less comprehensive, the divide will become more obvious and more burdensome for those that have not got net access, it predicts.The telco has seen positive results with its Everybody Online project which offers internet access to people in eight deprived communities around Britain."
"Spam e-mails tempt net shoppers

Computer users across the world continue to ignore security warnings about spam e-mails and are being lured into buying goods, a report suggests.

More than a quarter have bought software through spam e-mails and 24% have bought clothes or jewellery. As well as profiting from selling goods or services and driving advertising traffic, organised crime rings can use spam to glean personal information. The Business Software Alliance (BSA) warned that people should ""stay alert"". ""Many online consumers don't consider the true motives of spammers,"" said Mike Newton, a spokesperson for the BSA which commissioned the survey.

""By selling software that appears to be legitimate in genuine looking packaging or through sophisticated websites, spammers are hiding spyware without consumers' knowledge. ""Once the software is installed on PCs and networks, information that is given over the internet can be obtained and abused.""

The results also showed that the proportion of people reading - or admitting to reading - and taking advantage of adult entertainment spam e-mails is low, at one in 10. The research, which covered 6,000 people in six countries and their attitudes towards junk e-mails, revealed that Brazilians were the most likely to read spam. A third of them read unsolicited junk e-mail and 66% buy goods or services after receiving spam.

The French were the second most likely to buy something (48%), with 44% of Britons taking advantage of products and services. This was despite 38% of people in all countries being worried about their net security because of the amount of spam they get. More than a third of respondents said they were concerned that spam e-mails contained viruses or programs that attempted to collect personal information. ""Both industry and the media have helped to raise awareness of the issues that surround illegitimate e-mail, helping to reduce the potential financial damage and nuisance from phishing attacks and spoof websites,"" said William Plante, director of corporate security and fraud protection at security firm Symantec. ""At the same time, consumers need to continue exercising caution and protect themselves from harm with a mixture of spam filters, spyware detection software and sound judgement.""
","A third of them read unsolicited junk e-mail and 66% buy goods or services after receiving spam.More than a quarter have bought software through spam e-mails and 24% have bought clothes or jewellery.More than a third of respondents said they were concerned that spam e-mails contained viruses or programs that attempted to collect personal information.The results also showed that the proportion of people reading - or admitting to reading - and taking advantage of adult entertainment spam e-mails is low, at one in 10.This was despite 38% of people in all countries being worried about their net security because of the amount of spam they get.The research, which covered 6,000 people in six countries and their attitudes towards junk e-mails, revealed that Brazilians were the most likely to read spam."
"More power to the people says HP

The digital revolution is focused on letting people tell and share their own stories, according to Carly Fiorina, chief of technology giant Hewlett Packard.

The job of firms such as HP now, she said in a speech at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), was to ensure digital and physical worlds fully converged. She said the goal for 2005 was to make people the centre of technology. CES showcases 50,000 new gadgets that will be hitting the shelves in 2005. The tech-fest, the largest of its kind in the world, runs from 6 to 9 January. ""The digital revolution is about the democratisation of technology and the experiences it makes possible,"" she told delegates. ""Revolution has always been about giving power to the people."" She added: ""The real story of the digital revolution is not just new products, but the millions of experiences made possible and stories that millions can tell."" Part of giving people more control has been about the freeing up of content, such as images, video and music. Crucial to this has been the effort to make devices that speak to each other better so that content can be more easily transferred from one device, such as a digital camera, to others, such as portable media players. A lot of work still needs to be done, however, to sort out compatibility issues and standards within the technology industry so that gadgets just work seamlessly, she said.

Ms Fiorina's talk also touted the way technology is being designed to focus on lifestyle, fashion and personalisation, something she sees as key to what people want.

Special guest, singer Gwen Stefani, joined her on-stage to promote her own range of HP digital cameras which Ms Stefani has helped design and which are heavily influenced by Japanese youth culture. The digital cameras, which are due to go on sale in the US by the summer, are based on the HP 607 model. The emphasis on personalisation and lifestyle is a big theme at this year's CES, with tiny, wearable MP3 players at every turn and rainbow hues giving colour to everything. Ms Fiorina also announced that HP was working with Nokia to launch a visual radio service for mobiles, which would launch in Europe early this year. The service will let people listen to radio on their mobiles and download relevant content, like a track's ringtone, simultaneously. The service is designed to make mobile radio more interactive.

Among the other new products she showcased was the Digital Media Hub, a big upgrade to HP's Digital Entertainment Centre. Coming out in the autumn in the US, the box is a networked, high-definition TV, cable set-top box, digital video recorder and DVD recorder. It has a removable hard drive cartridge, memory card slots, and Light Scribe labelling software which lets people design and print customised DVD labels and covers. It is designed to contain all a household's digital media, such as pre-recorded TV shows, pictures, videos and music so it can all be managed in one place. The hub reflects the increasing move to re-box the PC so that it can work as part of other key centres of entertainment. Research suggests that about 258 million images are saved and shared every day, equating to 94 billion a year. Eighty per cent of those remain on cameras. Media hubs are designed to encourage people to organise them on one box. Ms Fiorina was one of several keynote speakers, who also included Microsoft chief Bill Gates, to set out what major technology companies think people will be doing with technologies and gadgets in the next 12 months. In a separate announcement during the keynote speech, Ms Fiorina said that HP would be partnering MTV to replace this year's MTV Asia music award. MTV's Asia Aid will be held in Bangkok on 3 February, and is aimed at helping to raise money for the Asian tsunami disaster.
","She said the goal for 2005 was to make people the centre of technology.Among the other new products she showcased was the Digital Media Hub, a big upgrade to HP's Digital Entertainment Centre.The digital revolution is focused on letting people tell and share their own stories, according to Carly Fiorina, chief of technology giant Hewlett Packard.""The digital revolution is about the democratisation of technology and the experiences it makes possible,"" she told delegates.Ms Fiorina was one of several keynote speakers, who also included Microsoft chief Bill Gates, to set out what major technology companies think people will be doing with technologies and gadgets in the next 12 months.The job of firms such as HP now, she said in a speech at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), was to ensure digital and physical worlds fully converged.Media hubs are designed to encourage people to organise them on one box.""Revolution has always been about giving power to the people.""Part of giving people more control has been about the freeing up of content, such as images, video and music.Ms Fiorina's talk also touted the way technology is being designed to focus on lifestyle, fashion and personalisation, something she sees as key to what people want.It is designed to contain all a household's digital media, such as pre-recorded TV shows, pictures, videos and music so it can all be managed in one place.The digital cameras, which are due to go on sale in the US by the summer, are based on the HP 607 model."
"Robotic pods take on car design

A new breed of wearable robotic vehicles that envelop drivers are being developed by Japanese car giant Toyota.

The company's vision for the single passenger in the 21st Century involves the driver cruising by in a four-wheeled leaf-like device or strolling along encased in an egg-shaped cocoon that walks upright on two feet. Both these prototypes will be demonstrated, along with other concept vehicles and helper robots, at the Toyota stand at the Expo 2005 in Aichi, Japan, in March 2005. The models are being positioned as so-called personal mobility devices, which have few limits. The open leaf-like ""i-unit"" vehicle is the latest version of the concept which the company introduced last year. Built using environmentally friendly plant-based materials, the single passenger unit is equipped with intelligent transport system technologies that allow for safe autopilot driving in specially equipped lanes. The model allows the user to make tight on-the-spot turns, move upright amongst other people at low speeds and can be easily switched into a reclining position at higher speeds. Body colours can be customized to suit individual preferences and a personal recognition system offers both information and music.

Also on display at the show will be the egg-shaped ""i-foot"". This is a two-legged mountable robot like device that can be controlled with a joystick.

Standing at a height of well over seven feet (2.1 metres), the unit can walk along at a speed of about 1.35km/h (0.83mph) and navigate staircases into the bargain. Mounting and dismounting is accomplished with the aid of the bird-like legs that bend over backwards. ""They are clearly what we call concept vehicles, innovative ideas which have yet to be transformed into potential products and which are a few years away from actual production,"" said Dr David Gillingwater from the Transport Studies Group at Loughborough University. ""They clearly have eye-catching appeal, which is in part the name of the game here, and are linked to the iMac and iPod-type niche which Apple have been responsible for developing and leading in recent years - new, different, hi-tech, image conscious products. ""As always with these concept vehicles, it is difficult to see 'who' they would appeal to and what their role would be in the 'personal transport' marketplace.""

The personal transport arena is taking on a new dimension though with futuristic devices that augment human capabilities. Toyota's prototypes represent the latest incarnation of wearable exoskeletons in a vehicular form that is specially focused on transport. Powered robotic exoskeletons have been the focus of much US military research over the years and Japan seems to have jumped onto the bandwagon with a wave of products being developed for specific applications. With an emerging range of devices targeted towards the ageing world population, care giving and the military, wearable exoskeletons seem to represent a new line of future technologies that meet an individual's particular mobility needs. While Toyota's prototypes are geared towards mass transport, the company says that the vehicles will allow the elderly and the disabled to achieve independent mobility.

Experts, though, are a bit sceptical of their acceptance in this area.

""Those with arguably the greatest needs for this sort of assistance, now and certainly in the future, are the elderly and infirm people,"" Dr Gillingwater told the BBC News website. ""You have to ask whether these sorts of vehicles will appeal to these groups."" Design considerations also exist. Dr Erel Avineri, of the Centre for Transport and Society at the University of the West of England in Bristol said: ""The design of the introduced mobility devices is not completely adjusted to the specific needs of the elderly and the disabled. ""For example, one problem that many older passengers experience is limited ability to rotate the neck and upper body, making it difficult to look to the side and back when backing up. ""It looks like the visual design of the device interior does not consider this need. This and other human-factors related issues in the design of such devices are not the only issues that should be considered,"" said Dr Avineri. ""In general, introducing a new technology requires the passenger to change behaviour patterns that have served the older passenger for decades. Elderly users might not necessarily accept such innovation. ""This may be another barrier to the commercial success of such a vehicle."" Such single-person vehicles may find a relatively small market niche and may be more suited towards specialised applications rather than revolutionising the face of mass transport. ""The concept of personal mobility behind these sorts of innovations is great but they beg a huge number of questions,"" said Dr Gillingwater. ""What's their range? How user-friendly will they really be? What infrastructure will be required to allow these vehicles to be used. ""Overall I think these vehicles pose a number of important questions than provide answers or solutions.""
","Dr Erel Avineri, of the Centre for Transport and Society at the University of the West of England in Bristol said: ""The design of the introduced mobility devices is not completely adjusted to the specific needs of the elderly and the disabled.While Toyota's prototypes are geared towards mass transport, the company says that the vehicles will allow the elderly and the disabled to achieve independent mobility.The personal transport arena is taking on a new dimension though with futuristic devices that augment human capabilities.""The concept of personal mobility behind these sorts of innovations is great but they beg a huge number of questions,"" said Dr Gillingwater.With an emerging range of devices targeted towards the ageing world population, care giving and the military, wearable exoskeletons seem to represent a new line of future technologies that meet an individual's particular mobility needs.The open leaf-like ""i-unit"" vehicle is the latest version of the concept which the company introduced last year.A new breed of wearable robotic vehicles that envelop drivers are being developed by Japanese car giant Toyota.Both these prototypes will be demonstrated, along with other concept vehicles and helper robots, at the Toyota stand at the Expo 2005 in Aichi, Japan, in March 2005.""They are clearly what we call concept vehicles, innovative ideas which have yet to be transformed into potential products and which are a few years away from actual production,"" said Dr David Gillingwater from the Transport Studies Group at Loughborough University.""You have to ask whether these sorts of vehicles will appeal to these groups.""This and other human-factors related issues in the design of such devices are not the only issues that should be considered,"" said Dr Avineri.""As always with these concept vehicles, it is difficult to see 'who' they would appeal to and what their role would be in the 'personal transport' marketplace.""""It looks like the visual design of the device interior does not consider this need.Such single-person vehicles may find a relatively small market niche and may be more suited towards specialised applications rather than revolutionising the face of mass transport.The company's vision for the single passenger in the 21st Century involves the driver cruising by in a four-wheeled leaf-like device or strolling along encased in an egg-shaped cocoon that walks upright on two feet."
"Hi-tech posters guide commuters

Interactive posters are helping Londoners get around the city during the festive season.

When interrogated with a mobile phone, the posters pass on a number that people can call to get information about the safest route home. Sited at busy underground stations, the posters are fitted with an infra-red port that can beam information directly to a handset. The posters are part of Transport for London's Safe Travel at Night campaign.

The campaign is intended to help Londoners, especially women, avoid trouble on the way home. In particular it aims to cut the number of sexual assaults by drivers of unlicensed minicabs. Nigel Marson, head of group marketing at Transport for London (TfL), said the posters were useful because they work outside the mobile phone networks. ""They can work in previously inaccessible areas such as underground stations which is obviously a huge advantage in a campaign of this sort,"" he said.

The posters will automatically beam information to any phone equipped with an IR port that is held close to the glowing red icon on the poster. ""We started with infra-red because there are a huge number IR phones out there,"" said Rachel Harker, spokeswoman for Hypertag which makes the technology fitted to the posters. ""It's a well established technology."" Hypertag is also now making a poster that uses short-range Bluetooth radio technology to swap data. Although the hypertags in the posters only pass on a phone number, Ms Harker said they can pass on almost any form of data including images, ring tones and video clips. She said that there are no figures for how many people are using the posters but a previous campaign run for a cosmetics firm racked up 12,500 interactions. ""Before we ran a campaign there was a big question mark of: 'If we build it will they come?'"" she said. ""Now we know that, yes, they will."" The TfL campaign using the posters will run until Boxing Day.
","She said that there are no figures for how many people are using the posters but a previous campaign run for a cosmetics firm racked up 12,500 interactions.The TfL campaign using the posters will run until Boxing Day.When interrogated with a mobile phone, the posters pass on a number that people can call to get information about the safest route home.The posters will automatically beam information to any phone equipped with an IR port that is held close to the glowing red icon on the poster.Nigel Marson, head of group marketing at Transport for London (TfL), said the posters were useful because they work outside the mobile phone networks.Although the hypertags in the posters only pass on a phone number, Ms Harker said they can pass on almost any form of data including images, ring tones and video clips.""We started with infra-red because there are a huge number IR phones out there,"" said Rachel Harker, spokeswoman for Hypertag which makes the technology fitted to the posters.The posters are part of Transport for London's Safe Travel at Night campaign."
"Parents face video game lessons

Ways of ensuring that parents know which video games are suitable for children are to be considered by the games industry.

The issue was discussed at a meeting between UK government officials, industry representatives and the British Board of Film Classification. It follows concerns that children may be playing games aimed at adults which include high levels of violence. In 2003, Britons spent £1,152m on games, more than ever before. And this Christmas, parents are expected to spend millions on video games and consoles.

Violent games have been hit by controversy after the game Manhunt was blamed by the parents of 14-year-old Stefan Pakeerah, who was stabbed to death in Leicester in February. His mother, Giselle, said her son's killer, Warren Leblanc, 17 - who was jailed for life in September - had mimicked behaviour in the game.

Police investigating Stefan's murder dismissed its influence and said Manhunt was not part of its legal case. The issue of warnings on games for adults was raised on Sunday by Trade and Industry Secretary Patricia Hewitt. This was the focus of the talks between government officials, representatives from the games industry and the British Board of Film Classification. ""Adults can make informed choices about what games to play. Children can't and they deserve to be protected,"" said Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell after the meeting. ""Industry will consider how to make sure parents know what games their children should and shouldn't play."" Roger Bennett, director general of Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association, said: ""A number of initiatives were discussed at the meeting. ""They will be formulated to create specific proposals to promote greater understanding, recognition and awareness of the games rating system, ensuring that young people are not exposed to inappropriate content.""

Among the possible measures could be a campaign to explain to parents that many games are made for an adult audience, as well as changes to the labelling of the games themselves.

According to industry statistics, a majority of players are over 18, with the average age of a gamer being 29. Academics point out that there has not been any definitive research linking bloodthirsty games such as Manhunt with violent responses in players. In a report published this week for the Video Standards Council, Dr Guy Cumberbatch said: ""The research evidence on media violence causing harm to viewers is wildly exaggerated and does not stand up to scrutiny."" Dr Cumberbatch, head of the social policy think tank, the Communications Research Group, reviewed the studies on the issue. He concluded that there was an absence of convincing research that media violence caused harm.
","Ways of ensuring that parents know which video games are suitable for children are to be considered by the games industry.Violent games have been hit by controversy after the game Manhunt was blamed by the parents of 14-year-old Stefan Pakeerah, who was stabbed to death in Leicester in February.This was the focus of the talks between government officials, representatives from the games industry and the British Board of Film Classification.The issue of warnings on games for adults was raised on Sunday by Trade and Industry Secretary Patricia Hewitt.""Industry will consider how to make sure parents know what games their children should and shouldn't play.""Among the possible measures could be a campaign to explain to parents that many games are made for an adult audience, as well as changes to the labelling of the games themselves.The issue was discussed at a meeting between UK government officials, industry representatives and the British Board of Film Classification.His mother, Giselle, said her son's killer, Warren Leblanc, 17 - who was jailed for life in September - had mimicked behaviour in the game.And this Christmas, parents are expected to spend millions on video games and consoles."
"BBC web search aids odd queries

The BBC's online search engine was used a record amount in 2004, helping with enquires both simple and strange.

More than 277 million enquiries were made, asking for informaton of a wide range of subjects. The most requested search terms of 2004 included games, EastEnders, CBBC, John Peel, Harry Potter and Olympics. But there were many strange enquiries, including: what is a dog?, how do you say basketball? and what is the biggest collection of naval fluff? The search engine works by matching key words typed in to different web pages but many people still type in natural language questions. Here are some of the strangest queries of 2004 - spelling and grammar errors left untouched - and their possible solutions:


 - How to fold a serviette like an elf's boot? 
 


 - How do I structure a French letter? 
 


 - What is better one long vacation each year or several short vacations throughout the year? 
 


 - What is so special about the Swiss? 
 


 - What are the contemporary issue in nurses? 
 


 - What is the number 4 in this number 40052308090? 
 


 - What is up? 
 


 - What is the name of James Martin's dog? 
 

Search engines are key to the way people use the internet. Companies such as Google have become of paramount importance as they dictate how people travel through websites while online.
","Search engines are key to the way people use the internet.The search engine works by matching key words typed in to different web pages but many people still type in natural language questions.The BBC's online search engine was used a record amount in 2004, helping with enquires both simple and strange.But there were many strange enquiries, including: what is a dog?, how do you say basketball?Companies such as Google have become of paramount importance as they dictate how people travel through websites while online.The most requested search terms of 2004 included games, EastEnders, CBBC, John Peel, Harry Potter and Olympics.- What is the name of James Martin's dog?"
"2D Metal Slug offers retro fun

Like some drill sergeant from the past, Metal Slug 3 is a wake-up call to today's gamers molly-coddled with slick visuals and fancy trimmings.

With its hand-animated sprites and 2D side-scrolling, this was even considered retro when released in arcades four years ago. But a more frantic shooter you will not find at the end of your joypad this year. And yes, that includes Halo 2. Simply choose your grunt and wade through five 2D side-scrolling levels of the most hectic video game blasting you will ever encounter. It is also the toughest game you are likely to play, as hordes of enemies and few lives pile the pressure on.

Players must battle soldiers, snowmen, zombies, giant crabs and aliens, not to mention the huge, screen-filling bosses that guard each of the five levels.

The shoot-anything-that-moves gameplay is peppered with moments of old-school genius. Fans of robotic gastropods should note the title refers, instead, to the vast array of vehicles on offer in a game stuffed with bizarre hardware. Tanks, jets and submarines can be commandeered, as well as cannon-toting camels, elephants and ostriches - more weaponry on offer than in an acre of Iraq. Doling out justice is a joy thanks to ultra responsive controls, and while this is a tough nut to crack, it is addictive enough to have you gagging for that one last go. And at a mere £20, Metal Slug 3 is as cheap as sliced, fried spuds, as the man says. Of course, most of you will ignore this, lacking as it does the visual fireworks of modern blasters. But at a time when blockbuster titles offer only a fresh lick of paint in favour of real innovation, Metal Slug 3 is a fresh gasp of air from an era when the Xbox was not even a twinkle in Bill Gates' eye.
","But at a time when blockbuster titles offer only a fresh lick of paint in favour of real innovation, Metal Slug 3 is a fresh gasp of air from an era when the Xbox was not even a twinkle in Bill Gates' eye.Simply choose your grunt and wade through five 2D side-scrolling levels of the most hectic video game blasting you will ever encounter.Fans of robotic gastropods should note the title refers, instead, to the vast array of vehicles on offer in a game stuffed with bizarre hardware.With its hand-animated sprites and 2D side-scrolling, this was even considered retro when released in arcades four years ago.And at a mere £20, Metal Slug 3 is as cheap as sliced, fried spuds, as the man says.Like some drill sergeant from the past, Metal Slug 3 is a wake-up call to today's gamers molly-coddled with slick visuals and fancy trimmings."
"Mobile multimedia slow to catch on

There is no doubt that mobile phones sporting cameras and colour screens are hugely popular. Consumers swapping old phones for slinkier, dinkier versions are thought to be responsible for a 26% increase in the number of phones sold during the third quarter of 2004, according to analysts Gartner More than 167 million handsets were sold between July and September 2004, a period that, according to Gartner analyst Carolina Milanesi is ""seldom strong"". But although consumers have mobiles that can take and send snaps, sounds and video clips few, so far, are taking the chance to do so.

In fact, the numbers of people not taking and sending pictures, audio and video is growing. Figures gathered by Continental Research shows that 36% of British camera phone users have never sent a multimedia message (MMS), up from 7% in 2003. This is despite the fact that, during the same period, the numbers of camera phones in the UK more than doubled to 7.5 million. Getting mobile phone users to send multimedia messages is really important for operators keen to squeeze more cash out of their customers and offset the cost of subsidising the handsets people are buying. The problem they face, said Shailendra Jain, head of MMS firm Adamind, is educating people in how to send the multimedia messages using their funky handsets.

""Also,"" he said, ""they have to simplify the interface so its not rocket science in terms of someone understanding it."" Research bears out the suspicion that people are not sending multimedia messages because they do not know how to. According to Continental Research, 29% of the people it questioned said they were technophobes that tended to shy away from innovation. Only 11% regarded themselves as technically savvy enough to send a picture or video message. The fact that multimedia services are not interoperable across networks and phones only adds to people's reluctance to start sending them, said Mr Jain. ""They ask themselves: 'If I'm streaming video from one handset to another will it work?'"" he said. ""There's a lot of user apprehension about that.""

There are other deeper technical reasons why multimedia messages are not being pushed as strongly as they might. Andrew Bud, executive chairman of messaging firm Mblox, said mobile phone operators cap the number of messages that can be circulating at any one time for fear of overwhelming the system. ""The rate we can send MMS into the mobile network is fairly constant,"" he said. The reason for this is that there are finite capacities for data traffic on the second generation networks that currently have the most users.

No-one wants to take the risk of swamping these relatively narrow channels so the number of MMS messages is capped, said Mr Bud. This has led to operators finding other technologies, particularly one known as Wap-push, to get multimedia to their customers. But when networks do find a good way to get multimedia to their customers, the results can be dramatic. Israeli technology firm Celltick has found a way to broadcast data across phone networks in a way that does not overwhelm existing bandwidth. One of the first firms to use the Celltick service is Hutch India, the largest mobile firm in the country. The broadcast system gets multimedia to customers via a rolling menu far faster than would be possible with other systems. While not multimedia messaging, such a system gets people used to seeing their phones as a device that can handle all different types of content. As a result 40% of the subscribers to the Hutch Alive, which uses Celltick's broadcast technology, regularly click for more pictures, sounds and images from the operator. ""Operators really need to start utilising this tool to reach their customers,"" said Yaron Toren, spokesman for Celltick. Until then, multimedia will be a message that is not getting through.
","Getting mobile phone users to send multimedia messages is really important for operators keen to squeeze more cash out of their customers and offset the cost of subsidising the handsets people are buying.The problem they face, said Shailendra Jain, head of MMS firm Adamind, is educating people in how to send the multimedia messages using their funky handsets.Andrew Bud, executive chairman of messaging firm Mblox, said mobile phone operators cap the number of messages that can be circulating at any one time for fear of overwhelming the system.The fact that multimedia services are not interoperable across networks and phones only adds to people's reluctance to start sending them, said Mr Jain.Figures gathered by Continental Research shows that 36% of British camera phone users have never sent a multimedia message (MMS), up from 7% in 2003.Until then, multimedia will be a message that is not getting through.Research bears out the suspicion that people are not sending multimedia messages because they do not know how to.""The rate we can send MMS into the mobile network is fairly constant,"" he said.While not multimedia messaging, such a system gets people used to seeing their phones as a device that can handle all different types of content.he said.But when networks do find a good way to get multimedia to their customers, the results can be dramatic.No-one wants to take the risk of swamping these relatively narrow channels so the number of MMS messages is capped, said Mr Bud."
"Internet boom for gift shopping

Cyberspace is becoming a very popular destination for Christmas shoppers.

Forecasts predict that British people will spend £4bn buying gifts online during the festive season, an increase of 64% on 2003. Surveys also show that the average amount that people are spending is rising, as is the range of goods that they are happy to buy online. Savvy shoppers are also using the net to find the hot presents that are all but sold out in High Street stores.

Almost half of the UK population now shop online according to figures collected by the Interactive Media in Retail Group which represents web retailers. About 85% of this group, 18m people, expect to do a lot of their Christmas gift buying online this year, reports the industry group. On average each shopper will spend £220 and Britons lead Europe in their affection for online shopping.

Almost a third of all the money spent online this Christmas will come out of British wallets and purses compared to 29% from German shoppers and only 4% from Italian gift buyers. James Roper, director of the IMRG, said shoppers were now much happier to buy so-called big ticket items such as LCD television sets and digital cameras. Mr Roper added that many retailers were working hard to reassure consumers that online shopping was safe and that goods ordered as presents would arrive in time for Christmas. He advised consumers to give shops a little more time than usual to fulfil orders given that online buying is proving so popular. A survey by Hostway suggests that many men prefer to shop online to avoid the embarrassment of buying some types of presents, such as lingerie, for wives and girlfriends. Much of this online shopping is likely to be done during work time, according to research carried out by security firm Saint Bernard Software. The research reveals that up to two working days will be lost by staff who do their shopping via their work computer. Worst offenders will be those in the 18-35 age bracket, suggests the research, who will spend up to five hours per week in December browsing and buying at online shops.

Iggy Fanlo, chief revenue officer at Shopping.com, said that the growing numbers of people using broadband was driving interest in online shopping. ""When you consider narrowband and broadband the conversion to sale is two times higher,"" he said. Higher speeds meant that everything happened much faster, he said, which let people spend time browsing and finding out about products before they buy.

The behaviour of online shoppers was also changing, he said. ""The single biggest reason people went online before this year was price,"" he said. ""The number one reason now is convenience."" ""Very few consumers click on the lowest price,"" he said. ""They are looking for good prices and merchant reliability."" Consumer comments and reviews were also proving popular with shoppers keen to find out who had the most reliable customer service. Data collected by eBay suggests that some smart shoppers are getting round the shortages of hot presents by buying them direct through the auction site. According to eBay UK there are now more than 150 Robosapiens remote control robots for sale via the site. The Robosapiens toy is almost impossible to find in online and offline stores. Similarly many shoppers are turning to eBay to help them get hold of the hard-to-find slimline PlayStation 2, which many retailers are only selling as part of an expensive bundle. The high demand for the PlayStation 2 has meant that prices for it are being driven up. In shops the PS2 is supposed to sell for £104.99. In some eBay UK auctions the price has risen to more than double this figure. Many people are also using eBay to get hold of gadgets not even released in this country. The portable version of the PlayStation has only just gone on sale in Japan yet some enterprising eBay users are selling the device to UK gadget fans.
","The behaviour of online shoppers was also changing, he said.""The single biggest reason people went online before this year was price,"" he said.Mr Roper added that many retailers were working hard to reassure consumers that online shopping was safe and that goods ordered as presents would arrive in time for Christmas.Iggy Fanlo, chief revenue officer at Shopping.com, said that the growing numbers of people using broadband was driving interest in online shopping.On average each shopper will spend £220 and Britons lead Europe in their affection for online shopping.He advised consumers to give shops a little more time than usual to fulfil orders given that online buying is proving so popular.About 85% of this group, 18m people, expect to do a lot of their Christmas gift buying online this year, reports the industry group.Forecasts predict that British people will spend £4bn buying gifts online during the festive season, an increase of 64% on 2003.Surveys also show that the average amount that people are spending is rising, as is the range of goods that they are happy to buy online.Almost half of the UK population now shop online according to figures collected by the Interactive Media in Retail Group which represents web retailers.Much of this online shopping is likely to be done during work time, according to research carried out by security firm Saint Bernard Software.Almost a third of all the money spent online this Christmas will come out of British wallets and purses compared to 29% from German shoppers and only 4% from Italian gift buyers.A survey by Hostway suggests that many men prefer to shop online to avoid the embarrassment of buying some types of presents, such as lingerie, for wives and girlfriends.Many people are also using eBay to get hold of gadgets not even released in this country."
"Google to scan famous libraries

The libraries of five of the world's most important academic institutions are to be digitised by Google.

Scanned pages from books in the public domain will then be made available for search and reading online. The full libraries of Michigan and Stanford universities, as well as archives at Harvard, Oxford and the New York Public Library are included. Online pages from scanned books will not have adverts but will have links to online store Amazon, Google said.

""The goal of the project is to unlock the wealth of information that is offline and bring it online,"" said Susan Wojcicki, director of product management at Google.

There will also be links to public libraries so that the books can be borrowed. Google will not be paid for providing for the links. It will take six years to digitise the full collection at Michigan, which contains seven million volumes. Users will only have access to extracts and bibliographies of copyrighted works. The New York library is allowing Google to include a small portion of books no longer covered by copyright.

Harvard is limiting its participation to 40,000 books, while Oxford wants Google to scan books originally published in the 19th Century and held in the Bodleian Library. A spokeswoman for Oxford University said the digitised books would include novels, poetry, political tracts and art books. ""Important works that are out of print or only available in a few libraries around the world will be made available to everyone,"" she said. About one million books will be scanned by Google, less than 15% of the total collection held in the Bodleian. ""We hope that Oxford's contribution to this project will be of scholarly use, as well as general interest, to people around the world,"" said Reg Carr, director of Oxford University Library Services.

""It's a significant opportunity to bring our material to the rest of the world,"" said Paul LeClerc, president of the New York Public Library. ""It could solve an old problem: If people can't get to us, how can we get to them?"" ""This is the day the world changes,"" said John Wilkin, a University of Michigan librarian working with Google. ""It will be disruptive because some people will worry that this is the beginning of the end of libraries. ""But this is something we have to do to revitalise the profession and make it more meaningful.""
","Online pages from scanned books will not have adverts but will have links to online store Amazon, Google said.The New York library is allowing Google to include a small portion of books no longer covered by copyright.The full libraries of Michigan and Stanford universities, as well as archives at Harvard, Oxford and the New York Public Library are included.""We hope that Oxford's contribution to this project will be of scholarly use, as well as general interest, to people around the world,"" said Reg Carr, director of Oxford University Library Services.Harvard is limiting its participation to 40,000 books, while Oxford wants Google to scan books originally published in the 19th Century and held in the Bodleian Library.There will also be links to public libraries so that the books can be borrowed.""It's a significant opportunity to bring our material to the rest of the world,"" said Paul LeClerc, president of the New York Public Library.About one million books will be scanned by Google, less than 15% of the total collection held in the Bodleian."
"Microsoft takes on desktop search

Microsoft has entered the desktop search fray, releasing a test version of its tool to find documents, e-mails and other files on a PC hard drive.

The beta program only works on PCs running Windows XP or Windows 2000. The desktop search market is becoming increasingly crowded with firms touting programs that help people find files. Search giant Google launched its desktop search tool in October, while Yahoo is planning to release similar software in January.

""Our ambition for search is to provide the ultimate information tool that can find anything you're looking for,"" said Yusuf Mehdi, corporate vice president at Microsoft's MSN internet division. Microsoft's program can be used as a toolbar on the Windows desktop, the Internet Explorer browser and within the Outlook e-mail program. The software giant is coming late to the desktop search arena, competing with a large number of rivals. Google has already released a desktop tool. Yahoo is planning to get into the game in January and AOL is expected to offer desktop searching early next year. Small firms such as Blinkx, Copernic, Enfish X1 Technologies and X-Friend offer tools that catalogue the huge amounts of information that people increasingly store on their desktop or home computer. Apple will release a similar search system for its computers called Spotlight that is due to be released with the Tiger operating system.
","Search giant Google launched its desktop search tool in October, while Yahoo is planning to release similar software in January.The desktop search market is becoming increasingly crowded with firms touting programs that help people find files.Google has already released a desktop tool.Microsoft has entered the desktop search fray, releasing a test version of its tool to find documents, e-mails and other files on a PC hard drive.Microsoft's program can be used as a toolbar on the Windows desktop, the Internet Explorer browser and within the Outlook e-mail program."
"Gamers snap up new Sony PSP

Gamers have bought almost all of the first batch of Sony's new PlayStation Portable (PSP) games console, which went on sale in Japan on Sunday.

Thousands of people queued for hours to get hold of one of the 200,000 PSPs which were shipped to retailers. The handheld console can play games, music and movies and goes on sale in Europe and North America next year. Despite the demand Sony said it would not increase the 500,000-strong stock of PSPs it plans to ship by year's end.

Sony says it intends to ship three million of the consoles by March 2005. The company is hoping to challenge the dominance of Nintendo in the handheld market. Nintendo released its new DS console earlier this year and has already raised shipment targets for the device by 40%. The PSP is selling in Japan for 19,800 yen ($188; £98) while Nintendo's DS console sells in the US and Japan for $150 (£78). Nintendo's goal is to ship 5 million of its new Nintendo DS handheld consoles by March 2005.
","Nintendo's goal is to ship 5 million of its new Nintendo DS handheld consoles by March 2005.Sony says it intends to ship three million of the consoles by March 2005.Nintendo released its new DS console earlier this year and has already raised shipment targets for the device by 40%.The PSP is selling in Japan for 19,800 yen ($188; £98) while Nintendo's DS console sells in the US and Japan for $150 (£78)."
"Go-ahead for new internet names

The internet could soon have two new domain names, aimed at mobile services and the jobs market.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann) has given preliminary approval to two new addresses - .mobi and .jobs. They are among 10 new names being considered by the net's oversight body. Others include a domain for pornography, an anti-spam domain as well as .post and .travel, for the postal and travel industries.

The .mobi domain would be aimed at websites and other services that work specifically around mobile phones, while the .jobs address could be used by companies wanting a dedicated site for job postings. The process to see the new domain names go live in cyberspace could take months and Icann officials warned that there were no guarantees they would ultimately be accepted. Applicants paid £23,000 apiece to have their proposals considered. The application for .mobi was sponsored by technology firms including Nokia, Microsoft and T-Mobile.

Of the 10 currently under consideration, the least likely to win approval is the .xxx domain for pornographic websites. There are currently around 250 domain names in use around the globe, mostly for specific countries such as .fr for France and .uk for Britain. Perhaps unsurprisingly, .com remains the most popular address on the web.
","The internet could soon have two new domain names, aimed at mobile services and the jobs market.The .mobi domain would be aimed at websites and other services that work specifically around mobile phones, while the .jobs address could be used by companies wanting a dedicated site for job postings.The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann) has given preliminary approval to two new addresses - .mobi and .jobs.The process to see the new domain names go live in cyberspace could take months and Icann officials warned that there were no guarantees they would ultimately be accepted.They are among 10 new names being considered by the net's oversight body."
"Set your television to wow

Television started off as a magical blurry image. Then came the sharpness, the colour and the widescreen format. Now the TV set is taking another leap forward into a crystal clear future, although those in Europe will have to be patient.

After years of buzz about high-definition TV (HDTV) it is finally taking off in a handful of countries around the world, mainly the US and Japan. If you believe the hype, then HDTV will so wow you, that you will never want to go back to your old telly. ""HDTV is just the latest must-have technology in viewers' homes,"" says Jo Flaherty, a senior broadcaster with the CBS network in the US. All television images are made up of pixels, going across the screen, and scan lines going down. British TV pictures are made up of 625 lines and about 700 pixels. By contrast, HDTV offers up to 1,080 active lines, with each line made up of 1,920 pixels. The result is a picture which can be up to six times as sharp as standard TV. But to get the full impact, programmes need to be broadcast in this format and you need a HDTV set to receive them. Most new computer displays are already capable of handling high-resolution pictures. Viewers in Japan, the US, Australia, Canada and South Korea are already embracing the new TV technology, with a selection of primetime programmes being broadcast in the new format, which includes 5.1 digital surround sound.

But TV viewers in Europe will have to wait to enjoy the eye-blasting high-definition images.

Many high-end European TV programmes, such as the recent Athens Olympics, are already being produced in high-definition. But they still reach your screen in the old 625 lines. The prospects for getting sharper images soon do not seem very encouraging. According to consultants Strategy Analytics, only 12% of homes in Europe will have TVs capable of showing programmes in high-definition by 2008. But the HDTV hype spilling out of the US and Japan has spurred European broadcasters and consumer electronic companies to push for change. Big sports and entertainment events are set to help trigger the general public's attention. The 2006 World Cup in Germany will be broadcast in high-definition.

In the UK, satellite broadcaster BSkyB is planning HDTV services in 2006. There is already a HDTV service in Europe called Euro1080. Other European broadcasters, especially in France and Germany, also aiming to launch similar services.

In Britain, digital satellite and cable are largely seen as the natural home for HDTV, at least while a decision is taken regarding terrestrial broadcast options. The communications watchdog Ofcom could hand over some terrestrial frequencies freed up when the UK switches off its analogue TV signal. For now, broadcasters like the BBC are working on their own HDTV plans, although with no launch date in sight. ""The BBC will start broadcasting in HDTV when the time is right, and it would not be just a showcase, but a whole set of programming,"" says Andy Quested, from the BBC's high-definition support group. ""We have made the commitment to produce all our output in high-definition by 2010, which would put us on the leading edge."" One of the options under consideration is to offer high-definition pictures on the web. The BBC has already dipped its toe into this, including some HDTV content in recent trials of its interactive media player - a video player for PCs. It is planning to offer special releases of selected flagship programmes online in the near future. According to Mr Quested, this could help put Europe back into the running in the race to switch to HDTV. This is backed by recent research which suggests that the number of Europeans with broadband has exploded over the past 12 months, with the web eating into TV viewing habits.
","After years of buzz about high-definition TV (HDTV) it is finally taking off in a handful of countries around the world, mainly the US and Japan.By contrast, HDTV offers up to 1,080 active lines, with each line made up of 1,920 pixels.There is already a HDTV service in Europe called Euro1080.British TV pictures are made up of 625 lines and about 700 pixels.Many high-end European TV programmes, such as the recent Athens Olympics, are already being produced in high-definition.In the UK, satellite broadcaster BSkyB is planning HDTV services in 2006.But TV viewers in Europe will have to wait to enjoy the eye-blasting high-definition images.""The BBC will start broadcasting in HDTV when the time is right, and it would not be just a showcase, but a whole set of programming,"" says Andy Quested, from the BBC's high-definition support group.But to get the full impact, programmes need to be broadcast in this format and you need a HDTV set to receive them.According to Mr Quested, this could help put Europe back into the running in the race to switch to HDTV.Viewers in Japan, the US, Australia, Canada and South Korea are already embracing the new TV technology, with a selection of primetime programmes being broadcast in the new format, which includes 5.1 digital surround sound.But the HDTV hype spilling out of the US and Japan has spurred European broadcasters and consumer electronic companies to push for change.For now, broadcasters like the BBC are working on their own HDTV plans, although with no launch date in sight.All television images are made up of pixels, going across the screen, and scan lines going down."
"Hollywood to sue net film pirates

The US movie industry has launched legal action to sue people who facilitate illegal film downloading.

The Motion Picture Association of America wants to stop people using the program BitTorrent to swap movies. The industry is targeting people who run websites which provide information and internet links to movies which have been copied or filmed in cinemas. More than 100 server operators have been targeted in the actions launched in the US and UK, the MPAA added. The suits were filed against users of the file-sharing programs BitTorrent, eDonkey and DirectConnect in the United States, United Kingdom, France, Finland and the Netherlands, the MPAA said.

BitTorrent users can download movies by following a link to files which are found on websites called trackers. Unlike most peer-to-peer programs BitTorrent works by sharing a file, which could be anything from a legitimate digital photo to a copied movie, among multiple users at the same time. The movie industry hopes that suing the people who run the trackers will cut BitTorrent users off from illegal movies at source. Last month major film studios started legal action against 200 individuals who were swapping films online. The growth in broadband has made it quicker for people to download movies and the industry fears that if it does not take action now, it could suffer the same downturn as the music industry.
","The US movie industry has launched legal action to sue people who facilitate illegal film downloading.The movie industry hopes that suing the people who run the trackers will cut BitTorrent users off from illegal movies at source.The growth in broadband has made it quicker for people to download movies and the industry fears that if it does not take action now, it could suffer the same downturn as the music industry.BitTorrent users can download movies by following a link to files which are found on websites called trackers."
"PC ownership to 'double by 2010'

The number of personal computers worldwide is expected to double by 2010 to 1.3 billion machines, according to a report by analysts Forrester Research.

The growth will be driven by emerging markets such as China, Russia and India, the report predicted. More than a third of all new PCs will be in these markets, with China adding 178 million new PCs by 2010, it said. Low-priced computers made by local companies are expected to dominate in such territories, Forrester said. The report comes less than a week after IBM, a pioneer of the PC business, sold its PC hardware division to China's number one computer maker Lenovo.

The $1.75bn (£900m) deal will make the combined operation the third biggest PC vendor in the world. ""Today's products from Western PC vendors won't dominate in those markets in the long term,"" Simon Yates, a senior analyst for Forrester, said. ""Instead local PC makers like Lenovo Group in China and Aquarius in Russia that can better tailor the PC form factor, price point and applications to their local markets will ultimately win the market share battle,"" he said. There are currently 575 million PCs in use globally. The United States, Europe and Asia-Pacific are expected to add 150 million new PCs by 2010, according to the study. The report forecast that there will be 80 million new PC users in India by 2010 and 40 million new users in Indonesia.
","More than a third of all new PCs will be in these markets, with China adding 178 million new PCs by 2010, it said.The report forecast that there will be 80 million new PC users in India by 2010 and 40 million new users in Indonesia.The United States, Europe and Asia-Pacific are expected to add 150 million new PCs by 2010, according to the study.""Instead local PC makers like Lenovo Group in China and Aquarius in Russia that can better tailor the PC form factor, price point and applications to their local markets will ultimately win the market share battle,"" he said.""Today's products from Western PC vendors won't dominate in those markets in the long term,"" Simon Yates, a senior analyst for Forrester, said."
"PC photo printers challenge pros

Home printed pictures can be cheaper and higher quality than those from High Street developers, tests shows.

A survey carried out by PC Pro magazine looked at which of 100 home photo printers offered a better deal than handing your snaps to a photo lab. The tests found that images from top PC printers kept their colour longer than professionally produced photographs. But using the wrong printer cartridge could means snaps fade in months, warned the magazine.

The group test of 100 home photo printers for PCs discovered how much it costs to create images using the devices compared to online developers as well as High Street names such as Jessops, Boots and Snappy Snaps. The comprehensive test also revealed how quickly different printers produced images, the quality of the finished image and how resistant finished pictures were to smudging or water damage. It found that although some ink for printers now costs more than £2 per millilitre it can still be cheaper to produce prints from photographs at home than it is to send them off to a High Street store. ""If you really like your photos, then it's definitely worth printing at home instead of going to the high street, but only if you choose the right printer,"" said Nick Ross, top tester at PC Pro.

Mr Ross said that a new generation of printers produced images with brighter colours and that were less likely to fade than many High Street developers or even some professional wedding photographers. Some High Street photo shops can be the cheapest when it came to developing prints that were 6x4in, said Mr Ross, but the test revealed that images 7x5in and 8x10in in size were cheaper to produce at home. According to PC Pro, producing a print 8x10in on an Epson R800 printer using top quality paper costs £1.87. At Jessops the same image would cost £2.50 and at Snappy Snaps £9.99. A 10x7in snap at Boots would cost £4.99. ""Considering how inconvenient it can be to go to the High Street and how silver-halide prints can fade in the sun, we're adamant that it's now better, cheaper and more convenient to print at home,"" he said. Ann Simpson, marketing manager at Snappy Snaps believes the convenience of high street printing will continue to attract customers. ""Some people will want to do their own thing on their computer but the feedback to us is that customers often have to print two or three pictures at home in order to get a good one,"" she said. ""Many people are not skilled at getting the colour, contrast and cropping right and they don't want the hassle,"" she added. The magazine test found that which ink consumers use determined how long their prints lasted before they started fading. It recommended avoiding so-called third-party inks not produced by printer makers because they tended to produce prints that fade the quickest.
","The group test of 100 home photo printers for PCs discovered how much it costs to create images using the devices compared to online developers as well as High Street names such as Jessops, Boots and Snappy Snaps.It found that although some ink for printers now costs more than £2 per millilitre it can still be cheaper to produce prints from photographs at home than it is to send them off to a High Street store.Some High Street photo shops can be the cheapest when it came to developing prints that were 6x4in, said Mr Ross, but the test revealed that images 7x5in and 8x10in in size were cheaper to produce at home.""Considering how inconvenient it can be to go to the High Street and how silver-halide prints can fade in the sun, we're adamant that it's now better, cheaper and more convenient to print at home,"" he said.Mr Ross said that a new generation of printers produced images with brighter colours and that were less likely to fade than many High Street developers or even some professional wedding photographers.According to PC Pro, producing a print 8x10in on an Epson R800 printer using top quality paper costs £1.87.""If you really like your photos, then it's definitely worth printing at home instead of going to the high street, but only if you choose the right printer,"" said Nick Ross, top tester at PC Pro.Home printed pictures can be cheaper and higher quality than those from High Street developers, tests shows."
"The gaming world in 2005

If you have finished Doom 3, Half Life 2 and Halo 2, don't worry. There's a host of gaming gems set for release in 2005.

 WORLD OF WARCRAFT 

The US reception to this game from developers Blizzard has been hugely enthusiastic, with the title topping its competitors in the area of life-eating, high-fantasy, massively multiplayer role-player gaming. Solid, diverse, accessible and visually striking, it may well open up the genre like never before. If nothing else, it will develop a vast and loyal community. Released 25 February on PC. ICO 2 (WORKING TITLE) Ico remains a benchmark for PS2 gaming, a title that took players into a uniquely atmospheric and artistic world of adventure. The (spiritual) sequel has visuals that echo those of the original, but promises to expand the Ico world, with hero Wanda taking on a series of giants. The other known working title is Wanda And Colossus. Release date to be confirmed on PS2. THE LEGEND OF ZELDA 

The charismatic cel imagery has been scrapped in favour of a dark, detailed aesthetic (realism isn't quite the right word) that connects more with Ocarina Of Time. Link resumes his more teenage incarnation too, though enemies, elements and moves look familiar from the impressive trailer that has been released. Horseback adventuring across a vast land is promised. Release date to be confirmed on GameCube. ADVANCE WARS DS The UK Nintendo DS launch line-up is still to be confirmed at time of writing, but titles that exploit its two-screen and touch capacity, like WarioWare Touched! and Sega's Feel The Magic, are making a strong impression in other territories. Personally, I can't wait for the latest Advance Wars, the franchise that has been the icing on the cake of Nintendo handheld gaming during the past few years. Release date to be confirmed on DS. S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 

Following in the high-spec footsteps of Far Cry and Half-Life 2, this looks like the key upcoming PC first-person shooter (with role-playing elements). The fact that it is inspired in part by Andrei Tarkovsky's enigmatic 1979 masterpiece Stalker and set in 2012 in the disaster zone, a world of decay and mutation, makes it all the more intriguing. Released 1 March on PC. METAL GEAR SOLID: SNAKE EATER 

More Hideo Kojima serious stealth, featuring action in the Soviet-controlled jungle in 1964. The game see Snake having to survive on his wits in the jungle, including eating wildlife. Once again, expect cinematic cut scenes and polished production values. Released March on PS2. DEAD OR ALIVE ULTIMATE Tecmo's Team Ninja are back with retooled and revamped versions of Dead Or Alive 1 and 2. Here's the big, big deal though - they're playable over Xbox Live. Released 11 March on Xbox. KNIGHTS OF THE OLD REPUBLIC II Looks set to build on the acclaimed original Star Wars role playing game with new characters, new Force powers and a new set of moral decisions, despite a different developer. Released 11 February on Xbox and PC.
","Released 1 March on PC.Released 11 February on Xbox and PC.Release date to be confirmed on PS2.Release date to be confirmed on DS.Released March on PS2.Released 11 March on Xbox.Released 25 February on PC.Release date to be confirmed on GameCube.ICO 2 (WORKING TITLE) Ico remains a benchmark for PS2 gaming, a title that took players into a uniquely atmospheric and artistic world of adventure.WORLD OF WARCRAFT  The US reception to this game from developers Blizzard has been hugely enthusiastic, with the title topping its competitors in the area of life-eating, high-fantasy, massively multiplayer role-player gaming.ADVANCE WARS DS The UK Nintendo DS launch line-up is still to be confirmed at time of writing, but titles that exploit its two-screen and touch capacity, like WarioWare Touched!There's a host of gaming gems set for release in 2005.If nothing else, it will develop a vast and loyal community."
"Bond game fails to shake or stir

For gaming fans, the word GoldenEye evokes excited memories not only of the James Bond revival flick of 1995, but also the classic shoot-em-up that accompanied it and left N64 owners glued to their consoles for many an hour.

Adopting that hallowed title somewhat backfires on this new game, for it fails to deliver on the promise of its name and struggles to generate the original's massive sense of fun. This however is not a sequel, nor does it relate to the GoldenEye film. You are the eponymous renegade spy, an agent who deserts to the Bond world's extensive ranks of criminal masterminds, after being deemed too brutal for MI6. Your new commander-in-chief is the portly Auric Goldfinger, last seen in 1964, but happily running around bent on world domination. With a determination to justify its name which is even less convincing than that of Tina Turner's similarly-titled theme song, the game literally gives the player a golden eye following an injury, which enables a degree of X-ray vision.

Rogue Agent signals its intentions by featuring James Bond initially and proceeding to kill him off within moments, squashed by a plummeting helicopter. The notion is of course to add a novel dark edge to a 007 game, but the premise simply does not get the juices flowing like it needs to.

Recent Bond games like Nightfire and Everything Or Nothing were very competent and did a fine job of capturing the sense of flair, invention and glamour of the film franchise. This title lacks that aura, and when the Bond magic shines through, it feels like a lucky accident. The central problem is that the gameplay just is not good enough. Quite aside from the bizarre inability to jump, the even more bizarre glaring graphical bugs and dubious enemy AI, the levels simply are not put together with much style or imagination. Admittedly the competition has been tough, even in recent weeks, with the likes of Halo 2 and Half Life 2 triumphing in virtually every department. What the game is good at is enveloping you in noisy, dynamic scenes of violent chaos. As is the trend of late, you are made to feel like you are in the midst of a really messy and fraught encounter. Sadly that sense of action is outweighed by the difficulty of navigating and battling within the chaos, meaning that frustration is often the outcome. And irregular save points mean you have to backtrack each time you are killed. A minute red dot passes for a crosshair, although the collision-detection is so suspect that the difficulties of aiming weapons are compensated for. Shooting enemies from a distance can be tricky, and you will not always know you have picked them off, since dead enemies vanish literally before they have fully hit the floor, and they do so in some woefully uninspiring death animations. It is perhaps indicative of a lack of confidence that the game maker's allow you several different weapons almost immediately and throw you quickly into raging firefights - no time is risked with a measured build-up.

By far the most satisfying element of the game is seeing old favourites like Dr No, Goldfinger, hat-fiend Oddjob and crazed Russian sex beast Xenia Onatopp resurrected after all these years, and with their faces rendered in an impressively recognisable fashion.

There is a real thrill from doing battle with these legendary villains, and it is a testament to the power of the Bond universe that they can cut such a dash. But the in-game niggles, combined with a story and presentation that just do not feel sufficiently well thought-through, will make this a disappointment for most. Diehard fans of Bond will probably find enough here to make it a worthwhile purchase and try to ignore the failings. The game is weak, not completely unplayable. Then again, 007 fanatics may also take umbrage at the cavalier blending of characters from different eras. Given James Bond's healthy pedigree in past games, there is every reason to hope that this is just a blip, a commendable idea that just has not worked, that will be rectified when the character inevitably makes his return.

GoldenEye: Rogue Agent is out now
","Recent Bond games like Nightfire and Everything Or Nothing were very competent and did a fine job of capturing the sense of flair, invention and glamour of the film franchise.This title lacks that aura, and when the Bond magic shines through, it feels like a lucky accident.The notion is of course to add a novel dark edge to a 007 game, but the premise simply does not get the juices flowing like it needs to.What the game is good at is enveloping you in noisy, dynamic scenes of violent chaos.Rogue Agent signals its intentions by featuring James Bond initially and proceeding to kill him off within moments, squashed by a plummeting helicopter.It is perhaps indicative of a lack of confidence that the game maker's allow you several different weapons almost immediately and throw you quickly into raging firefights - no time is risked with a measured build-up.The game is weak, not completely unplayable.Adopting that hallowed title somewhat backfires on this new game, for it fails to deliver on the promise of its name and struggles to generate the original's massive sense of fun.GoldenEye: Rogue Agent is out nowBy far the most satisfying element of the game is seeing old favourites like Dr No, Goldfinger, hat-fiend Oddjob and crazed Russian sex beast Xenia Onatopp resurrected after all these years, and with their faces rendered in an impressively recognisable fashion.Diehard fans of Bond will probably find enough here to make it a worthwhile purchase and try to ignore the failings.For gaming fans, the word GoldenEye evokes excited memories not only of the James Bond revival flick of 1995, but also the classic shoot-em-up that accompanied it and left N64 owners glued to their consoles for many an hour."
"Humanoid robot learns how to run

Car-maker Honda's humanoid robot Asimo has just got faster and smarter.

The Japanese firm is a leader in developing two-legged robots and the new, improved Asimo (Advanced Step in Innovative Mobility) can now run, find his way around obstacles as well as interact with people. Eventually Asimo could find gainful employment in homes and offices. ""The aim is to develop a robot that can help people in their daily lives,"" said a Honda spokesman.

To get the robot running for the first time was not an easy process as it involved Asimo making an accurate leap and absorbing the impact of landing without slipping or spinning. The ""run"" he is now capable of is perhaps not quite up to Olympic star Kelly Holmes' standard. At 3km/h, it is closer to a leisurely jog. Its makers claim that it is almost four times as fast as Sony's Qrio, which became the first robot to run last year. The criteria for running robots is defined by engineers as having both feet off the ground between strides. Asimo has improved in other ways too, increasing his walking speed, from 1.6km/h to 2.5km, growing 10cm to 130cm and putting on 2kg in weight. While he may not quite be ready for yoga, he does have more freedom of movement, being able to twist his hips and bend his wrists, thumbs and neck.

Asimo has already made his mark on the international robot scene and in November was inducted into the Robot Hall of Fame. He has wowed audiences around the world with his ability to walk upstairs, recognise faces and come when beckoned. In August 2003 he even attended a state dinner in the Czech Republic, travelling with the Japanese prime minister as a goodwill envoy. He is one of a handful of robots used by tech firms to trumpet their technological advances. Technology developed for Asimo could be used in the automobile industry as electronics increasingly take over from mechanics in car design. For the moment Asimo's biggest role is an entertainer and the audience gathered to see his first public run greeted his slightly comical gait with amusement, according to reports. Robots can fulfil serious functions in society and the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe predicts that the worldwide market for industrial robots will swell from 81,000 units in 2003 to 106,000 in 2007.
","Asimo has already made his mark on the international robot scene and in November was inducted into the Robot Hall of Fame.The Japanese firm is a leader in developing two-legged robots and the new, improved Asimo (Advanced Step in Innovative Mobility) can now run, find his way around obstacles as well as interact with people.Car-maker Honda's humanoid robot Asimo has just got faster and smarter.To get the robot running for the first time was not an easy process as it involved Asimo making an accurate leap and absorbing the impact of landing without slipping or spinning.Its makers claim that it is almost four times as fast as Sony's Qrio, which became the first robot to run last year.Asimo has improved in other ways too, increasing his walking speed, from 1.6km/h to 2.5km, growing 10cm to 130cm and putting on 2kg in weight.He is one of a handful of robots used by tech firms to trumpet their technological advances.The criteria for running robots is defined by engineers as having both feet off the ground between strides."
"Nintendo adds media playing to DS

Nintendo is releasing an adapter for its DS handheld console so it can play music and video.

The add-on for the DS means people can download TV programmes, film clips or MP3 files to the adaptor and then play them back while on the move. The release of the media add-on is an attempt by the Japanese games giant to protect its dominance of the handheld gaming market. Nintendo said the media adapter will be available from February in Japan.

The Nintendo DS is the successor to the hugely successful GameBoy handheld game console and went on sale in Japan on 2 December. The DS has two screens, one of which is touch sensitive, and also has on-board a short-range wireless link that lets people play against each other.

The launch of the media adapter, and the attempt to broaden the appeal of the device, is widely seen as a response to the unveiling of the Sony PSP which was built as a multi-purpose media player and game gadget from the start. Sony is thought to be preparing pre-packaged movies and music for the PSP. The add-on will also work with the GameBoy Advance SP. Nintendo dominates the handheld gaming console world thanks to successive versions of the GameBoy. More than 28 million GameBoy Advance handhelds have been sold around the world. The dual-screen DS is also thought to be selling well with more than 2.5 million expected to be sold by the end of 2004. Nintendo said it had no plans to sell the media adapter outside Japan. When it goes on sale the adapter is expected to cost about 5000 yen (£25), roughly the difference in price between the DS and the higher-priced Sony PSP.
","Nintendo is releasing an adapter for its DS handheld console so it can play music and video.The Nintendo DS is the successor to the hugely successful GameBoy handheld game console and went on sale in Japan on 2 December.Nintendo said the media adapter will be available from February in Japan.Nintendo said it had no plans to sell the media adapter outside Japan.Nintendo dominates the handheld gaming console world thanks to successive versions of the GameBoy.When it goes on sale the adapter is expected to cost about 5000 yen (£25), roughly the difference in price between the DS and the higher-priced Sony PSP."
"Apple sues to stop product leaks

Computer firm Apple has issued a lawsuit to prevent online leaks of information about future products.

The lawsuit, against an unidentified individual, comes just weeks before the MacWorld conference in San Francisco, used to showcase new products. The complaint said an ""unidentified individual... has recently misappropriated and disseminated confidential information"". The lawsuit was filed with the Santa Clara California Superior Court. Apple is famously secretive about its future product launches while Apple users are equally famous for speculating about new technology from the company. Fans have speculated in recent weeks about the possibility of a new type of iPod being announced at the MacWorld conference.

Apple said in the seven-page complaint, filed on 13 December, that it did not know the ""true names or capacities, whether individual, associate, corporate or otherwise,"" of the defendants. The company said it would amend the complaint once they had discovered the names of those who had allegedly leaked information. It is not the first time Apple has sued people who have posted information about future products on the internet. In December 2002, Apple sued a former contractor who allegedly posted online drawings, images and engineering details of the company's PowerMac G4 computer. In a statement, Apple said of the current lawsuit: ""Apple has filed a civil complaint against unnamed individuals who we believe stole our trade secrets and posted detailed information about an unannounced Apple product on the internet.""
","In a statement, Apple said of the current lawsuit: ""Apple has filed a civil complaint against unnamed individuals who we believe stole our trade secrets and posted detailed information about an unannounced Apple product on the internet.""Computer firm Apple has issued a lawsuit to prevent online leaks of information about future products.It is not the first time Apple has sued people who have posted information about future products on the internet.The complaint said an ""unidentified individual... has recently misappropriated and disseminated confidential information"".Apple said in the seven-page complaint, filed on 13 December, that it did not know the ""true names or capacities, whether individual, associate, corporate or otherwise,"" of the defendants."
"Gamer buys $26,500 virtual land

A 22-year-old gamer has spent $26,500 (£13,700) on an island that exists only in a computer role-playing game (RPG).

The Australian gamer, known only by his gaming moniker Deathifier, bought the island in an online auction. The land exists within the game Project Entropia, an RPG which allows thousands of players to interact with each other. Entropia allows gamers to buy and sell virtual items using real cash, while fans of other titles often use auction site eBay to sell their virtual wares. Earlier this year economists calculated that these massively multi-player online role-playing games (MMORPGs) have a gross economic impact equivalent to the GDP of the African nation of Namibia.

""This is a historic moment in gaming history, and this sale only goes to prove that massive multi-player online gaming has reached a new plateau,"" said Marco Behrmann, director of community relations at Mindark, the game's developer.

The virtual island includes a gigantic abandoned castle and beautiful beaches which are described as ripe for developing beachfront property. Deathifier will make money from his investment as he is able to tax other gamers who come to his virtual land to hunt or mine for gold. He has also begun to sell plots to people who wish to build virtual homes. ""This type of investment will definitely become a trend in online gaming,"" said Deathifier. The Entopia economy lets gamers exchange real currency into PED (Project Entropia Dollars) and back again into real money. Ten PEDs are the equivalent to one US dollar and typical items sold include iron ingots ($5) and shogun armour ($1.70) Gamers can theoretically earn money by accumulating PEDs through the acquisition of goods, buildings, and land in the Entropia universe. MMORPGs have become enormously popular in the last 10 years with hundreds of thousands of gamers living out alternate lives in fantasy worlds. Almost 200,000 people are registered players on Project Entropia.
","The land exists within the game Project Entropia, an RPG which allows thousands of players to interact with each other.Entropia allows gamers to buy and sell virtual items using real cash, while fans of other titles often use auction site eBay to sell their virtual wares.Deathifier will make money from his investment as he is able to tax other gamers who come to his virtual land to hunt or mine for gold.The Australian gamer, known only by his gaming moniker Deathifier, bought the island in an online auction.""This type of investment will definitely become a trend in online gaming,"" said Deathifier.A 22-year-old gamer has spent $26,500 (£13,700) on an island that exists only in a computer role-playing game (RPG)."
"Microsoft sets sights on spyware

Windows users could soon be paying Microsoft to keep PCs free of spyware.

Following the takeover of anti-spyware firm Giant, Microsoft said it would soon release a toolkit that strips machines of the irritating programs. Although initially free, Microsoft has not ruled out charging people who want to keep this toolkit up to date. Surveys show that almost every Windows PC is infested with spyware programs that do everything from bombard users with adverts to steal login data. Microsoft said that a beta version of the toolkit to clean up Windows machines should be available within 30 days.

Designed for PCs running Windows 2000 and XP, the utility will clean out spyware programs, constantly monitor what happens on a PC and will be regularly updated to catch the latest variants. Before now many of Microsoft's other security boosting programs, such as the firewall in Windows XP, have been given away free. But Mike Nash, vice president in Microsoft's security business unit, said it was still working out pricing and licensing issues. Charging for future versions has not been discounted, he said. ""We'll come up with a plan and roll that out,"" he said. The plan could turn out to be a lucrative one for Microsoft. A recent survey by Earthlink and Webroot found that 90% of PCs are infested with the surreptitious software and that, on average, each one is harbouring 28 separate spyware programs. Currently users wanting protection from spyware have turned to free programs such as Spybot and Ad-Aware. Spyware comes in many forms and at its most benign exploits lazy browsing habits to install itself and subject users to unwanted adverts. Other forms hijack net browser settings to force people to view pages they would otherwise never visit. At its most malign, spyware watches everything that people do with their PC and steals login information and other personal data. Microsoft's announcement about spyware comes after it bought small New York software firm Giant Company Software. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.
","Windows users could soon be paying Microsoft to keep PCs free of spyware.Microsoft said that a beta version of the toolkit to clean up Windows machines should be available within 30 days.Surveys show that almost every Windows PC is infested with spyware programs that do everything from bombard users with adverts to steal login data.Following the takeover of anti-spyware firm Giant, Microsoft said it would soon release a toolkit that strips machines of the irritating programs.Although initially free, Microsoft has not ruled out charging people who want to keep this toolkit up to date.Designed for PCs running Windows 2000 and XP, the utility will clean out spyware programs, constantly monitor what happens on a PC and will be regularly updated to catch the latest variants.Before now many of Microsoft's other security boosting programs, such as the firewall in Windows XP, have been given away free.At its most malign, spyware watches everything that people do with their PC and steals login information and other personal data."
"Video phone help for deaf people

Deaf people who prefer to communicate using British Sign Language (BSL) could soon be having their phone conversations relayed using webcams or videophones and an interpreter.

The Video Relay Service is being piloted by the Royal National Institute for Deaf People (RNID), but the organisation says unless the service is provided at the same rate as voice calls it will be beyond most people's pockets. The RNID is urging telecoms regulator, Ofcom, to reduce the cost of the service from the current £7.00 per minute and make it the same as ordinary phone calls. The service works by putting a deaf person in visual contact with a BSL interpreter via a webcam or video phone, and the interpreter then relays the deaf person's conversation using a telephone and translates the other person's response into sign language.

For many deaf people, especially those born deaf, BSL is a first and preferred means of communication.

Until now, the only alternative has been to use textphones which means having to type a message and have it relayed via an operator. ""In the past, I've used textphones but they have problems,"" said Robert Currington who is taking part in the pilot. ""I communicate in BSL; my written English is not very good and it takes me longer to think in English and type my message."" ""I sometimes find it difficult to understand the reply."" The RNID says the UK is lagging behind other countries which are already making relay services available at the cost of an ordinary phone call. ""There are no technical or economic reasons for not providing equivalent access to services for deaf people,"" said RNID technology director, Guido Gybels. ""In the US and Australia, sign language relay services have already been made universally available at the same cost as a voice call. ""By failing to provide and fund the video relay service for sign language users, the telecommunications sector is effectively discriminating against an already disenfranchised group.""

Ofcom says it has plans to review the services that telecoms companies are obliged to provide early next year. And new technology, including the Video Relay Service, will be discussed with interested parties in the near future. But a spokesman said its powers were limited by legislation. ""Any proposals to extend existing arrangements to cover new services would be for government to consider,"" he said. Mr Currington, like many of the UK's 70,000 BSL users, will be hoping that a way can be found to make a cost-effective service available. ""The relay service makes phone conversations a pleasure,"" he said. ""I can show my emotions more easily in BSL in the same way hearing people express emotions through voice calls.""
","""The relay service makes phone conversations a pleasure,"" he said.The Video Relay Service is being piloted by the Royal National Institute for Deaf People (RNID), but the organisation says unless the service is provided at the same rate as voice calls it will be beyond most people's pockets.The service works by putting a deaf person in visual contact with a BSL interpreter via a webcam or video phone, and the interpreter then relays the deaf person's conversation using a telephone and translates the other person's response into sign language.The RNID says the UK is lagging behind other countries which are already making relay services available at the cost of an ordinary phone call.""In the US and Australia, sign language relay services have already been made universally available at the same cost as a voice call.""There are no technical or economic reasons for not providing equivalent access to services for deaf people,"" said RNID technology director, Guido Gybels.Deaf people who prefer to communicate using British Sign Language (BSL) could soon be having their phone conversations relayed using webcams or videophones and an interpreter.""By failing to provide and fund the video relay service for sign language users, the telecommunications sector is effectively discriminating against an already disenfranchised group."""
"Virus poses as Christmas e-mail

Security firms are warning about a Windows virus disguising itself as an electronic Christmas card.

The Zafi.D virus translates the Christmas greeting on its subject line into the language of the person receiving infected e-mail. Anti-virus firms speculate that this multilingual ability is helping the malicious program spread widely online. Anti-virus firm Sophos said that 10% of the e-mail currently on the net was infected with the Zafi virus.

Like many other Windows viruses, Zafi-D plunders Microsoft Outlook for e-mail addresses and then uses mail-sending software to despatch itself across the web to new victims. To be infected users must open up the attachment travelling with the message which bears the code for the malicious bug. The attachment on the e-mail poses as an electronic Christmas card but anyone opening it will simply get a crude image of two smiley faces.

The virus' subject line says ""Merry Christmas"" and translates this into one of 15 languages depending of the final suffix of the e-mail address the infected message has been sent to. The message in the body of the e-mail reads: ""Happy Holidays"" and this too is translated. On infected machines the virus tries to disable anti-virus and firewall software and opens up a backdoor on the PC to hand over control to the writer of the virus. The virus is thought to have spread most widely in South America, Italy, Spain, Bulgaria and Hungary. The original Zafi virus appeared in April this year. ""We have seen these hoaxes for several Christmases already, and personally I prefer traditional pen and paper cards, and we recommend this to all our clients too,"" said Mikko Hypponen, who heads F-Secure's anti-virus team.
","Anti-virus firm Sophos said that 10% of the e-mail currently on the net was infected with the Zafi virus.The Zafi.D virus translates the Christmas greeting on its subject line into the language of the person receiving infected e-mail.The virus' subject line says ""Merry Christmas"" and translates this into one of 15 languages depending of the final suffix of the e-mail address the infected message has been sent to.On infected machines the virus tries to disable anti-virus and firewall software and opens up a backdoor on the PC to hand over control to the writer of the virus.Security firms are warning about a Windows virus disguising itself as an electronic Christmas card.The original Zafi virus appeared in April this year."
"Fast lifts rise into record books

Two high-speed lifts at the world's tallest building have been officially recognised as the planet's fastest.

The lifts take only 30 seconds to whisk passengers to the top of the 508m tall TFC 101 Tower in Taipei, Taiwan. The Guinness Book of Records has declared the 17m per second speed of the two lifts the swiftest on Earth. The lifts also have a pressure control system to stop passengers' ears popping as they ascend and descend at high speed.

In total, the TFC Tower has 61 lifts, 34 of them double-deckers, and 50 escalators to shuttle people around its 106 floors. The TFC 101 Tower is due to be officially opened on 31 December.

The super-fast lifts can speed up to 24 passengers to the tip of the tower in about 30 seconds, while ascending their 382m track. The 17m/s top speed of the lifts translates to about 38mph (61km/h). Curiously the lifts take longer to descend and spend almost a whole minute returning to ground level from the top of the TFC Tower. The key new technologies applied in the world's fastest elevators include:


 - A pressure control system, which adjusts the atmospheric pressure inside a car by using suction and discharge blowers, preventing ""ear popping"" 
 - An active control system which tries to balance the lift more finely and remove the sources of vibrations 
 - Streamlined cars to reduce the whistling noise produced by running the lifts at a high speed inside a narrow shaft 
 

""The certification of our elevators as world record-holders by the authoritative Guinness World Records is a great honour for us,"" said Masayuki Shimono, president of manufacturer Toshiba Elevator and Building Systems which installed the lifts. The first record for the world's fastest passenger elevators was published in the first edition of the Guinness Book of Records in 1955. ""As such, it is an interesting indicator of how technology has advanced in the 50 years since that first edition, when the record was 426m per minute, or 25.6 km/h, less than half the speed of the new record,"" said Hein Le Roux, specialist researcher at the Guinness World Records. Taipei's TFC 101 Tower is more than 50m taller than the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia - formerly the world's tallest skyscraper.
","The lifts take only 30 seconds to whisk passengers to the top of the 508m tall TFC 101 Tower in Taipei, Taiwan.The super-fast lifts can speed up to 24 passengers to the tip of the tower in about 30 seconds, while ascending their 382m track.The Guinness Book of Records has declared the 17m per second speed of the two lifts the swiftest on Earth.Curiously the lifts take longer to descend and spend almost a whole minute returning to ground level from the top of the TFC Tower.The 17m/s top speed of the lifts translates to about 38mph (61km/h).The key new technologies applied in the world's fastest elevators include:   - A pressure control system, which adjusts the atmospheric pressure inside a car by using suction and discharge blowers, preventing ""ear popping"" - An active control system which tries to balance the lift more finely and remove the sources of vibrations - Streamlined cars to reduce the whistling noise produced by running the lifts at a high speed inside a narrow shaft   ""The certification of our elevators as world record-holders by the authoritative Guinness World Records is a great honour for us,"" said Masayuki Shimono, president of manufacturer Toshiba Elevator and Building Systems which installed the lifts."
"Broadband in the UK gathers pace

One person in the UK is joining the internet's fast lane every 10 seconds, according to BT.

The telecoms giant said the number of people on broadband via the telephone line had now surpassed four million. Including those connected via cable, almost six million people have a fast, always-on connection. The boom has been fuelled by fierce competition and falling prices, as well as the greater availability of broadband over the phone line. ""The take-up rate for broadband is accelerating at a terrific pace,"" said Ben Verwaayen, BT's chief executive. ""We will be in a very strong position to hit our five million target by summer 2006 much earlier than we had previously expected.""

The last million connections were made over the past four months, with thousands of people being added to the total every day of the week.

Those signing up to broadband include those that get their service direct from BT or via the many companies that re-sell BT lines under their own name. Part of the surge in people signing up was due to BT stretching the reach of ADSL - the UK's most widely used way of getting broadband - beyond six kilometres. Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line technology lets ordinary copper phone lines support high data speeds. The standard speed is 512kbps, though faster connections are available. According to BT, more than 95% of UK homes and businesses can receive broadband over the phone line. It aims to extend this figure to 99.4% by next summer. There are also an estimated 1.7 million cable broadband customers in the UK.
","The telecoms giant said the number of people on broadband via the telephone line had now surpassed four million.According to BT, more than 95% of UK homes and businesses can receive broadband over the phone line.There are also an estimated 1.7 million cable broadband customers in the UK.Those signing up to broadband include those that get their service direct from BT or via the many companies that re-sell BT lines under their own name.Including those connected via cable, almost six million people have a fast, always-on connection.The last million connections were made over the past four months, with thousands of people being added to the total every day of the week."
"Hollywood campaign hits websites

Movie studio efforts to stop pirated films being shared on peer-to-peer networks have claimed a high-profile victim.

The campaign of legal action is thought to be behind the closure of the widely used Suprnova.org website. The site was the most popular place for people swapping and sharing links for the BitTorrent network. A recent study showed that more than half of the peer-to-peer traffic during June was for the BitTorrent system.

In a message posted on Suprnova.org on Sunday, the site's controllers said the site was ""closing down for good in the way that we all know it"". If the site did return, the message said, it would not be hosting any more torrent links. It continued: ""We are very sorry for this, but there was no other way, we have tried everything. "" The only parts that would keep going, said the operators of the Suprnova site, were the discussion forums and net chat channels. The site is thought to have closed following an announcement by the Motion Picture Association of America that it was launching legal action against those operating BitTorrent servers rather than end users. Because of the way that BitTorrent works, server sites do not host the actual file being shared, instead they host a link that points people to others that have it. By targeting servers, the MPAA hopes to cripple BitTorrent's ability to share files. In the opening days of the MPAA campaign, the organisation filed 100 lawsuits against operators of BitTorrent server site. The launching of the legal seems to be having an effect. Phoenix Torrents, another popular BitTorrent site, has also decided to shut down and, though it gave no reasons for the closure, it is thought to be motivated by the threat of legal action. Last week Finnish police raided a BitTorrent site based in the country that, according to reports, let 10,000 users shared pirated films, software, music and games.
","The site is thought to have closed following an announcement by the Motion Picture Association of America that it was launching legal action against those operating BitTorrent servers rather than end users.The site was the most popular place for people swapping and sharing links for the BitTorrent network.In the opening days of the MPAA campaign, the organisation filed 100 lawsuits against operators of BitTorrent server site.Phoenix Torrents, another popular BitTorrent site, has also decided to shut down and, though it gave no reasons for the closure, it is thought to be motivated by the threat of legal action.Because of the way that BitTorrent works, server sites do not host the actual file being shared, instead they host a link that points people to others that have it.In a message posted on Suprnova.org on Sunday, the site's controllers said the site was ""closing down for good in the way that we all know it""."
"Poles play with GameBoy 'blip-pop'

A group of artists in Poland has taken the cacophony of blips, boops and beeps created as players bash buttons on Nintendo's handheld GameBoy console to a new level.

The Gameboyzz Orchestra Project has taken the game sounds to put together music tunes they have dubbed ""blip-pop."" Think of it as Donkey Kong meets Norman Cook, or maybe Tetris takes on Kraftwerk. Any way you slice it, the sound is distinct. All the sounds are made by six Nintendo GameBoys, with a mixture of older models and newer Advance SP handhelds. The Gameboyzz Orchestra Project tweaks the software a bit, and then connects the units through a mixing board.

Jarek Kujda, one of the project's founding members has been into electronic music and video games, for a while now.

""I was playing some experimental music and three, four years ago when I first used a GameBoy in my band as a drum machine,"" said Kujda. He realised that the console could be used as a rudimentary synthesizer. He wondered, if one GameBoy can make music, what would happen if he put six of them together? Kujda found five other people who were interested and the Gameboyzz Orchestra Project was born. ""Gameboyzz Orchestra Project is more of an improvisational project,"" said Kudja. ""We prepare some patterns before a concert, and then improvise during the concert."" The group plays maybe four or five shows a year. Malgorzata Kujda, Jarek's younger sister and a fellow band member, describes a Gameboyzz Orchestra Project concert as a lot of noise. ""For example, I make music with more hard beats and noises,"" she said. ""But each of us makes another music, a different sound. And then in the concert we just improvise, and that I think is more fun for us.""

The Gameboyzz Orchestra Project admits they get mixed reactions from audiences. Some love the group's music, and others are not quite sure what to make of it.

In the world of electronic music, these purveyors of blip-pop are not unique. But Jarek Kujda says they try to be unique. ""We have lots of people making music on old school stuff, electronic old school stuff like Commodore, Atari, Spectrum,"" he said. ""We want to play only experimental music, not cover songs. We're something like an electronic jam session."" The Gameboyzz Orchestra Project's tracks are available online and the group hopes to make a CD next year. And they have sponsorship, courtesy of the Polish distributor of Nintendo products. The members of the Gameboyzz Orchestra Project do not expect serious competition anytime soon. A GameBoy Advance costs about US $200 in Poland these days, which is still way beyond the reach of most Polish gamers, or musicians.

Clark Boyd is technology correspondent for The World, a BBC World Service and WGBH-Boston co-production
","The Gameboyzz Orchestra Project has taken the game sounds to put together music tunes they have dubbed ""blip-pop.""""Gameboyzz Orchestra Project is more of an improvisational project,"" said Kudja.Malgorzata Kujda, Jarek's younger sister and a fellow band member, describes a Gameboyzz Orchestra Project concert as a lot of noise.Kujda found five other people who were interested and the Gameboyzz Orchestra Project was born.In the world of electronic music, these purveyors of blip-pop are not unique.""I was playing some experimental music and three, four years ago when I first used a GameBoy in my band as a drum machine,"" said Kujda.Jarek Kujda, one of the project's founding members has been into electronic music and video games, for a while now.""But each of us makes another music, a different sound.He wondered, if one GameBoy can make music, what would happen if he put six of them together?The members of the Gameboyzz Orchestra Project do not expect serious competition anytime soon.The Gameboyzz Orchestra Project's tracks are available online and the group hopes to make a CD next year.The Gameboyzz Orchestra Project admits they get mixed reactions from audiences."
"Santy worm makes unwelcome visit

Thousands of website bulletin boards have been defaced by a virus that used Google to spread across the net.

The Santy worm first appeared on 20 December and within 24 hours had successfully hit more than 40,000 websites. The malicious program exploits a vulnerability in the widely used phpBB software. Santy's spread has now been stopped after Google began blocking infected sites searching for new victims.

The worm replaces chat forums with a webpage announcing that the site had been defaced by the malicious program. Soon after being infected, sites hit by the worm started randomly searching for other websites running the vulnerable phpBB software. Once Google started blocking these search queries the rate of infection tailed off sharply. A message sent to Finnish security firm F-Secure by Google's security team said: ""While a seven hour response for something like this is not outrageous, we think we can and should do better."" ""We will be reviewing our procedures to improve our response time in the future to similar problems,"" the Google team said. Security firms estimate that about 1m websites run their discussion groups and forums with the open source phpBB program. The worst of the attack now seems to be over as a search conducted on the morning of the 22 December produced only 1,440 hits for sites showing the text used in the defacement message. People using the sites hit by Santy will not be affected by the worm. Santy is not the first malicious program to use Google to help it spread. In July a variant of the MyDoom virus slowed down searches on Google as the program flooded the search site with queries looking for new e-mail addresses to send itself to.
","Santy is not the first malicious program to use Google to help it spread.Soon after being infected, sites hit by the worm started randomly searching for other websites running the vulnerable phpBB software.The worm replaces chat forums with a webpage announcing that the site had been defaced by the malicious program.In July a variant of the MyDoom virus slowed down searches on Google as the program flooded the search site with queries looking for new e-mail addresses to send itself to.People using the sites hit by Santy will not be affected by the worm.Santy's spread has now been stopped after Google began blocking infected sites searching for new victims."
"EU software patent law delayed

Controversial new EU rules for the patenting of computer-based inventions have been put on hold due to a last minute intervention from Poland.

Poland - a large and therefore crucial EU member - has requested more time to consider the issue, especially as it relates to the patenting of software. Critics say the law would favour large companies over small, innovative ones. They say it could have massive ramifications for developments such as open source software.

Polish ministers want to see the phrasing of the text of the Directive on the Patentability of Computer-Implemented Inventions changed so that it excludes the patenting of software. The planned law has ignited angry debate about whether the EU should allow the patenting of computer programs and internet business methods as currently happens in the US. So, for instance, US-based Amazon.com holds a patent on 'one-click shopping'. Critics claim the law, which the EU says is needed to harmonise with the US, is little more than a law on ideas. ""Patent rights, it is claimed, protect inventors but in this case it is exclusively the interests of the big companies that are protected,"" Eva Lichtenberg, a Austrian Green member of the European Parliament said in a statement. ""Smaller, innovative firms cannot afford the patenting and legal costs that the directive would inflict on them,"" she added. The European Parliament has already clashed with the European Union on the issue and there have been accusations that the process to decide the issue has been undemocratic. The directive has been subject to several previous delays.
","Poland - a large and therefore crucial EU member - has requested more time to consider the issue, especially as it relates to the patenting of software.The planned law has ignited angry debate about whether the EU should allow the patenting of computer programs and internet business methods as currently happens in the US.Critics say the law would favour large companies over small, innovative ones.Critics claim the law, which the EU says is needed to harmonise with the US, is little more than a law on ideas.The European Parliament has already clashed with the European Union on the issue and there have been accusations that the process to decide the issue has been undemocratic."
"Apple sues 'Tiger' file sharers

Apple has taken more legal action to stop online leaks of its new products.

The computer giant has sued three men for releasing preview versions of its latest Mac OSX software onto file-sharing sites prior to its release. It said two versions of the operating system, codenamed Tiger, were put onto the net in October and December. It is the second time in two weeks Apple has taken legal action to protect its future products. Tiger is due to be shipped in early 2005. Last week, it filed a lawsuit against ""unnamed individuals"" who leaked details about new products onto the web.

The latest action was against members of the Apple Developer Connection, a group of programmers which gets to see test versions of upcoming software so they can develop or change their own programs to work with them. ""Members of Apple Developer Connection receive advance copies of Apple software under strict confidentiality agreements, which we take very seriously to protect our intellectual property,"" Apple said in a statement.

It added that its future financial results were very much dependent on developing and improving its operating systems and other software. It is thought the men used sites which employ BitTorrent technology. With BitTorrent technology, sites do not host actual files being shared, instead they host a link that points people to others that have the particular file. Last week, the Motion Picture Association of America launched a legal campaign targeting websites that operate using the BitTorrent system in an effort to clamp down on movie piracy. Apple is no stranger to taking legal action against those who leak product information. In December 2002, it sued a former contractor who allegedly put drawings, images and engineering details of its PowerMac G4 computer online. The latest action was filed on Monday in the US District Court in California. It comes just weeks before the MacWorld conference in San Francisco, used to showcase new products.
","It is the second time in two weeks Apple has taken legal action to protect its future products.Apple has taken more legal action to stop online leaks of its new products.Apple is no stranger to taking legal action against those who leak product information.The latest action was against members of the Apple Developer Connection, a group of programmers which gets to see test versions of upcoming software so they can develop or change their own programs to work with them.It said two versions of the operating system, codenamed Tiger, were put onto the net in October and December.The computer giant has sued three men for releasing preview versions of its latest Mac OSX software onto file-sharing sites prior to its release.""Members of Apple Developer Connection receive advance copies of Apple software under strict confidentiality agreements, which we take very seriously to protect our intellectual property,"" Apple said in a statement."
"Apple unveils low-cost 'Mac mini'

Apple has unveiled a new, low-cost Macintosh computer for the masses, billed as the Mac mini.

Chief executive Steve Jobs showed off the new machine at his annual MacWorld speech, in San Francisco. The $499 Macintosh, sold for £339 in the UK, was described by Jobs as the ""most important Mac"" made by Apple. Mr Jobs also unveiled the iPod shuffle, a new music player using cheaper flash memory rather than hard drives, which are used in more expensive iPods.

The new computer shifts the company into new territory - traditionally, the firm is known as a design and innovation-led firm rather than as a mass-market manufacturer. The Mac mini comes without a monitor, keyboard and mouse, and a second version with a larger hard drive will also be sold for $599.

The machine - which will be available from 22 January - was described by Jobs as ""BYODKM... bring your own display, keyboard, and mouse"". In an attempt to win over Windows PC customers, Mr Jobs said it would appeal to people thinking of changing operating systems. ""People who are thinking of switching will have no more excuses,"" he said. ""It's the newest and most affordable Mac ever."" The new computer has been the subject of speculation for several weeks and while few people will be surprised by the announcement many analysts had already said it was a sensible move. In January, Apple sued a website after it published what it said were specifications for the new computer. Ian Harris, deputy editor of UK magazine Mac Format, said the machine would appeal to PC-owning consumers who had purchased an iPod.

""They want a further taste of Mac because they like what they have seen with iPod."" Harris added: ""Everybody thought that Apple was happy to remain a niche maker of luxury computers, and moving into a market dominated by low margin manufacturers like Dell is a bold move. ""But it shows that Apple is keen to capitalise on the mass market success it's had with the iPod. The Mac mini will appeal to PC users looking for an attractive, 'no fuss' computer."" The new iPod shuffle comes in two versions - one offering 512mb of storage for $99 (£69 in the Uk) and a second with one gigabyte of storage for $149 (£99) - and went on sale Tuesday. The music player has no display and will play songs either consecutively or shuffled. The smaller iPod will hold about 120 songs, said Mr Jobs. Mr Jobs told the delegates at MacWorld that iPod already had a 65% market share of all digital music players.
","Apple has unveiled a new, low-cost Macintosh computer for the masses, billed as the Mac mini.The $499 Macintosh, sold for £339 in the UK, was described by Jobs as the ""most important Mac"" made by Apple.The smaller iPod will hold about 120 songs, said Mr Jobs.Mr Jobs also unveiled the iPod shuffle, a new music player using cheaper flash memory rather than hard drives, which are used in more expensive iPods.In January, Apple sued a website after it published what it said were specifications for the new computer.Ian Harris, deputy editor of UK magazine Mac Format, said the machine would appeal to PC-owning consumers who had purchased an iPod.The new computer has been the subject of speculation for several weeks and while few people will be surprised by the announcement many analysts had already said it was a sensible move.Mr Jobs told the delegates at MacWorld that iPod already had a 65% market share of all digital music players.In an attempt to win over Windows PC customers, Mr Jobs said it would appeal to people thinking of changing operating systems."
"Speech takes on search engines

A Scottish firm is looking to attract web surfers with a search engine that reads out results.

Called Speegle, it has the look and feel of a normal search engine, with the added feature of being able to read out the results. Scottish speech technology firm CEC Systems launched the site in November. But experts have questioned whether talking search engines are of any real benefit to people with visual impairments.

The Edinburgh-based firm CEC has married speech technology with ever-popular internet search. The ability to search is becoming increasingly crucial to surfers baffled by the huge amount of information available on the web.

According to search engine Ask Jeeves, around 80% of surfers visit search engines as their first port of call on the net. People visiting Speegle can select one of three voices to read the results of a query or summarise news stories from sources such as the BBC and Reuters. ""It is still a bit robotic and can make a few mistakes but we are never going to have completely natural sounding voices and it is not bad,"" said Speegle founder Gordon Renton. ""The system is ideal for people with blurred vision or for those that just want to search for something in the background while they do something else. ""We are not saying that it will be suitable for totally blind people, although the Royal National Institute of the Blind (RNIB) is looking at the technology,"" he added. But Julie Howell, digital policy manager at the RNIB, expressed doubts over whether Speegle and similar sites added anything to blind people's experience of the web. ""There are a whole lot of options like this springing up on the web and one has to think carefully about what the market is going to be,"" she said. ""Blind people have specialised screen readers available to them which will do the job these technologies do in a more sophisticated way,"" she added.

The site uses a technology dubbed PanaVox, which takes web text and converts it into synthesised speech. In the past speech technology has only been compatible with broadband because of the huge files it downloads but CEC says its compression technology means it will also work on slower dial-up connections. Visitors to Speegle may notice that the look and feel of the site bears more than a passing resemblance to the better known, if silent, search engine Google. Google has no connection with Speegle and the use of bright colours is simply to make the site more visible for those with visual impairments, said Mr Renton. ""It is not a rip-off. We are doing something that Google does not do and is not planning to do and there is truth in the saying that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery,"" he said. Speegle is proving popular with those learning English in countries such as Japan and China. ""The site is bombarded by people just listening to the words. The repetition could be useful although they may all end up talking like robots,"" said Mr Renton.
","Called Speegle, it has the look and feel of a normal search engine, with the added feature of being able to read out the results.A Scottish firm is looking to attract web surfers with a search engine that reads out results.The Edinburgh-based firm CEC has married speech technology with ever-popular internet search.Visitors to Speegle may notice that the look and feel of the site bears more than a passing resemblance to the better known, if silent, search engine Google.Google has no connection with Speegle and the use of bright colours is simply to make the site more visible for those with visual impairments, said Mr Renton.But experts have questioned whether talking search engines are of any real benefit to people with visual impairments.Scottish speech technology firm CEC Systems launched the site in November.""We are not saying that it will be suitable for totally blind people, although the Royal National Institute of the Blind (RNIB) is looking at the technology,"" he added.According to search engine Ask Jeeves, around 80% of surfers visit search engines as their first port of call on the net.But Julie Howell, digital policy manager at the RNIB, expressed doubts over whether Speegle and similar sites added anything to blind people's experience of the web."
"Broadband steams ahead in the US

More and more Americans are joining the internet's fast lane, according to official figures.

The number of people and business connected to broadband jumped by 38% in a year, said the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC). In a report, it said there were more than 32 million broadband connections by the end of June 2004. But the US is still behind compared to other nations, ranked 13th in the world by a UN telecoms body.

During his 2004 re-election campaign, President George W Bush pledge to ensure that affordable high-speed net access would be available to all Americans by 2007.

According to the report by the FCC, broadband is becoming increasingly popular, with people using it for research and shopping, as well as downloading music and watching video. The total number of people and businesses on broadband rose by to 32.5 million in the year ending June 2004, compared to 23.5 million in June 2003. Whereas in the UK, most people hook up to broadband via Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL) technology which lets ordinary copper phone lines support high data speeds. But in the US, cable leads the way, accounting for 18.6 million lines. Broadband over the phone line makes up 11.4 million connections, according to the FCC figures.
","Broadband over the phone line makes up 11.4 million connections, according to the FCC figures.The total number of people and businesses on broadband rose by to 32.5 million in the year ending June 2004, compared to 23.5 million in June 2003.In a report, it said there were more than 32 million broadband connections by the end of June 2004.The number of people and business connected to broadband jumped by 38% in a year, said the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC)."
"Napster offers rented music to go

Music downloading, for those that have rejected the free peer to peer services, can be a costly business.

The cost of paying even as little as 70p per track can add up, particularly for those people who own one of the new generation of players that can store thousands of songs. Paying per track for music is becoming as outmoded as paying per minute for internet access and alternative monthly or yearly subscription models are springing up as a more convenient, and ultimately cheaper way of owning music.

""Music fans are moving away from buying the traditional bundled package of a dozen or more songs that we used to call an album to newer ways that fit their lifestyle; either single tracks or subscriptions services,"" said Paul Myers, chief executive of Wippit, a UK-based music download service. While iTunes is doing good business with its sales of individual tracks to iPod owners, others are questioning whether the concept of owning music is even valid in the digital age. Napster is due to launch a new rental subscription service - dubbed Napster to Go in the UK in the next few months. The service can be used on players that support Microsoft Windows latest Digital Rights Management technology known as Janus. This includes players made by Samsung, Rio and Creative.

Currently on offer in beta-version in the US, the service costs $15 per month for unlimited downloads. The technology ensures that music downloaded to the player only remains playable while the user subscribes to the service. Users need to update their license on a monthly basis or the tunes will no longer play.

This has outraged some digital music lovers, especially as Napster already offers a cheaper service for downloading music to the PC. Napster claims the higher price is a result of record labels charging more for the to-go service and says it also offers ""greater value"" for customers. Mr Myers is not convinced a rental model will work for consumers. ""We've been offering our unlimited music subscription service for more than three years now and our customers know what they want. Format interoperability, excellent value and the reassurance that music purchased from Wippit is theirs to keep and enjoy on whatever device they choose,"" he said. ""Who wants to download a track that won't play next month if you decide to unsubscribe to the service or change portable player for an iPod or the latest mobile phone?"" Wippit offers a download subscription service for £4.99 per month or £50 per year. It has a catalogue of around 60,000 songs.
","This has outraged some digital music lovers, especially as Napster already offers a cheaper service for downloading music to the PC.Wippit offers a download subscription service for £4.99 per month or £50 per year.Paying per track for music is becoming as outmoded as paying per minute for internet access and alternative monthly or yearly subscription models are springing up as a more convenient, and ultimately cheaper way of owning music.""Music fans are moving away from buying the traditional bundled package of a dozen or more songs that we used to call an album to newer ways that fit their lifestyle; either single tracks or subscriptions services,"" said Paul Myers, chief executive of Wippit, a UK-based music download service.The technology ensures that music downloaded to the player only remains playable while the user subscribes to the service.""We've been offering our unlimited music subscription service for more than three years now and our customers know what they want.""Who wants to download a track that won't play next month if you decide to unsubscribe to the service or change portable player for an iPod or the latest mobile phone?""Currently on offer in beta-version in the US, the service costs $15 per month for unlimited downloads."
"Broadband soars in 2004

If broadband were a jumbo jet, then 2003 would have seen it taxiing down the runway, firing up its engines and preparing for take-off. But this year has seen it soar.

In the spring it literally took to the skies as Lufthansa and British Airways trialled it on flights. This perhaps said more about how indispensable people were beginning to perceive the technology, rather than how useful sky-high broadband would actually be. It was flying high and by the autumn, five million Britons had signed up for high-speed net access at home.

Such enthusiasm is unlikely to dampen any time soon and experts predict that by the end of next year the numbers will have risen to more than eight million, or more than 30% of homes. The two key factors in whetting people's appetite were falling prices and a huge marketing push. When operators such as BT and Telewest offered standard 512K broadband for less than £20 at the beginning of the year, it was as if an invisible barrier had been breached - broadband had truly gone mass market. A feeding frenzy followed as firms vied for eyeballs in a price war reminiscent of that following the mass market take-up of dial-up. Broadband for less than £10 was even touted by some firms, although such a low price raised eyebrows among more established companies questioning how they are able to sustain such business models.

For those who became broadbanders in 2004 there was no turning back and the days of waiting for the modem to kick in began to seem as outdated an idea as a jungle without celebrities. The rest of the world was also falling in love with the benefits of fast internet access, to the tune of 100 million connections worldwide by April, prompting research firm Point Topic to declare it one of the fastest growing technologies ever. By September, the number of broadband connections in the UK finally overtook dial-up and in December BT announced that it was making a new broadband connection every 10 seconds.

Broadband was being mentioned on the 10 O'clock News and in the tabloids; the Sun even carried a cartoon joke about it. But two of the most significant pieces of news for broadband were items that did not make the headlines. In May, BT quietly announced that it was shaving 70% off the cost of allowing other operators access to its telephone exchanges, so-called local loop unbundling. The vital local loop is the crucial link between telephone exchanges and homes. At the moment BT has a stranglehold on more than 80% of these lines making it the key voice in deciding what ADSL products get into homes. With cheaper local loop unbundling, rivals to BT can offer faster services that will leave the broadband of today looking positively tortoise-like. It will mean the UK will finally catch up with countries such as France and the Netherlands, where homes are routinely enjoying speeds of up to 15Mb (megabits per second). And the major price fall means that, rather than just talk about it, companies are actually starting to get their own equipment into BT's exchanges. It may not seem that exciting but it is a remarkable transition given that just a few years ago the arguments over local loop unbundling bore more than a passing resemblance to the Northern Ireland peace talks - fraught, bitter and with no end in sight.

Another big piece of news for broadband users in 2004 was the extension of BT's reach, meaning more than 95% of the population could get broadband, regardless of how far away from the exchange they lived.

There was a slight caveat for those wanting to upgrade to 1Mbps broadband, they still have to live within six kilometres of a broadband-enabled exchange. For thousands frustrated by their inability to get the technology, the news meant they could finally join in. Broadband is not just about fast access over the telephone and cable operators NTL and Telewest also had a bumper year. The biggest news for them was increased speeds, introducing 2Mb and 3Mb services for users and offering a free upgrade to those on 512K. The cable operators are limited in their reach and it is perhaps testament to how big a deal local loop unbundling could become that even they are considering extending their range via this route. Broadband can seem confusing for consumers, with the huge amount of operators offering so many different products, some with capped bandwidth and different length contracts and set-up fees. It is unlikely to get any less easy to understand in 2005 but remains a plane worth catching. As it gets faster and offers extras such as cheap telephone calls online, the only real thing to remember for the coming year is to enjoy the ride.
","When operators such as BT and Telewest offered standard 512K broadband for less than £20 at the beginning of the year, it was as if an invisible barrier had been breached - broadband had truly gone mass market.Another big piece of news for broadband users in 2004 was the extension of BT's reach, meaning more than 95% of the population could get broadband, regardless of how far away from the exchange they lived.By September, the number of broadband connections in the UK finally overtook dial-up and in December BT announced that it was making a new broadband connection every 10 seconds.Broadband is not just about fast access over the telephone and cable operators NTL and Telewest also had a bumper year.In May, BT quietly announced that it was shaving 70% off the cost of allowing other operators access to its telephone exchanges, so-called local loop unbundling.Broadband was being mentioned on the 10 O'clock News and in the tabloids; the Sun even carried a cartoon joke about it.With cheaper local loop unbundling, rivals to BT can offer faster services that will leave the broadband of today looking positively tortoise-like.Broadband for less than £10 was even touted by some firms, although such a low price raised eyebrows among more established companies questioning how they are able to sustain such business models.There was a slight caveat for those wanting to upgrade to 1Mbps broadband, they still have to live within six kilometres of a broadband-enabled exchange.But two of the most significant pieces of news for broadband were items that did not make the headlines.This perhaps said more about how indispensable people were beginning to perceive the technology, rather than how useful sky-high broadband would actually be.The biggest news for them was increased speeds, introducing 2Mb and 3Mb services for users and offering a free upgrade to those on 512K.The cable operators are limited in their reach and it is perhaps testament to how big a deal local loop unbundling could become that even they are considering extending their range via this route."
"Half of UK's mobiles 'go online'

Multimedia mobile phones are finally showing signs of taking off, with more Britons using them to go online.

Figures from industry monitor, the Mobile Data Association (MDA), show the number of phones with GPRS and MMS technology has doubled since last year. GPRS lets people browse the web, access news services, mobile music and other applications like mobile chat. By the end of 2005, the MDA predicts that 75% of all mobiles in the UK will be able to access the net via GPRS. The MDA say the figures for the three months up to 30 September are a ""rapid increase"" on the figure for the same time the previous year. About 53 million people own a mobile in the UK, so the figures mean that half of those phones use GPRS. GPRS is often described as 2.5G technology - 2.5 generation - sitting between 2G and 3G technology, which is like a fast, high-quality broadband internet for phones.

With more services being offered by mobile operators, people are finding more reasons to go online via their mobile. Downloadable ringtones are still proving highly popular, but so is mobile chat. BandAid was the fastest ever-selling ringtone this year, according to the MDA, and chat was given some publicity when Prime Minister Tony Blair answered questions through mobile text chat. Multimedia messaging services also looked brighter with 32% of all mobiles in the UK able to send or receive picture messages. This is a 14% rise from last September's figures. But a recent report from Continental Research reflects the continuing battle mobile companies have to actually persuade people to go online and to use MMS. It said that 36% of UK camera phone users had never sent a multimedia message, or MMS. That was 7% more than in 2003. Mobile companies are keen for people to use multimedia functions their phones, like sending MMS and going online, as this generates more money for them. But critics say that MMS is confusing and some mobiles are too difficult to use. There have also been some issues over interoperability, and being able to send MMS form a mobile using one network to a different one.
","About 53 million people own a mobile in the UK, so the figures mean that half of those phones use GPRS.With more services being offered by mobile operators, people are finding more reasons to go online via their mobile.GPRS lets people browse the web, access news services, mobile music and other applications like mobile chat.Figures from industry monitor, the Mobile Data Association (MDA), show the number of phones with GPRS and MMS technology has doubled since last year.Mobile companies are keen for people to use multimedia functions their phones, like sending MMS and going online, as this generates more money for them.By the end of 2005, the MDA predicts that 75% of all mobiles in the UK will be able to access the net via GPRS.But critics say that MMS is confusing and some mobiles are too difficult to use.But a recent report from Continental Research reflects the continuing battle mobile companies have to actually persuade people to go online and to use MMS."
"Blinx sequel purrs nicely

The original Blinx was intended to convert many platform game lovers to Microsoft's then new Xbox console.

Its sharp graphics and novel gameplay, with the main character able to pause, slow, rewind and fast-forward time, were meant to lure many fans to the new machine. But poor design meant the game became a very frustrating affair with players often stranded half-way through a level without the required tools to finish. Thankfully, the sequel has fixed many of the original faults. This time around you do not play as Blinx but instead you are given the chance to create two unique cat characters and two pig characters.

The character generator is very detailed and a few minutes of tweaking and adjusting will create a unique personality to unleash on the game.

As the game progresses you swap between the two rival factions, pig and feline, assuming the role of your created characters. The thrust of the game sees the two factions competing to recover pieces of a missing Time Crystal. As in the original, your feline persona can control time, but this time the pigs get to control space. There are a number of puzzles which require control over time to solve while the pigs can create things such as warps, space bubbles and void traps in order to progress. The control over space and time is achieved through a number of VCR-style icons and is quite intuitive.

Annoyingly, the puzzles are a little too obviously flagged up and most gamers will find it more of a chore than a challenge to solve them. The game has also tried to emulate franchises such as Jak and Daxter and Ratchet and Clank on PS2 and so there are a number of combat elements. These are a little predictable and tend to drag the general polish of the game down to a more dulled affair. But the game's excellent graphics, easily the best-looking platform game around, sound and dollops of humour make it an attractive game for younger platform fans.

Blinx 2 is out on Xbox now.
","The original Blinx was intended to convert many platform game lovers to Microsoft's then new Xbox console.As in the original, your feline persona can control time, but this time the pigs get to control space.This time around you do not play as Blinx but instead you are given the chance to create two unique cat characters and two pig characters.There are a number of puzzles which require control over time to solve while the pigs can create things such as warps, space bubbles and void traps in order to progress.The thrust of the game sees the two factions competing to recover pieces of a missing Time Crystal.As the game progresses you swap between the two rival factions, pig and feline, assuming the role of your created characters.The control over space and time is achieved through a number of VCR-style icons and is quite intuitive."
"The year search became personal

The odds are that when you fire up your browser, you go straight to your favourite search engine, rather than type in a web address.

Some may see this as the height of laziness, but in an era of information overload, search has become a vital tool in navigating the net. It is symptomatic of how the way we use the internet is changing. And as Google has shown, there is money in offering a service that people cannot live without. There is no shortage of companies vying for the loyalty of web searchers, offering a wealth of different services and tools to help you find what you want. Over the past 12 months, giants of the technology world such as Microsoft and Yahoo have sought to grab a slice of the search action. ""User experience has contributed to people searching more,"" said Yonca Brunini of Yahoo. As people become more familiar with the internet, they tend to spend more time online and ask more queries, she said. ""The other second thing is broadband,"" Ms Brunini told the BBC News website. ""This will do to internet what colour has done to TV.""

But search is hardly a new phenomenon. It has been around since the early days of the net.

Veteran surfers will remember old-timers like Hotbot and Altavista. ""Search was always important,"" said Urs Holzle, Google vice-president of operations. ""We trumpeted that in 1999. It is even truer now as there are more users and more information."" ""People didn't realise that search was the future. The financials have something to do with it."" Google has shown web commerce can work through its targeted small adverts, which appear at the top and down the right-hand side of a page and are related to the original search. These small ads helped Google reach revenues of $805.9m for the three months to September. Others have woken up to the fact that you can make money out of web queries. ""Once you see there is a market, Microsoft is bound to step to it. If Microsoft sees search as important, then nobody queries it,"" said Mr Holzle.

Microsoft is just one of the net giants muscling in on search. Yahoo, Ask Jeeves, Amazon and a handful of smaller outfits are all seeking to capture eyeballs.

Web users face a plethora of choices as each company tries to outflank Google by rolling out new search products such as desktop search. It reflects how the battlefield has shifted from the net to your PC. Search is not just about finding your way around the web. It is now about unlocking information hidden in the gigabytes of documents, images and music on hard drives. For all these advances, search is still a clumsy tool, often failing to come up with exactly what you had in mind. In order to do a better job, search engines are trying to get to know you better, doing a better job of remembering, cataloguing and managing all the information you come across. ""Personalisation is going to be a big area for the future,"" said Yahoo's Yonca Brunini. ""Whoever cracks that and gives you the information you want is going to be the winner. We have to understand you to give you better results that are tailored to you."" This is perhaps the Holy Grail of search, understanding what it is you are looking for and providing it quickly. The problem is that no one yet knows how to get there.
","Web users face a plethora of choices as each company tries to outflank Google by rolling out new search products such as desktop search.Some may see this as the height of laziness, but in an era of information overload, search has become a vital tool in navigating the net.Microsoft is just one of the net giants muscling in on search.Search is not just about finding your way around the web.If Microsoft sees search as important, then nobody queries it,"" said Mr Holzle.Google has shown web commerce can work through its targeted small adverts, which appear at the top and down the right-hand side of a page and are related to the original search.""Search was always important,"" said Urs Holzle, Google vice-president of operations.""User experience has contributed to people searching more,"" said Yonca Brunini of Yahoo.""People didn't realise that search was the future.But search is hardly a new phenomenon.In order to do a better job, search engines are trying to get to know you better, doing a better job of remembering, cataloguing and managing all the information you come across.Over the past 12 months, giants of the technology world such as Microsoft and Yahoo have sought to grab a slice of the search action.And as Google has shown, there is money in offering a service that people cannot live without.The odds are that when you fire up your browser, you go straight to your favourite search engine, rather than type in a web address.For all these advances, search is still a clumsy tool, often failing to come up with exactly what you had in mind."
"IBM frees 500 software patents

Computer giant IBM says 500 of its software patents will be released into the open development community.

The move means developers will be able to use the technologies without paying for a licence from the company. IBM described the step as a ""new era"" in how it dealt with intellectual property and promised further patents would be made freely available. The patents include software for a range of practices, including text recognition and database management. Traditional technology business policy is to amass patents and despite IBM's announcement the company continues to follow this route.

IBM was granted 3,248 patents in 2004, more than any other firm in the US, the New York Times reports. For each of the past 12 years IBM has been granted more US patents than any other company. IBM has received 25,772 US patents in that period and reportedly has more than 40,000 current patents. In a statement, Dr John E. Kelly, IBM senior vice president, Technology and Intellectual Property, said: ""True innovation leadership is about more than just the numbers of patents granted. It's about innovating to benefit customers, partners and society.

""Our pledge today is the beginning of a new era in how IBM will manage intellectual property."" In the past, IBM has supported the non-commercial operating system Linux although critics have said this was done only as an attempt to undermine Microsoft.

The company said it wanted to encourage other firms to release patents into what it called a ""patent commons"". Adam Jollans, IBM's world-wide Linux strategy manager, said the move was a genuine attempt to encourage innovation. ""We believe that releasing these patents will result in innovation moving more quickly. ""This is about encouraging collaboration and following a model much like academia."" Mr Jollans likened the plan for a patent commons to the way the internet was developed and said everyone could take advantage of the result of collaboration. ""The internet's impact has been on everyone. The benefits are there for everyone to take advantage of."" Stuart Cohen, chief executive of US firm Open Source Development Labs, said the move could mean a change in the way companies deal with patents.

""I think other companies will follow suit,"" he said. But not everyone was as supportive. Florian Mueller, campaign manager of a group lobbying toprevent software patents becoming legal in the European Union,dismissed IBM's move as insubstantial. ""It's just diversionary tactics,"" wrote Mr Mueller, who leadsnosoftwarepatents.com, in a message on the group's website. ""Let's put this into perspective: We're talking aboutroughly one percent of IBM's worldwide patent portfolio. They filethat number of patents in about a month's time,"" he added. IBM will continue to hold the 500 patents but it has pledged to seek no royalties from the patents. The company said it would not place any restrictions on companies, groups or individuals who use them in open-source projects. Open source software is developed by programmers who offer the source code - the origins of the program - for free and allow others to adapt or improve the software. End users have the right to modify and redistribute the software, as well as the right to package and sell the software. Other areas covered by the patents released by IBM include storage management, simultaneous multiprocessing, image processing, networking and e-commerce.
","For each of the past 12 years IBM has been granted more US patents than any other company.The company said it wanted to encourage other firms to release patents into what it called a ""patent commons"".Mr Jollans likened the plan for a patent commons to the way the internet was developed and said everyone could take advantage of the result of collaboration.IBM was granted 3,248 patents in 2004, more than any other firm in the US, the New York Times reports.IBM has received 25,772 US patents in that period and reportedly has more than 40,000 current patents.Computer giant IBM says 500 of its software patents will be released into the open development community.IBM will continue to hold the 500 patents but it has pledged to seek no royalties from the patents.In a statement, Dr John E. Kelly, IBM senior vice president, Technology and Intellectual Property, said: ""True innovation leadership is about more than just the numbers of patents granted.IBM described the step as a ""new era"" in how it dealt with intellectual property and promised further patents would be made freely available.Florian Mueller, campaign manager of a group lobbying toprevent software patents becoming legal in the European Union,dismissed IBM's move as insubstantial.Traditional technology business policy is to amass patents and despite IBM's announcement the company continues to follow this route.The patents include software for a range of practices, including text recognition and database management.In the past, IBM has supported the non-commercial operating system Linux although critics have said this was done only as an attempt to undermine Microsoft."
"Yahoo moves into desktop search

Internet giant Yahoo has launched software to allow people to search e-mail and other files on their PCs.

The firm is following in the footsteps of Microsoft, Google and Ask Jeeves, which have offered similar services. Search has become a lucrative and hotly-contested area of expansion for net firms, looking to extend loyalty beyond the web. With hard drives providing bigger storage, users could need more help to locate important files, such as photos.

The desktop search technology has been licensed from a US-based firm X1 Technologies. It is designed to work alongside Microsoft's Outlook and Outlook Express e-mail programs. Searching e-mail effectively is becoming increasingly important, especially as the amount of spam increases. According to research from message analysts the Radicati Group, up to 45% of businesses' critical information is stored in e-mail and attachments. Yahoo's software can also work separately on the desktop, searching for music, photos and other files. Users can search under a variety of criteria, including file name, size, date and time. It doesn't yet incorporate web searching, although Yahoo has promised that future versions will allow users to search both web-based and desktop data. ""We are all getting more and more files on our desktop but the real commercial opportunity lies with linking this through to web content,"" said Julian Smith, an analyst with research firm Jupiter. ""It is all about extending the idea of search and getting a closer relationship with consumers by organising not just how they search on the internet but the files on your computer as well,"" he said. Search engines are often the first port of call for users when they go onto the web. The new foray into desktop search has rung alarm bells for human rights groups, concerned about the implications to privacy. And not everyone is impressed with the functionality of such services. Alexander Linden, vice president of emerging technologies at analyst firm Gartner,downloaded the Google product but has since removed it. ""It was just not very interesting,"" he said. He believes the rush to enter the desktop business is just a way of keeping up with rivals. ""Desktop search is just one of many features people would like but I'm suspicious of its usefulness,"" he said. More useful would be tools that can combine internet, intranet and desktop search alongside improvements to key word searching, he said.
","The desktop search technology has been licensed from a US-based firm X1 Technologies.It doesn't yet incorporate web searching, although Yahoo has promised that future versions will allow users to search both web-based and desktop data.More useful would be tools that can combine internet, intranet and desktop search alongside improvements to key word searching, he said.Internet giant Yahoo has launched software to allow people to search e-mail and other files on their PCs.""It is all about extending the idea of search and getting a closer relationship with consumers by organising not just how they search on the internet but the files on your computer as well,"" he said.""Desktop search is just one of many features people would like but I'm suspicious of its usefulness,"" he said.""We are all getting more and more files on our desktop but the real commercial opportunity lies with linking this through to web content,"" said Julian Smith, an analyst with research firm Jupiter.The new foray into desktop search has rung alarm bells for human rights groups, concerned about the implications to privacy.Search has become a lucrative and hotly-contested area of expansion for net firms, looking to extend loyalty beyond the web."
"Rings of steel combat net attacks

Gambling is hugely popular, especially with tech-savvy criminals.

Many extortionists are targeting net-based betting firms and threatening to cripple their websites with deluges of data unless a ransom is paid. But now deep defences are being put in place by some of the UK's biggest net firms to stop these attacks. Increasing numbers of attacks and the huge amounts of data being used to try to bump a site off the web are prompting firms to adopt the measures. ""Net firms are realising that it's not just about anti-virus and firewalls,"" said Paul King, chief security architect at Cisco. ""There are more things that can be done in the network to protect data centres."" Mr King said the only way to properly combat these so-called Distributed Denial-of-Service attacks was with intelligent net-based systems. Many of the gambling sites suffering DDoS attacks are in offshore data and hosting centres, so any large scale data flood could knock out access to many more sites than just the one the criminals were targeting, said Mr King. This overspill effect was only likely to grow as attacks grow in size and scale.

Malcolm Seagrave, security expert at Energis, said the most common types of attacks hit sites with 10 megabytes of data over short periods of time. Bigger attacks sending down 200 megabytes of traffic or more were rarely seen, he said. ""It does feel like they are turning the dial because you see this traffic gradually growing,"" he said.

So far there have been no attacks involving gigabytes of data, said Mr Seagrave. However, he added that it was only a matter of time before such large attacks were mounted. Maria Capella, spokeswoman for net provider Pipex, said that when DDoS attacks were at their height, customers were getting hit every four to five days. The defences being put in place constantly monitor the streams of data flowing across networks and pluck out the traffic destined for target sites. ""It's about understanding what's genuine traffic and keeping attack traffic from going to the site,"" she said. ""We study the profile of their traffic and as soon as we see an anomaly in the profile that's when we start to get the backbone engineering boys to see if we are going to sustain an attack,"" said Ms Capella. This traffic can be hard to spot because DDoS attacks typically use thousands of computers in many different countries, each participating machine only sends a small part of the entire data flood.

Typically these computers have been infected by a virus or worm which reports its success and the net address of compromised machines back to the malicious hacker or hi-tech criminal that set off the virus. Hijacked computers are known as zombies or 'bots and collections of them are called 'bot nets. Many spammers rent out 'bot nets to help them anonymously send junk mail.

Most of the zombies are based outside the country that hosts the target site so getting the attacking PCs shut off can be difficult. Often Pipex and other net suppliers do get advance notice that an attack is about to happen. ""The serious players tend to precede an attack with some kind of ransom e-mail,"" said Ms Capella. ""We ask, as part of the service we provide, that customers notify us of anything they have in advance that would give us forewarning."" Once an attack is spotted dedicated net hardware takes over to remove the attack traffic and ensure that sites stay up. Energis took a similar approach, said Mr Seagrave. ""We have technology out there that allows us to detect attacks in minutes rather than let network engineers spend hours pulling the information together,"" said Mr Seagrave. Also net firms were starting to work more closely together on the problem of DDoS attacks and pool information about where they are coming from. Information gathered on attacks and where they originated has led to some arrests. He said Energis also did its own intelligence work to get in insight into which sites criminal gangs plan to target. ""We have people in places where they shouldn't be, monitoring tech sites,"" he said. Sometimes though, he said, spotting the next victim was easy. ""You can see them going alphabetically through the list with the gambling sites, trying one after another,"" said Mr Seagrave.
","So far there have been no attacks involving gigabytes of data, said Mr Seagrave.Many of the gambling sites suffering DDoS attacks are in offshore data and hosting centres, so any large scale data flood could knock out access to many more sites than just the one the criminals were targeting, said Mr King.""It's about understanding what's genuine traffic and keeping attack traffic from going to the site,"" she said.Malcolm Seagrave, security expert at Energis, said the most common types of attacks hit sites with 10 megabytes of data over short periods of time.Once an attack is spotted dedicated net hardware takes over to remove the attack traffic and ensure that sites stay up.Bigger attacks sending down 200 megabytes of traffic or more were rarely seen, he said.Maria Capella, spokeswoman for net provider Pipex, said that when DDoS attacks were at their height, customers were getting hit every four to five days.""We have technology out there that allows us to detect attacks in minutes rather than let network engineers spend hours pulling the information together,"" said Mr Seagrave.Mr King said the only way to properly combat these so-called Distributed Denial-of-Service attacks was with intelligent net-based systems.""The serious players tend to precede an attack with some kind of ransom e-mail,"" said Ms Capella.""We study the profile of their traffic and as soon as we see an anomaly in the profile that's when we start to get the backbone engineering boys to see if we are going to sustain an attack,"" said Ms Capella.""You can see them going alphabetically through the list with the gambling sites, trying one after another,"" said Mr Seagrave.This traffic can be hard to spot because DDoS attacks typically use thousands of computers in many different countries, each participating machine only sends a small part of the entire data flood.Also net firms were starting to work more closely together on the problem of DDoS attacks and pool information about where they are coming from."
"US hacker breaks into T-Mobile

A man is facing charges of hacking into computers at the US arm of mobile phone firm T-Mobile.

The Californian man, Nicholas Lee Jacobsen, was arrested in October. Mr Jacobsen tried at least twice to hack T-Mobile's network and took names and social security numbers of 400 customers, said a company spokesman. The arrest came a year after T-Mobile uncovered the unauthorised access. The US Secret Service has been investigating the case. ""T-Mobile has stringent procedures in place where we monitor for suspicious activity so that limited his activities and we were able to take corrective action immediately,"" Peter Dobrow, a T-Mobile spokesperson said. It is thought that Mr Jacobsen's hacking campaign took place over at least seven months during which time he read e-mails and personal computer files, according to court records.

Although Mr Jacobsen, 21, managed to get hold of some data, it is thought he failed to get customer credit card numbers which are stored on a separate computer system, said Mr Dobrow. T-Mobile confirmed that the US Secret Service was also looking into whether the hacker accessed photos that T-Mobile subscribers had taken with their camera phones. The Associated Press agency reported that Mr Jacobsen also read personal files on the Secret Service agent who was apparently investigating the case. A Los Angeles grand jury indicted Mr Jacobsen with intentionally accessing a computer system without authorisation and with the unauthorised impairment of a protected computer between March and October 2004. He is currently on bail. T-Mobile is a subsidiary company of Deutsche Telekom and has about 16.3 million subscribers in the US.
","T-Mobile confirmed that the US Secret Service was also looking into whether the hacker accessed photos that T-Mobile subscribers had taken with their camera phones.The Associated Press agency reported that Mr Jacobsen also read personal files on the Secret Service agent who was apparently investigating the case.A man is facing charges of hacking into computers at the US arm of mobile phone firm T-Mobile.T-Mobile is a subsidiary company of Deutsche Telekom and has about 16.3 million subscribers in the US.The US Secret Service has been investigating the case.Although Mr Jacobsen, 21, managed to get hold of some data, it is thought he failed to get customer credit card numbers which are stored on a separate computer system, said Mr Dobrow."
"Windows worm travels with Tetris

Users are being warned about a Windows virus that poses as the hugely popular Tetris game.

The Cellery worm installs a playable version of the classic falling blocks game on PCs that it has infected. While users play the game, the worm spends its time using the machine to search for new victims to infect on nearby networks. The risk of infection by Cellery is thought to be very low as few copies of the worm have been found in the wild.

The Cellery worm does not spread via e-mail like many other viruses. Instead it browses computer networks for PCs that have not shut off all the insecure ways they connect to other machines. When it infects a machine, Cellery installs a version of Tetris that users can play. As the game starts up the worm also starts a music file to accompany it. At the same time the virus starts scouring networks for other vulnerable machines. The virus does no damage to machines but heavily infected networks could slow down as scanning traffic builds. Productivity may suffer too if users spend time playing Tetris. PCs running Windows 95, 98, ME, NT, 2000, and XP could be vulnerable to the worm. ""If your company has a culture of allowing games to be played in the office, your staff may believe this is simply a new game that has been installed - rather than something that should cause concern,"" said Graham Cluley, spokesman for anti-virus firm Sophos. So far the number of people infected by Cellery is thought to be very small and the risks of further infection is very low. Sophos urged users and companies to update their anti-virus software to keep themselves protected.
","The Cellery worm installs a playable version of the classic falling blocks game on PCs that it has infected.While users play the game, the worm spends its time using the machine to search for new victims to infect on nearby networks.When it infects a machine, Cellery installs a version of Tetris that users can play.The risk of infection by Cellery is thought to be very low as few copies of the worm have been found in the wild.At the same time the virus starts scouring networks for other vulnerable machines.As the game starts up the worm also starts a music file to accompany it."
"US state acts to stop 'spammers'

US state Texas has filed a lawsuit against two men believed to be among the world's top five spammers.

It is seeking millions of dollars in damages in a civil lawsuit filed earlier this week. The Texas attorney general said it started the legal action as messages sent by the alleged spammers broke three laws governing e-mail marketing. The company named in the lawsuit denied any wrongdoing and said it complied with all relevant laws.

The Texas lawsuit was filed against Ryan Samuel Pitylak, a University ofTexas student, and Mark Stephen Trotter of California. Both are thought to be the top executives in three companies - PayPerAction LLC., Leadplex LLC. and Leadplex Inc - that are suspected of sending out many millions of unwanted e-mail messages. ""Illegal spam must be stopped,"" said Greg Abbott, Texas attorney general announcing the legal action. ""Spam is one of the most aggravating and pervasive problems facing consumers today."" The attorney general alleges that messages sent by Mr Pitylak and Mr Trotter's companies broke the 2003 Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act (Can-Spam) as well as the Texas Electronic Mail and Solicitation Act and Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act. All three acts confer cash penalties for each violation of their terms. If the men are found guilty and all penalties are applied, the two men could face a damages bill running into millions. Mr Abbott said the messages sent by the pair broke laws by using misleading subject lines, not identifying themselves as adverts and offering services for which they had no licence to do so in Texas. Lawyers for the alleged spammers said the lawsuit was groundless and the two men would defend themselves strongly against the accusations. ""Leadplex and PayPerAction are legitimate internet marketing companies that are in complete compliance with the federal Can-Spam Act,"" said Lin Hughes, speaking on behalf of Mr Pitylak and Mr Trotter. In a similar move the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has won a court order that stops an international group of spammers sending sexually explicit e-mail. The FTC took the action because the messages being sent violated several parts of the CAN-Spam Act. In particular, the pornographic messages did not identify themselves as being sexually explicit, had deceptive subject headings, did not have working opt-out mechanisms, failed to mention they were adverts and did not give the sender's real world address. The court order stops the spammers sending e-mail and freezes assets prior to a hearing on a permanent injunction.
","The Texas attorney general said it started the legal action as messages sent by the alleged spammers broke three laws governing e-mail marketing.The attorney general alleges that messages sent by Mr Pitylak and Mr Trotter's companies broke the 2003 Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act (Can-Spam) as well as the Texas Electronic Mail and Solicitation Act and Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act.""Leadplex and PayPerAction are legitimate internet marketing companies that are in complete compliance with the federal Can-Spam Act,"" said Lin Hughes, speaking on behalf of Mr Pitylak and Mr Trotter.Mr Abbott said the messages sent by the pair broke laws by using misleading subject lines, not identifying themselves as adverts and offering services for which they had no licence to do so in Texas.US state Texas has filed a lawsuit against two men believed to be among the world's top five spammers.Lawyers for the alleged spammers said the lawsuit was groundless and the two men would defend themselves strongly against the accusations.""Illegal spam must be stopped,"" said Greg Abbott, Texas attorney general announcing the legal action.In a similar move the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has won a court order that stops an international group of spammers sending sexually explicit e-mail."
"World tour for top video gamers

Two UK gamers are about to embark on a world tour as part of the most lucrative-ever global games tournament.

Aaron Foster and David Treacy have won the right to take part in a tournament offering $1m in total prize money. The cash will be handed out over 10 separate competitions in a continent-hopping contest organised by the Cyberathlete Professional League. As part of their prize the pair will have their travel costs paid to ensure they can get to the different bouts.

The CPL World Tour kicks off in mid-February and the first leg will be in Istanbul. All ten bouts of the tournament will be played throughout 2005, each one in a different country. At each stop $50,000 in prize money will be up for grabs. The tournament champion for each leg of the CPL World Tour will walk away with a $15,000 prize. The winner of the grand final will get a prize purse of $150,000 from a total pot of $500,000.

Winners of each stage of the tour automatically get a place at the next stop. The world tour stops are open to any keen gamer that registers. Online registration for the first stop opens this weekend. Some pro-players are winning a spot at the tour destinations through qualifying events organised by CPL partners. Winners at these qualifiers get seeded higher in the elimination parts of each tournament. Mr Foster and Mr Treacy get the chance to attend the World Tour as members of the UK's Four-Kings gaming clan. Towards the end of 2004 Four-Kings staged a series of online Painkiller competitions to reveal the UK's top players of the PC game. The best eight players met face-to-face in a special elimination event in late December where Mr Foster and Mr Tracey proved their prowess at Painkiller. As part of their prize the pair also get a contract with Four-Kings Intel which is one of the UK's few pro-gaming teams. ""There are a lot of people who take gaming very seriously and support their local or national team with the same passion as any other sport,"" said Simon Bysshe who filmed the event for Four-Kings and Intel. More than 80,000 people have downloaded the movie of the tournament highlights. ""Professional gaming is here to stay and will only grow in popularity,"" he said.
","The tournament champion for each leg of the CPL World Tour will walk away with a $15,000 prize.Mr Foster and Mr Treacy get the chance to attend the World Tour as members of the UK's Four-Kings gaming clan.As part of their prize the pair also get a contract with Four-Kings Intel which is one of the UK's few pro-gaming teams.Two UK gamers are about to embark on a world tour as part of the most lucrative-ever global games tournament.Aaron Foster and David Treacy have won the right to take part in a tournament offering $1m in total prize money.The world tour stops are open to any keen gamer that registers.Winners of each stage of the tour automatically get a place at the next stop.Winners at these qualifiers get seeded higher in the elimination parts of each tournament.As part of their prize the pair will have their travel costs paid to ensure they can get to the different bouts."
"Souped-up wi-fi is on the horizon

Super high-speed wireless data networks could soon be in use in the UK.

The government's wireless watchdog is seeking help on the best way to regulate the technology behind such networks called Ultra Wideband (UWB). Ofcom wants to ensure that the arrival of UWB-using devices does not cause problems for those that already use the same part of the radio spectrum. UWB makes it possible to stream huge amounts of data through the air over short distances. One of the more likely uses of UWB is to make it possible to send DVD quality video images wirelessly to TV screens or to let people beam music to media players around their home. The technology has the potential to transmit hundreds of megabits of data per second. UWB could also be used to create so-called Personal Area Networks that let a person's gadgets quickly and easily swap data amongst themselves. The technology works over a range up to 10 metres and uses billions of short radio pulses every second to carry data. At the recent Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas products with UWB chips built-in got their first public airing.

Currently, use of UWB is only allowed in the UK under a strict licencing scheme. ""We're seeking opinion from industry to find out whether or not we should allow UWB on a licence-exempt basis,"" said a spokesman for Ofcom.

Companies have until 24 March to respond. In April the EC is due to start its own consultation on Europe-wide adoption of UWB. The cross-Europe body for radio regulators, known as the European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications Administrations (CEPT), is carrying out research for this harmonisation programme. Early sight of the CEPT work has caused controversy as some think it over-emphasises UWB's potential to interfere with existing users. By contrast a preliminary Ofcom report found that it would be quite straight-forward to deploy UWB without causing problems for those that already use it. The Ofcom spokesman said it was considering imposing a ""mask"" or set of technical restrictions on UWB-using devices. ""We would want these devices to have very strict controls on power levels so they can not transmit a long way or over a wide area,"" he said. Despite the current restrictions the technology is already being used. Cambridge-based Ubisense has about 40 customers around the world using the short-range radio technology, said David Theriault, standards and regulatory liaison for Ubisense. He said that UWB was driving novel ways to interact with computers. ""It's like having a 3D mouse all the time,"" he said. He said that European decisions on what to do with UWB allied with IEEE decisions on the exact specifications for it would help drive adoption. Prior to its adoption as a way for gadgets and computers to communicate, UWB was used as a sensing technology. It is used to spot such things as cracks under the surface of runways or to help firemen detect people through walls.
","Prior to its adoption as a way for gadgets and computers to communicate, UWB was used as a sensing technology.He said that UWB was driving novel ways to interact with computers.He said that European decisions on what to do with UWB allied with IEEE decisions on the exact specifications for it would help drive adoption.The government's wireless watchdog is seeking help on the best way to regulate the technology behind such networks called Ultra Wideband (UWB).""We're seeking opinion from industry to find out whether or not we should allow UWB on a licence-exempt basis,"" said a spokesman for Ofcom.By contrast a preliminary Ofcom report found that it would be quite straight-forward to deploy UWB without causing problems for those that already use it.UWB could also be used to create so-called Personal Area Networks that let a person's gadgets quickly and easily swap data amongst themselves.Currently, use of UWB is only allowed in the UK under a strict licencing scheme.UWB makes it possible to stream huge amounts of data through the air over short distances.The technology has the potential to transmit hundreds of megabits of data per second."
"EA to take on film and TV giants

Video game giant Electronic Arts (EA) says it wants to become the biggest entertainment firm in the world.

The US firm says it wants to compete with companies such as Disney and will only achieve this by making games appeal to mainstream audiences. EA publishes blockbuster titles such as Fifa and John Madden, as well as video game versions of movies such as Harry Potter and the James Bond films. Its revenues were $3bn (£1.65bn) in 2004, which EA hoped to double by 2009. EA is the biggest games publisher in the world and in 2004 had 27 titles which sold in excess of one million copies each. Nine of the 20 biggest-selling games in the UK last year were published by EA.

Gerhard Florin, EA's managing director for European publishing, said: ""Doubling our industry in five years is not rocket science."" He said it would take many years before EA could challenge Disney - which in 2004 reported revenues of $30bn (£16bn) - but it remained a goal for the company. ""We will be able to bring more people into gaming because games will be more emotional."" Mr Florin predicted that the next round of games console would give developers enough power to create real emotion.

""It's the subtleties, the eyes, the mouth - 5,000 polygons doesn't really sell the emotion.

""With PS3 and Xbox 2, we can go on the main character with 30,000 to 50,000 polygons,"" he said. ""With that increased firepower, the Finding Nemo video game looks just like the movie, but it will be interactive."" Mr Florin said that more than 50% of all EA's games were sold to adults and played by adults, but the perception remained that the video game industry was for children. ""Our goal is to bring games to the masses which bring out emotions."" EA said the video game industry was now bigger than the music industry. ""Nobody queues for music anymore.""

""You can't ignore an industry when people queue to buy a game at midnight because they are so desperate to play it,"" he said, referring to demand for titles for such as Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and Halo 2.

Jan Bolz, EA's vice president of sales and marketing in Europe, said the firm was working to give video games a more central role in popular culture. He said the company was in advanced stages of discussions over a reality TV show in which viewers could control the actions of the characters as in its popular game The Sims. ""One idea could be that you're controlling a family, telling them when to go to the kitchen and when to go to the bedroom, and with this mechanism you have gamers all over the world 'playing the show',"" said Mr Bolz.

He also said EA was planning an international awards show ""similar to the Oscars and the Grammys"" which would combine video games, music and movies. Mr Bolz said video games firm had to work more closely with celebrities. ""People will want to play video games if their heroes like Robbie Williams or Christina Aguilera are in them."" Mr Florin said the challenge was to keep people playing in their 30s, 40s and 50s. ""There's an indication that a 30 year old comes home from work and still wants to play games. ""If that's true, that's a big challenge for TV broadcasters - because watching TV is the biggest pastime at present.""
","EA said the video game industry was now bigger than the music industry.Mr Florin said that more than 50% of all EA's games were sold to adults and played by adults, but the perception remained that the video game industry was for children.Mr Bolz said video games firm had to work more closely with celebrities.Video game giant Electronic Arts (EA) says it wants to become the biggest entertainment firm in the world.Jan Bolz, EA's vice president of sales and marketing in Europe, said the firm was working to give video games a more central role in popular culture.He said the company was in advanced stages of discussions over a reality TV show in which viewers could control the actions of the characters as in its popular game The Sims.""People will want to play video games if their heroes like Robbie Williams or Christina Aguilera are in them.""Mr Florin said the challenge was to keep people playing in their 30s, 40s and 50s.He also said EA was planning an international awards show ""similar to the Oscars and the Grammys"" which would combine video games, music and movies.He said it would take many years before EA could challenge Disney - which in 2004 reported revenues of $30bn (£16bn) - but it remained a goal for the company.""You can't ignore an industry when people queue to buy a game at midnight because they are so desperate to play it,"" he said, referring to demand for titles for such as Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and Halo 2."
"Tech helps disabled speed demons

An organisation has been launched to encourage disabled people to get involved in all aspects of motorsport, which is now increasingly possible thanks to technological innovations.

The Motorsport Endeavour Club left the starting grid yesterday at the Autosport International 2005 show at Birmingham's NEC, with several technologies to adapt vehicles on display.

Motorcycle racer, Roy Tansley, from Derby developed his electronic sequential gear changer following an accident which resulted in part of his left leg being amputated. ""I needed to find a way of changing gear and generally you do that with your left leg,"" Mr Tansley told the BBC News website. ""In simple terms, I needed to invent a left foot - initially it was quite a Heath Robinson device."" Mr Tansley had to argue his case to be allowed to continue competing with motorcycle racing's governing body, the Autocycle Union. ""At that time they wouldn't let any amputee race at all, but eventually they told me I could have a licence as long as I raced sidecars."" Mr Tansley's invention, the Pro-Shift, is designed to work with Hewland gearboxes which are widely used in motorcycle racing. In addition to helping disabled riders to compete, Mr Tansley reckons that the Pro-Shift saves at least 20 seconds per lap when he competes in the Isle of Man TT. As a result, there has been considerable interest in the product from other riders keen to improve their performance. ""I'm not prejudiced, I'll sell to able-bodied people if I have to!"" he joked.

Another exhibit on the Motorsport Endeavour stand is a Subaru Impreza rally car, adapted to accommodate a variety of disabilities. The vehicle belongs to ParaRallying, the world's only rally school for disabled drivers which is based in Lincolnshire.

""We use the latest technology supplied by an Italian company,"" said rally driver Dave Hawkins who runs the company. ""The cars have electronic throttles, electronic brakes, electronic clutches - we've yet to turn anybody away."" Mr Hawkins - a paraplegic himself - says his customers have included right or left arm amputees, quadriplegics, people who have had strokes and a woman who had had all four limbs amputated. ParaRallying uses a Vauxhall Astra GSI with an automatic gearbox and manual Subaru Imprezas. The car on display is fitted with a 'duck clutch' - a switch on the gear stick used instead of the clutch pedal. It also has a second ring behind the steering wheel to operate the throttle and a hand operated brake bar.

When Joy Rainey started competing in motorsport in 1974 she was continuing the family tradition - her father, Murray, is a former Australian Formula 3 champion.

And it was Rainey Senior who modified a sports racer to accommodate his daughter's small stature so that she could take part in hill climbs. She uses an ordinary road car by putting extensions on the pedals, a cushion behind her back and raising the seat. ""But in a competition car you have to have everything right or you'll lose the balance of the car,"" she said. ""I bring everything back to me - steering wheel, steering column, gear lever and pedals."" When she recently took part in the London to Sydney Marathon she shared the driving with her partner, Trevor, who now does the engineering work. He designed a system for their Morris Minor so that the adaptations could be totally removed in under a minute. The Motorsport Endeavour Club is hoping that putting such technologies on display will result in more disabled people becoming involved in all areas of the sport and at every level.
","The Motorsport Endeavour Club is hoping that putting such technologies on display will result in more disabled people becoming involved in all areas of the sport and at every level.Motorcycle racer, Roy Tansley, from Derby developed his electronic sequential gear changer following an accident which resulted in part of his left leg being amputated.""I needed to find a way of changing gear and generally you do that with your left leg,"" Mr Tansley told the BBC News website.Another exhibit on the Motorsport Endeavour stand is a Subaru Impreza rally car, adapted to accommodate a variety of disabilities.The Motorsport Endeavour Club left the starting grid yesterday at the Autosport International 2005 show at Birmingham's NEC, with several technologies to adapt vehicles on display.An organisation has been launched to encourage disabled people to get involved in all aspects of motorsport, which is now increasingly possible thanks to technological innovations.Mr Hawkins - a paraplegic himself - says his customers have included right or left arm amputees, quadriplegics, people who have had strokes and a woman who had had all four limbs amputated.Mr Tansley's invention, the Pro-Shift, is designed to work with Hewland gearboxes which are widely used in motorcycle racing.The car on display is fitted with a 'duck clutch' - a switch on the gear stick used instead of the clutch pedal.""But in a competition car you have to have everything right or you'll lose the balance of the car,"" she said.In addition to helping disabled riders to compete, Mr Tansley reckons that the Pro-Shift saves at least 20 seconds per lap when he competes in the Isle of Man TT.She uses an ordinary road car by putting extensions on the pedals, a cushion behind her back and raising the seat."
"Web photo storage market hots up

An increasing number of firms are offering web storage for people with digital photo collections.

Digital cameras were the hot gadget of Christmas 2004 and worldwide sales of the cameras totalled $24bn last year. Many people's hard drives are bulging with photos and services which allow them to store and share their pictures online are becoming popular. Search firms such as Google are also offering more complex tools for managing personal photo libraries. Photo giants such as Kodak offer website storage which manages photo collections, lets users edit pictures online and provides print-ordering services. Some services, such as Kodak's Ofoto and Snapfish, offer unlimited storage space but they do require users to buy some prints online. Other sites, such as Pixagogo, charge a monthly fee. Marcus Hawkins, editor of Digital Camera magazine, said: ""As file sizes of pictures increase, storage becomes a problem. ""People are using their hard drives, backing up on CD and DVD and now they are using online storage solutions.

""They are a place to store pictures, to share their pictures with families and friends and they can print out their photos.""

While many of the services are aimed at the amateur and casual digital photographer, other websites are geared up for enthusiasts who want to share tips and information. Photosig is an online community of photographers who can critique each other's work. On Tuesday, Google released free software for organising and finding digital photos stored on a computer's hard drive. The tool, called Picasa, automatically detects photos as they are added to a PC - whether sent via e-mail or transferred from a digital camera.

The software includes tools for restoring colour and removing red eye, as well as sharpening images. Photos can then be uploaded to sites such as Ofoto. Many people use the sites to edit and improve their favourite photographs before ordering prints. Mr Hawkins added: ""The growth area is that you can order your prints online. Friends and family can also access pictures you want them to see and they can print them out too. ""Rather than just a place to dump your pictures, it's about sharing them.""

The vast majority of pictures remain on a PC's hard drive, which is why search tools, such as those offered by Google, become increasingly important. But some historians and archivists are concerned that the need for perfect pictures will mean that those poor quality prints which offered a tantilising glimpse of the past may disappear forever. ""It's one thing taking pictures, it's another finding them,"" said Mr Hawkins. ""But this is the same problem that has always existed - how many of us have photos in wallets tucked away somewhere?""
","Many people's hard drives are bulging with photos and services which allow them to store and share their pictures online are becoming popular.Photo giants such as Kodak offer website storage which manages photo collections, lets users edit pictures online and provides print-ordering services.""They are a place to store pictures, to share their pictures with families and friends and they can print out their photos.""An increasing number of firms are offering web storage for people with digital photo collections.Marcus Hawkins, editor of Digital Camera magazine, said: ""As file sizes of pictures increase, storage becomes a problem.On Tuesday, Google released free software for organising and finding digital photos stored on a computer's hard drive.Some services, such as Kodak's Ofoto and Snapfish, offer unlimited storage space but they do require users to buy some prints online.Mr Hawkins added: ""The growth area is that you can order your prints online.The tool, called Picasa, automatically detects photos as they are added to a PC - whether sent via e-mail or transferred from a digital camera.Friends and family can also access pictures you want them to see and they can print them out too."
"Speak easy plan for media players

Music and film fans will be able to control their digital media players just by speaking to them, under plans in development by two US firms.

ScanSoft and Gracenote are developing technology to give people access to their film and music libraries simply by voice control. They want to give people hands-free access to digital music and films in the car, or at home or on the move. Huge media libraries on some players can make finding single songs hard. ""Voice command-and-control unlocks the potential of devices that can store large digital music collections,"" said Ross Blanchard, vice president of business development for Gracenote. ""These applications will radically change the car entertainment experience, allowing drivers to enjoy their entire music collections without ever taking their hands off the steering wheel,"" he added.

Gracenote provides music library information for millions of different albums for jukeboxes such as Apple's iTunes. The new technology will be designed so that people can play any individual song or movie out of a collection, just by saying its name. Users will also be able to request music that fits a mood or an occasion, or a film just by saying the actor's name. ""Speech is a natural fit for today's consumer devices, particularly in mobile environments,"" said Alan Schwartz, vice president of SpeechWorks, a division of ScanSoft. ""Pairing our voice technologies with Gracenote's vast music database will bring the benefits of speech technologies to a host of consumer devices and enable people to access their media in ways they've never imagined."" The two firms did not say if they were developing the technology for languages other than English. Users will also be able to get more information on a favourite song they have been listening to by asking: ""What is this?"" Portable players are becoming popular in cars and a number of auto firms are working with Apple to device interfaces to control the firm's iPod music player. But with tens of thousands of songs able to be stored on one player, voice control would make finding that elusive track by Elvis Presley much easier. The firms gave no indication about whether the iPod, or any other media player, were in mind for the use of the voice control technology. The companies estimate that the technology will be available in the fourth quarter of 2005.
","ScanSoft and Gracenote are developing technology to give people access to their film and music libraries simply by voice control.Music and film fans will be able to control their digital media players just by speaking to them, under plans in development by two US firms.""Pairing our voice technologies with Gracenote's vast music database will bring the benefits of speech technologies to a host of consumer devices and enable people to access their media in ways they've never imagined.""The firms gave no indication about whether the iPod, or any other media player, were in mind for the use of the voice control technology.Portable players are becoming popular in cars and a number of auto firms are working with Apple to device interfaces to control the firm's iPod music player.They want to give people hands-free access to digital music and films in the car, or at home or on the move.Users will also be able to request music that fits a mood or an occasion, or a film just by saying the actor's name."
"Cable offers video-on-demand

Cable firms NTL and Telewest have both launched video-on-demand services as the battle between satellite and cable TV heats up.

Movies from Sony Pictures, Walt Disney, Touchstone, Miramax, Columbia and Buena Vista will be among those on offer. The service is similar to Sky Plus, as users can pause, fast forward and rewind content, but they cannot store programmes on their set top box - yet. It could sound the death knell for some TV channels, Telewest predicts. ""It allows us to demonstrate a clear competitive advantage over Sky for the first time in many years,"" said Telewest chief executive Eric Tveter.

""Video-on-demand will offer a deeper range of content than currently exists on TV. There will be less compromising around the TV schedule and some of the less popular channels may go by the wayside,"" said Philip Snalune, director of products at Telewest. Telewest customers in Bristol and NTL viewers in Glasgow will be the first to test the new service, which sees a raft of movies on offer for 24 hour rental. During the year, the service will be extended to all cable regions. Films will range in price from £1 or £2 for archived movies to £3.50 for current releases. New releases initially on offer will include 50 First dates, Kill Bill: Volume 2, Gothika and The Station Agent. In addition, NTL is offering children's programmes, adult content, music video and concerts. Telewest will launch similar services later in the year. NTL is also offering viewers the chance to catch up with programmes they have missed. Its pick of the week service will offer a selection of BBC programmes from the previous seven days such as Eastenders, Casualty, Top Gear and Antiques Roadshow. The BBC is trialling a similar service, offering broadband users the chance to watch programmes already broadcast on their PC. For Telewest it is the beginning of a £20m investment in TV-on-demand which will also see the launch of a personal video recorder (PVR). PVR has been a big success for Sky because it gives customers control over programmes. Satellite customers without PVR cannot pause, rewind or fast forward their programmes.

With both services on offer from Telewest, Mr Tveter is confident the cable firm can dent not just the viewing figures for terrestrial TV but also gain a huge competitive advantage over Sky.

""We offer the best of both worlds and most households have an interest in having both video-on-demand and PVR,"" he said. Video rental stores may also have to watch their back. ""Video-on-demand is better than having a video-store in your living room and is more convenient,"" he said. NTL said it had not ruled out the possibility of offering a PVR but for the moment is concentrating on video-on-demand. ""PVR is a recording mechanism whereas what we are offering is truly on demand,"" said a spokesman for the company. Video-on-demand has the added advantage of not requiring a separate set-top box or extra remote controls, he added. Adam Thomas, an analyst at research firm Informa Media believes the time is ripe for video-on-demand to flourish. ""While Sky will remain the dominant force in UK pay TV for some time to come, NTL and Telewest seem well placed to successfully ride this second wave of VOD enthusiasm and, if marketed correctly, this could help them eat into Sky's lead,"" he said.
","Cable firms NTL and Telewest have both launched video-on-demand services as the battle between satellite and cable TV heats up.With both services on offer from Telewest, Mr Tveter is confident the cable firm can dent not just the viewing figures for terrestrial TV but also gain a huge competitive advantage over Sky.Telewest customers in Bristol and NTL viewers in Glasgow will be the first to test the new service, which sees a raft of movies on offer for 24 hour rental.NTL said it had not ruled out the possibility of offering a PVR but for the moment is concentrating on video-on-demand.""We offer the best of both worlds and most households have an interest in having both video-on-demand and PVR,"" he said.""Video-on-demand will offer a deeper range of content than currently exists on TV.Telewest will launch similar services later in the year.The service is similar to Sky Plus, as users can pause, fast forward and rewind content, but they cannot store programmes on their set top box - yet.For Telewest it is the beginning of a £20m investment in TV-on-demand which will also see the launch of a personal video recorder (PVR).""It allows us to demonstrate a clear competitive advantage over Sky for the first time in many years,"" said Telewest chief executive Eric Tveter.""While Sky will remain the dominant force in UK pay TV for some time to come, NTL and Telewest seem well placed to successfully ride this second wave of VOD enthusiasm and, if marketed correctly, this could help them eat into Sky's lead,"" he said.The BBC is trialling a similar service, offering broadband users the chance to watch programmes already broadcast on their PC."
"Cyber crime booms in 2004

The last 12 months have seen a dramatic growth in almost every security threat that plague Windows PCs.

The count of known viruses broke the 100,000 barrier and the number of new viruses grew by more than 50%. Similarly phishing attempts, in which conmen try to trick people into handing over confidential data, are recording growth rates of more than 30% and attacks are becoming increasingly sophisticated. Also on the increase are the number of networks of remotely controlled computers, called bot nets, used by malicious hackers and conmen to carry out many different cyber crimes.

One of the biggest changes of 2004 was the waning influence of the boy hackers keen to make a name by writing a fast-spreading virus, said Kevin Hogan, senior manager in Symantec's security response group. Although teenage virus writers will still play around with malicious code, said Mr Hogan, 2004 saw a significant rise in criminal use of malicious programs. The financial incentives were driving criminal use of technology, he said. His comment was echoed by Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant from anti-virus firm Sophos. Mr Cluley said: ""When the commercial world gets involved, things really get nasty. Virus writers and hackers will be looking to make a tidy sum.""

In particular, phishing attacks, which typically use fake versions of bank websites to grab login details of customers, boomed during 2004. Web portal Lycos Europe reported a 500% increase in the number of phishing e-mail messages it was catching. The Anti-Phishing Working group reported that the number of phishing attacks against new targets was growing at a rate of 30% or more per month. Those who fall victim to these attacks can find that their bank account has been cleaned out or that their good name has been ruined by someone stealing their identity. This change in the ranks of virus writers could mean the end of the mass-mailing virus which attempts to spread by tricking people into opening infected attachments on e-mail messages. ""They are not an efficient way of spreading viruses,"" said Mr Hogan. ""They are very noisy and they are not technically challenging."" The opening months of 2004 did see the appearance of the Netsky, Bagle and MyDoom mass mailers, but since then more surreptitious viruses, or worms, have dominated.

Mr Hogan said worm writers were more interested in recruiting PCs to take part in ""bot nets"" that can be used to send out spam or to mount attacks on websites.

In September Symantec released statistics which showed that the numbers of active ""bot computers"" rose from 2,000 to 30,000 per day. Thanks to these ""bot nets"", spam continued to be a problem in 2004. Anti-spam firms report that, in many cases, legitimate e-mail has shrunk to less than 30% of messages. Part of the reason that these ""bot nets"" have become so prevalent, he said, was due to a big change in the way that many viruses were created. In the past many viruses, such as Netsky, have been the work of an individual or group. By contrast, said Mr Hogan, the code for viruses such as Gaobot, Spybot and Randex were commonly held and many groups work on them to produce new variants at the same time. The result is that now there are more than 3,000 variations of the Spybot worm. ""That's unprecedented,"" said Mr Hogan. ""What makes it difficult is that they are all co-existing with each other and do not exist in an easy to understand chronology.""

The emergence of the first proper virus for mobile phones was also seen in 2004.

In the past, threats to smart phones have been largely theoretical because the viruses created to cripple phones existed only in the laboratory rather than the wild. In June, the Cabir virus was discovered that can hop from phone to phone using Bluetooth short-range radio technology. Also released this year was the Mosquito game for Symbian phones which surreptitiously sends messages to premium rate numbers, and in November the Skulls Trojan came to light which can cripple phones. On the positive side, Finnish security firm F-Secure said that 2004 was the best-ever year for the capture, arrest and sentencing of virus writers and criminally-minded hackers. In total, eight virus writers were arrested and some members of the so-called 29A virus writing group were sentenced. One high-profile arrest was that of German teenager Sven Jaschen who confessed to be behind the Netsky and Sasser virus families. Also shut down were the Carderplanet and Shadowcrew websites that were used to trade stolen credit card numbers.
","Part of the reason that these ""bot nets"" have become so prevalent, he said, was due to a big change in the way that many viruses were created.By contrast, said Mr Hogan, the code for viruses such as Gaobot, Spybot and Randex were commonly held and many groups work on them to produce new variants at the same time.One of the biggest changes of 2004 was the waning influence of the boy hackers keen to make a name by writing a fast-spreading virus, said Kevin Hogan, senior manager in Symantec's security response group.Mr Hogan said worm writers were more interested in recruiting PCs to take part in ""bot nets"" that can be used to send out spam or to mount attacks on websites.On the positive side, Finnish security firm F-Secure said that 2004 was the best-ever year for the capture, arrest and sentencing of virus writers and criminally-minded hackers.The emergence of the first proper virus for mobile phones was also seen in 2004.Although teenage virus writers will still play around with malicious code, said Mr Hogan, 2004 saw a significant rise in criminal use of malicious programs.In total, eight virus writers were arrested and some members of the so-called 29A virus writing group were sentenced.The count of known viruses broke the 100,000 barrier and the number of new viruses grew by more than 50%.The Anti-Phishing Working group reported that the number of phishing attacks against new targets was growing at a rate of 30% or more per month.This change in the ranks of virus writers could mean the end of the mass-mailing virus which attempts to spread by tricking people into opening infected attachments on e-mail messages.Virus writers and hackers will be looking to make a tidy sum.""In June, the Cabir virus was discovered that can hop from phone to phone using Bluetooth short-range radio technology.""They are not an efficient way of spreading viruses,"" said Mr Hogan.""That's unprecedented,"" said Mr Hogan."
"Dublin hi-tech labs to shut down

Dublin's hi-tech research laboratory, Media Labs Europe, is to shut down.

The research centre, which was started by the Irish government and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was a hotbed for technology concepts. Since its opening in 2000, the centre has developed ideas, such as implants for teeth, and also aimed to be a digital hub for start-ups in the area. The centre was supposed to be self-funded, but has failed to attract the private cash injection it needs. In a statement, Media Labs Europe said the decision to close was taken because neither the Irish Government nor the prestigious US-based Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) was willing to fund it. Prime Minister Bertie Ahern had wanted to the centre to become a big draw for smaller hi-tech companies, in an attempt to regenerate the area.

About three dozen small firms were attracted to the area, but it is thought the effects of the dot.com recession damaged the Labs' long-term survival. The Labs needed about 10 million euros (US$13 million) a year from corporate sponsors to survive. ""In the end, it was too deep and too long a recession,"" said Simon Jones, the Labs' managing director. Ian Pearson, BT's futurologist, told the BBC News website that the closure was a ""real shame"". BT was just one of the companies that had worked with the Labs, looking at RFID tag developments and video conferencing. ""There were a lot of very talented, creative people there and they came up with some great ideas that were helping to ensure greater benefits of technology for society. ""I have no doubt that the individuals will be quickly snapped up by other research labs, but the synergies from them working as a team will be lost.""

Noel Dempsey, the government's communications minister, said Mr Ahern had been ""very committed"" to the project. ""He is, I know, very disappointed it has come to this. At the time it seemed to be the right thing to do,"" he said. ""Unfortunately the model is not a sustainable one in the current climate.""

During its five years, innovative and some unusual ideas for technologies were developed. In recent months, 14 patent applications had been filed by the Labs. Many concepts fed into science, engineering, and psychology as well as technology, but it is thought too few of the ideas were commercially viable in the near-term. Several research teams explored how which humans could react with technologies in ways which were entirely different. The Human Connectedness group, for example, developed the iBand, a bracelet which stored and exchanged information about you and your relationships. This information could be beamed to another wearer when two people shook hands. Other projects looked at using other human senses, like touch, to interact with devoices which could be embedded in the environment, or on the body itself. One project examined how brainwaves could directly control a computer game. The Labs, set up in an old Guinness brewery, housed around 100 people, made up of staff, researchers, students, collaborators and part-time undergraduate students. It is thought more than 50 people will lose their jobs when the Labs close on 1 February. According to its latest accounts, Media Lab Europe said it spent 8.16 million euros (about US$10.6 million) in 2003 and raised just 2.56 million euros (US$3.3 million).
","In a statement, Media Labs Europe said the decision to close was taken because neither the Irish Government nor the prestigious US-based Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) was willing to fund it.The research centre, which was started by the Irish government and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was a hotbed for technology concepts.""In the end, it was too deep and too long a recession,"" said Simon Jones, the Labs' managing director.It is thought more than 50 people will lose their jobs when the Labs close on 1 February.BT was just one of the companies that had worked with the Labs, looking at RFID tag developments and video conferencing.Dublin's hi-tech research laboratory, Media Labs Europe, is to shut down.Several research teams explored how which humans could react with technologies in ways which were entirely different.The Labs needed about 10 million euros (US$13 million) a year from corporate sponsors to survive.""I have no doubt that the individuals will be quickly snapped up by other research labs, but the synergies from them working as a team will be lost.""About three dozen small firms were attracted to the area, but it is thought the effects of the dot.com recession damaged the Labs' long-term survival.The centre was supposed to be self-funded, but has failed to attract the private cash injection it needs.During its five years, innovative and some unusual ideas for technologies were developed."
"Games help you 'learn and play'

'God games' in which players must control virtual people and societies could be educational, says research.

A US researcher has suggested that games such as The Sims could be a good way to teach languages. Ravi Purushotma believes that the world of The Sims can do a better job of teaching vocabulary and grammar than traditional methods. The inherent fun of game playing could help to make learning languages much less of a chore, said Mr Purushotma.

There must be few parents or teachers that do not worry that the lure of a video game on a computer or console is hard to resist by children that really should be doing their homework. But instead of fearing computer games, Ravi Purushotma believes that educationalists, particularly language teachers should embrace games. ""One goal would be to break what I believe to be the false assumption that learning and play are inherently oppositional,"" he said. He believes that the ""phenomenal ability"" of games such as The Sims and others to capture the interest of adolescent audiences is ripe for exploitation. The hard part of learning any language, said Mr Purushotma, were the basic parts of learning what different words refer to and how they are used to build up sentences. Boring lessons drumming vocabulary into pupils couched in terms they do not understand has made many languages far harder to learn than they should be. ""The way we often teach foreign languages right now is somewhat akin to learning to ride a bike by formally studying gravity,"" he said.

By contrast, said Mr Purushotma, learning via something like The Sims may mean students do not feel like they are studying at all. This was because The Sims does not rely solely on words to get information across to players. Instead the actions of its computer controlled people and how they interact with their world often makes clear what is going on. The incidental information about what a Sim was doing could reinforce what a player or student was supposed to be learning, said Mr Purushotma. By contrast many language lessons try to impart information about a tongue with little context. For instance, he said, in a version of The Sims adapted to teach German, if a player misunderstood what was meant by the word ""energie"" the actions of a tired Sim, stumbling then falling asleep, would illustrate the meaning. If necessary detailed textual information could be called upon to aid players' or students' understanding.

One of the drawbacks of The Sims, said Mr Purushotma, was the lack of spoken language to help people brush up on pronunciation. However, online versions of The Sims, in which people have to move in, meet the neighbours and get to know the local town, could be adapted to help this. Although not wishing to claim that he is the first to suggest using a game can help people learn, Mr Purushotma believes that educationalists have missed the potential they have to help.

Getting a simulated person to perform everyday activities in a make-believe world and having them described in a foreign language could be a powerful learning aid, he believes. Before now, he said, educational software titles suffer by comparison with the slick graphics and rich worlds found in games. But, he said, using pre-prepared game worlds such as The Sims has never been easier because tools have been made by its creators and fans that make it easy to modify almost any part of the game. This could make it easy for teachers to adapt parts of the game for their own lessons. ""I'm hoping now to re-create a well-polished German learning mod for the sequel by this summer,"" he told the BBC News website. ""I'm encouraged to hear that others are thinking of experimenting with Japanese and Spanish."" Earlier work with a colleague on using Civilisation III to teach students about history showed that it could be a powerful way to get them to realise that solving a society's problems can not always come from making a single change. A report on the experiment said: ""Students began asking historical and geographical questions in the context of game play, using geography and history as tools for their game, and drawing inferences about social phenomena based on their play."" Mr Purushotma's ideas were aired in an article for the journal Language Learning and Technology.
","The inherent fun of game playing could help to make learning languages much less of a chore, said Mr Purushotma.One of the drawbacks of The Sims, said Mr Purushotma, was the lack of spoken language to help people brush up on pronunciation.The incidental information about what a Sim was doing could reinforce what a player or student was supposed to be learning, said Mr Purushotma.The hard part of learning any language, said Mr Purushotma, were the basic parts of learning what different words refer to and how they are used to build up sentences.But, he said, using pre-prepared game worlds such as The Sims has never been easier because tools have been made by its creators and fans that make it easy to modify almost any part of the game.By contrast, said Mr Purushotma, learning via something like The Sims may mean students do not feel like they are studying at all.A US researcher has suggested that games such as The Sims could be a good way to teach languages.""The way we often teach foreign languages right now is somewhat akin to learning to ride a bike by formally studying gravity,"" he said.This could make it easy for teachers to adapt parts of the game for their own lessons.Although not wishing to claim that he is the first to suggest using a game can help people learn, Mr Purushotma believes that educationalists have missed the potential they have to help.Getting a simulated person to perform everyday activities in a make-believe world and having them described in a foreign language could be a powerful learning aid, he believes.But instead of fearing computer games, Ravi Purushotma believes that educationalists, particularly language teachers should embrace games."
"Hacker threat to Apple's iTunes

Users of Apple's music jukebox iTunes need to update the software to avoid a potential security threat.

Hackers can build malicious playlist files which could crash the program and let them seize control of the computer by inserting Trojan code. A new version of iTunes is now available from the Apple website which solves the problem. Security firm iDefence, which notified users of the problem, recommended that users upgrade to iTunes version 4.7.1. The problem affects all users of iTunes - Windows and Mac OS - running versions 4.7 and earlier. Users can automatically upgrade iTunes by opening the ""look for updates"" window in the program. The security firm says users should avoid clicking on or accessing playlist files - which have the file extension of .pls or .m3u - which have come from unknown sources. Itunes is the world's most popular online music store with more than 200 million songs downloaded since it launched in 2003.
","Security firm iDefence, which notified users of the problem, recommended that users upgrade to iTunes version 4.7.1.The problem affects all users of iTunes - Windows and Mac OS - running versions 4.7 and earlier.A new version of iTunes is now available from the Apple website which solves the problem.Users of Apple's music jukebox iTunes need to update the software to avoid a potential security threat."
"Format wars could 'confuse users'

Technology firms Sony, Philips, Matsushita and Samsung are developing a common way to stop people pirating digital music and video.

The firms want to make a system that ensures files play on the hardware they make but also thwarts illegal copying. The move could mean more confusion for consumers already faced by many different, and conflicting, content control systems, experts warned. They say there are no guarantees the system will even prevent piracy.

Currently many online stores wrap up downloadable files in an own-brand control system that means they can only be played on a small number of media players. Systems that limit what people can do with the files they download are known as Digital Rights Management systems. By setting up the alliance to work on a common control system, the firms said they hope to end this current fragmentation of file formats. In a joint statement the firms said they wanted to let consumers enjoy ""appropriately licensed video and music on any device, independent of how they originally obtained that content"". The firms hope that it will also make it harder for consumers to make illegal copies of the music, movies and other digital content they have bought. Called the Marlin Joint Development Association, the alliance will define basic specifications that every device made by the electronics firms will conform to. Marlin will be built on technology from rights management firm Intertrust as well as an earlier DRM system developed by a group known as the Coral Consortium.

The move is widely seen as a way for the four firms to decide their own destiny on content control systems instead of having to sign up for those being pushed by Apple and Microsoft. Confusingly for consumers, the technology that comes out of the alliance will sit alongside the content control systems of rival firms such as Microsoft and Apple. ""In many ways the different DRM systems are akin to the different physical formats, such as Betamax and VHS, that consumers have seen in the past,"" said Ian Fogg, personal technology and broadband analyst at Jupiter Research. ""The difference is that it is very fragmented,"" he said. ""It's not a two-horse race, it's a five, six, seven or even eight-horse race"" Mr Fogg said consumers had to be very careful when buying digital content to ensure that it would play on the devices they own. He said currently there were even incompatibilities within DRM families. Although initiatives such as Microsoft's ""Plays for Sure"" program could help remove some of the uncertainty, he said, life was likely to be confusing for consumers for some time to come.

Shelley Taylor, analyst and author of a report about online music services, said the locks and limits on digital files were done to maximise the cash that firms can make from consumers. Apple's iTunes service was a perfect example of this, she said. ""Although iTunes has been hugely successful, Apple could not justify its existence if it did not help sell all those iPods,"" she said.

She said rampant competition between online music services, of which there are now 230 according to recent figures, could drive more openness and freer file formats. ""It always works out that consumer needs win out in the long run,"" she said, ""and the services that win in the long run are the ones that listen to consumers earliest."" Ms Taylor said the limits legal download services place on files could help explain the continuing popularity of file-sharing systems that let people get hold of pirated pop. ""People want portability,"" she said, ""and with peer-to-peer they have 100% portability."" Cory Doctorow, European co-ordinator for the Electronic Frontier Foundation which campaigns for consumers on many cyber-rights issues, expressed doubts that the Marlin system would achieve its aims. ""Not one of these systems has ever prevented piracy or illegal copying,"" he said. He said many firms readily admit that their DRM systems are little protection against skilled attackers such as the organised crime gangs that are responsible for most piracy. Instead, said Mr Doctorow, DRM systems were intended to control the group that electronics firms have most hold over - consumers. ""The studios and labels perceive an opportunity to sell you your media again and again - the iPod version, the auto version, the American and UK version, the ringtone version, and so on.""
","Instead, said Mr Doctorow, DRM systems were intended to control the group that electronics firms have most hold over - consumers.By setting up the alliance to work on a common control system, the firms said they hope to end this current fragmentation of file formats.He said many firms readily admit that their DRM systems are little protection against skilled attackers such as the organised crime gangs that are responsible for most piracy.Shelley Taylor, analyst and author of a report about online music services, said the locks and limits on digital files were done to maximise the cash that firms can make from consumers.""Not one of these systems has ever prevented piracy or illegal copying,"" he said.In a joint statement the firms said they wanted to let consumers enjoy ""appropriately licensed video and music on any device, independent of how they originally obtained that content"".Ms Taylor said the limits legal download services place on files could help explain the continuing popularity of file-sharing systems that let people get hold of pirated pop.Confusingly for consumers, the technology that comes out of the alliance will sit alongside the content control systems of rival firms such as Microsoft and Apple.""In many ways the different DRM systems are akin to the different physical formats, such as Betamax and VHS, that consumers have seen in the past,"" said Ian Fogg, personal technology and broadband analyst at Jupiter Research.The firms want to make a system that ensures files play on the hardware they make but also thwarts illegal copying.The move is widely seen as a way for the four firms to decide their own destiny on content control systems instead of having to sign up for those being pushed by Apple and Microsoft.The firms hope that it will also make it harder for consumers to make illegal copies of the music, movies and other digital content they have bought."
"Peer-to-peer nets 'here to stay'

Peer-to-peer (P2P) networks are here to stay, and are on the verge of being exploited by commercial media firms, says a panel of industry experts.

Once several high-profile legal cases against file-sharers are resolved this year, firms will be very keen to try and make money from P2P technology. The expert panel probed the future of P2P at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas earlier in January. The first convictions for P2P piracy were handed out in the US in January. William Trowbridge and Michael Chicoine pleaded guilty to charges that they infringed copyright by illegally sharing music, movies and software. Since the first successful file-sharing network Napster was forced to close down, the entertainment industry has been nervous and critical of P2P technology, blaming it for falling sales and piracy. But that is going to change very soon, according to the panel.

The music and film industries have started some big legal cases against owners of legitimate P2P networks - which are not illegal in themselves - and of individuals accused of distributing pirated content over networks. But they have slowly realised that P2P is a good way to distribute content, said Travis Kalanick, founder and chairman of P2P network Red Swoosh, and soon they are all going to want a slice of it. They are just waiting to come up with ""business models"" that work for them, which includes digital rights management and copy-protection standards.

But, until the legal actions are resolved, experimentation with P2P cannot not happen, said Michael Weiss, president of StreamCast Networks. Remembering the furore around VCRs when they first came out, Mr Weiss said: ""Old media always tries to stop new media. ""When they can't stop it, they try to control it. Then they figure out how to make money and they always make a lot of money."" Once the courts decided that the VCR in itself was not an illegal technology, the film studios turned it into an extremely lucrative business. In August 2004, the San Francisco-based US Court of Appeals ruled in favour of Grokster and StreamCast, two file-sharing networks. The court said they were essentially in the same position that Sony was in the 1980s VCR battle, and said that the networks themselves could not be deemed as illegal.

P2P networks usually do not rely on dedicated servers for the transfer of files. Instead it uses direct connections between computers - or clients. There are now many different types of P2P systems than work in different ways. P2P nets can be used to share any kind of file, like photos, free software, licensed music and any other digital content. The BBC has already decided to embrace the technology. It aims to offer most of its own programmes for download this year and it will use P2P technology to distribute them. The files would be locked seven days after a programme aired making rights management easier to control. But the technology is still demonised and misunderstood by many. The global entertainment industry says more than 2.6 billion copyrighted music files are downloaded every month, and about half a million films are downloaded a day. Legal music download services, like Apple iTunes, Napster, have rushed into the music marketplace to try and lure file-sharers away from free content. Sales of legally-downloaded songs grew tenfold in 2004, with 200 million tracks bought online in the US and Europe in 12 months, the IFPI reported this week. But such download services are very different from P2P networks, not least because of the financial aspect.

There are several money-spinning models that could turn P2P into a golden egg for commercial entertainment companies. Paid-for-pass-along, in which firms receive money each time a file is shared, along with various DRM solutions and advertiser-based options are all being considered. ""We see there are going to be different models for commoditising P2P,"" said Marc Morgenstern, vice president of anti-piracy firm Overpeer.

""Consumers are hungry for it and we will discover new models together,"" agreed Mr Morgenstern. But many net users will continue to ignore the entertainment industry's potential controlling grip on content and P2P technology by continuing to use it for their own creations. Unsigned bands, for example, use P2P networks to distribute their music effectively, which also draws the attention of record companies looking for new artists to sign. ""Increasingly, what you are seeing on P2P is consumer-created content,"" said Derek Broes, from Microsoft. ""They will probably pay an increasing role in helping P2P spread,"" he said. Looking into P2P's future, file sharing is just the beginning for P2P networks, as far as Mr Broes is concerned. ""Once some of these issues are resolved, you are going to see aggressive movement to protect content, but also in ways that are unimaginable now,"" he said. ""File-sharing is the tip of the iceberg.""
","But they have slowly realised that P2P is a good way to distribute content, said Travis Kalanick, founder and chairman of P2P network Red Swoosh, and soon they are all going to want a slice of it.Once several high-profile legal cases against file-sharers are resolved this year, firms will be very keen to try and make money from P2P technology.The music and film industries have started some big legal cases against owners of legitimate P2P networks - which are not illegal in themselves - and of individuals accused of distributing pirated content over networks.Since the first successful file-sharing network Napster was forced to close down, the entertainment industry has been nervous and critical of P2P technology, blaming it for falling sales and piracy.It aims to offer most of its own programmes for download this year and it will use P2P technology to distribute them.""We see there are going to be different models for commoditising P2P,"" said Marc Morgenstern, vice president of anti-piracy firm Overpeer.But, until the legal actions are resolved, experimentation with P2P cannot not happen, said Michael Weiss, president of StreamCast Networks.""Increasingly, what you are seeing on P2P is consumer-created content,"" said Derek Broes, from Microsoft.P2P nets can be used to share any kind of file, like photos, free software, licensed music and any other digital content.The first convictions for P2P piracy were handed out in the US in January.But many net users will continue to ignore the entertainment industry's potential controlling grip on content and P2P technology by continuing to use it for their own creations.Looking into P2P's future, file sharing is just the beginning for P2P networks, as far as Mr Broes is concerned.But such download services are very different from P2P networks, not least because of the financial aspect.""They will probably pay an increasing role in helping P2P spread,"" he said.Peer-to-peer (P2P) networks are here to stay, and are on the verge of being exploited by commercial media firms, says a panel of industry experts.Unsigned bands, for example, use P2P networks to distribute their music effectively, which also draws the attention of record companies looking for new artists to sign."
"Text message record smashed

UK mobile owners continue to break records with their text messaging, with latest figures showing that 26 billion texts were sent in total in 2004.

The figures collected by the Mobile Data Association (MDA) showed that 2.4 billion were fired off in December alone, the highest monthly total ever. That was 26% more than in December 2003. The records even surpassed the MDA's own predictions, it said. Every day 78 million messages are sent and there are no signs of a slow down. Before December's bumper text record, the previous highest monthly total was in October 2004, when 2.3 billion were sent. Text messaging is set to smash more records in 2005 too, said the MDA, with forecasts suggesting a total of 30 billion for the year.

Even though mobiles are becoming increasingly sophisticated with much more multimedia applications, texting is still one of the most useful functions of mobiles. People are using SMS to do much more too. Booking cinema tickets, text voting, and news or sports text alerts are growing popular. Mobile owners have also given the chance to donate to the Disasters Emergency Committee's (DEC) Asian Tsunami fund by texting ""Donate"" to a simple short code number. Looking further ahead in the year, the MDA's chairman Mike Short, has predicted that more people will go online through their mobiles, estimating 15 billion WAP page impressions. Handsets with GPRS capability - an ""always on"" net connection - will rise to 75%, while 3G mobile ownership growing to five million by the end of 2005. These third generation mobiles offer a high-speed connection which means more data like video can be received on the phone. Globally, mobile phone sales passed 167 million in the third quarter of 2004, according to a recent report from analysts Gartner. That was 26% more than the previous year. It is predicted that there would be two billion handsets in use worldwide by the end of 2005.
","Before December's bumper text record, the previous highest monthly total was in October 2004, when 2.3 billion were sent.UK mobile owners continue to break records with their text messaging, with latest figures showing that 26 billion texts were sent in total in 2004.Text messaging is set to smash more records in 2005 too, said the MDA, with forecasts suggesting a total of 30 billion for the year.The figures collected by the Mobile Data Association (MDA) showed that 2.4 billion were fired off in December alone, the highest monthly total ever.Looking further ahead in the year, the MDA's chairman Mike Short, has predicted that more people will go online through their mobiles, estimating 15 billion WAP page impressions.That was 26% more than the previous year.Handsets with GPRS capability - an ""always on"" net connection - will rise to 75%, while 3G mobile ownership growing to five million by the end of 2005."
"Big war games battle it out

The arrival of new titles in the popular Medal Of Honor and Call of Duty franchises leaves fans of wartime battle titles spoilt for choice.

The acclaimed PC title Call of Duty has been updated for console formats, building on many of the original's elements. For its part, the long-running Medal of Honor series has added Pacific Assault to its PC catalogue, adapting the console game Rising Sun. Call of Duty: Finest Hour casts you as a succession of allied soldiers fighting on World War 2 battlefronts including Russia and North Africa. It is a traditional first-person-viewed game that lets you control just one character, in the midst of a unit where cohorts constantly bark orders at you. On a near-identical note, Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault does all it can to make you feel part of a tight-knit team and plum in the middle of all-out action. Its arenas are the war's Pacific battles, including Guadalcanal and Pearl Harbour. You play one character throughout, a raw and rather talkative US soldier.

Both games rely on a carefully stage-managed structure that keeps things ticking along. When this works, it is a brilliant device to make you feel part of a story. When it does not, it is tedious.

A winning moment is an early scene in Pacific Assault, where you come under attack at the famous US base in Hawaii. You are first ushered into a gunboat attacking the incoming waves of Japanese planes, then made to descend into a sinking battleship to rescue crewman, before seizing the anti-aircraft guns. It is one of the finest set-pieces ever seen in a video game. This notion of shuffling the player along a studiously pre-determined path, forcibly witnessing a series of pre-set moments of action, is a perilous business which can make the whole affair feel stilted rather than organic. The genius of something like Half Life 2 is that it skilfully disguises its linear plotting by various means of misdirection. This pair of games do not really accomplish that, being more concerned with imparting a full-on atmospheric experience.

Call of Duty comes with a suitably bombastic score and overblown presentation. Finest Hour has a similar determination, framing everything in moody wartime music, archive footage and lots of reflective voice-overs.

Letting you play a number of different roles is an interesting ploy that adds new dimensions to the Call of Duty endeavour, even if it sacrifices the narrative flow somewhat. The game's drawback could be said to be its format; tastes differ, but these wartime shooters often do seem to work better on PC. The mouse control is a big reason why, along with the sharper graphics a top-end computer can muster and the apparent notion that PC games are allowed to get away with a bit more subtlety. Call of Duty on PC was more detailed, plot-wise and graphically, and this new adaptation feels a little rough and ready. Targeting with the PS2 controller proved tricky, not helped by unconvincing collision-detection. You can shoot an enemy repeatedly with zero question as to your aim, yet the bullets will just refuse to hit him. Checkpoints are so few and far between that when you get shot, which happens regularly, you are set harshly far back, and will find yourself covering vast tracts of scorched earth again and again. The game wants to be a challenge, and is, and many players will like it for that. It is as dynamic a battlefield simulator as you will experience and even if it is not as refined as its PC parent, the sense of being part of the action is thoroughly impressive.

Both of these games feature military colleagues who are disturbingly bad shots and prone to odd behaviour. And in Pacific Assault in particular, their commands and comments are irritatingly meaningless.

But the teamwork element in titles like this is superficial, designed to add atmosphere and camaraderie rather than affect the gameplay mechanics at all. Of the two games, Pacific Assault gets more things right, including little points like auto-saving intelligently and having tidier presentation. It engages you very well and also looks wonderful, making the most of the lush tropical settings that are reminiscent of the glorious Far Cry, although we had to ramp up the settings on a high-spec machine to get the most out of them. Finest Hour is by no means bad, and it is only because the PC original was so dazzling that this version sometimes feels underwhelming. Those looking for a wartime game with plenty of atmosphere and a hearty abundance of enemies to shoot will be contented. But they will also have a niggling puzzlement as to why it does not break a little more ground rather then just being competent.
","For its part, the long-running Medal of Honor series has added Pacific Assault to its PC catalogue, adapting the console game Rising Sun.On a near-identical note, Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault does all it can to make you feel part of a tight-knit team and plum in the middle of all-out action.Call of Duty on PC was more detailed, plot-wise and graphically, and this new adaptation feels a little rough and ready.Of the two games, Pacific Assault gets more things right, including little points like auto-saving intelligently and having tidier presentation.The acclaimed PC title Call of Duty has been updated for console formats, building on many of the original's elements.The game wants to be a challenge, and is, and many players will like it for that.Those looking for a wartime game with plenty of atmosphere and a hearty abundance of enemies to shoot will be contented.It is one of the finest set-pieces ever seen in a video game.Finest Hour is by no means bad, and it is only because the PC original was so dazzling that this version sometimes feels underwhelming.The mouse control is a big reason why, along with the sharper graphics a top-end computer can muster and the apparent notion that PC games are allowed to get away with a bit more subtlety.The arrival of new titles in the popular Medal Of Honor and Call of Duty franchises leaves fans of wartime battle titles spoilt for choice.Call of Duty: Finest Hour casts you as a succession of allied soldiers fighting on World War 2 battlefronts including Russia and North Africa.It is a traditional first-person-viewed game that lets you control just one character, in the midst of a unit where cohorts constantly bark orders at you.Both games rely on a carefully stage-managed structure that keeps things ticking along.This notion of shuffling the player along a studiously pre-determined path, forcibly witnessing a series of pre-set moments of action, is a perilous business which can make the whole affair feel stilted rather than organic."
"Mobiles rack up 20 years of use

Mobile phones in the UK are celebrating their 20th anniversary this weekend.

Britain's first mobile phone call was made across the Vodafone network on 1 January 1985 by veteran comedian Ernie Wise. In the 20 years since that day, mobile phones have become an integral part of modern life and now almost 90% of Britons own a handset. Mobiles have become so popular that many people use their handset as their only phone and rarely use a landline.

The first ever call over a portable phone was made in 1973 in New York but it took 10 years for the first commercial mobile service to be launched. The UK was not far behind the rest of the world in setting up networks in 1985 that let people make calls while they walked. The first call was made from St Katherine's dock to Vodafone's head office in Newbury which at the time was over a curry house. For the first nine days of 1985 Vodafone was the only firm with a mobile network in the UK. Then on 10 January Cellnet (now O2) launched its service. Mike Caudwell, spokesman for Vodafone, said that when phones were launched they were the size of a briefcase, cost about £2,000 and had a battery life of little more than 20 minutes.

""Despite that they were hugely popular in the mid-80s,"" he said. ""They became a yuppy must-have and a status symbol among young wealthy business folk."" This was also despite the fact that the phones used analogue radio signals to communicate which made them very easy to eavesdrop on. He said it took Vodafone almost nine years to rack up its first million customers but only 18 months to get the second million. ""It's very easy to forget that in 1983 when we put the bid document in we were forecasting that the total market would be two million people,"" he said. ""Cellnet was forecasting half that."" Now Vodafone has 14m customers in the UK alone. Cellnet and Vodafone were the only mobile phone operators in the UK until 1993 when One2One (now T-Mobile) was launched. Orange had its UK launch in 1994. Both newcomers operated digital mobile networks and now all operators use this technology. The analogue spectrum for the old phones has been retired. Called Global System for Mobiles (GSM) this is now the most widely used phone technology on the planet and is used to help more than 1.2 billion people make calls. Mr Caudwell said the advent of digital technology also helped to introduce all those things, such as text messaging and roaming that have made mobiles so popular.
","Cellnet and Vodafone were the only mobile phone operators in the UK until 1993 when One2One (now T-Mobile) was launched.For the first nine days of 1985 Vodafone was the only firm with a mobile network in the UK.Britain's first mobile phone call was made across the Vodafone network on 1 January 1985 by veteran comedian Ernie Wise.The first ever call over a portable phone was made in 1973 in New York but it took 10 years for the first commercial mobile service to be launched.Mobile phones in the UK are celebrating their 20th anniversary this weekend.This was also despite the fact that the phones used analogue radio signals to communicate which made them very easy to eavesdrop on.The UK was not far behind the rest of the world in setting up networks in 1985 that let people make calls while they walked.Mike Caudwell, spokesman for Vodafone, said that when phones were launched they were the size of a briefcase, cost about £2,000 and had a battery life of little more than 20 minutes.In the 20 years since that day, mobile phones have become an integral part of modern life and now almost 90% of Britons own a handset.Now Vodafone has 14m customers in the UK alone."
"Fast moving phone viruses appear

Security firms are warning about several mobile phone viruses that can spread much faster than similar bugs.

The new strains of the Cabir mobile phone virus use short-range radio technology to leap to any vulnerable phone as soon as it is in range. The Cabir virus only affects high-end handsets running the Symbian Series 60 phone operating system. Despite the warnings, there are so far no reports of any phones being infected by the new variants of Cabir.

The original Cabir worm came to light in mid-June 2004 when it was sent to anti-virus firms as a proof-of-concept program. A mistake in the way the original Cabir was written meant that even if it escaped from the laboratory, the bug would only have been able to infect one phone at a time.

However, the new Cabir strains have this mistake corrected and will spread via short range Bluetooth technology to any vulnerable phone in range. Bluetooth has an effective range of a few tens of metres. The risk of being infected by Cabir is low because users must give the malicious program permission to download on to their handset and then must manually install it. Users can protect themselves by altering a setting on Symbian phones that conceals the handset from other Bluetooth using devices. Finnish security firm F-Secure issued a warning about the new strains of Cabir but said that the viruses do not do any damage to a phone. All they do is block normal Bluetooth activity and drain the phone's battery. Anti-virus firm Sophos said the source code for Cabir had been posted on the net by a Brazilian programmer which might lead to even more variants of the program being created. So far seven versions of Cabir are know to exist, one of which was inside the malicious Skulls program that was found in late November. Symbian's Series 60 software is licenced by Nokia, LG Electronics, Lenovo, Panasonic, Samsung, Sendo and Siemens.
","The new strains of the Cabir mobile phone virus use short-range radio technology to leap to any vulnerable phone as soon as it is in range.However, the new Cabir strains have this mistake corrected and will spread via short range Bluetooth technology to any vulnerable phone in range.Finnish security firm F-Secure issued a warning about the new strains of Cabir but said that the viruses do not do any damage to a phone.The Cabir virus only affects high-end handsets running the Symbian Series 60 phone operating system.Despite the warnings, there are so far no reports of any phones being infected by the new variants of Cabir.A mistake in the way the original Cabir was written meant that even if it escaped from the laboratory, the bug would only have been able to infect one phone at a time."
"Doors open at biggest gadget fair

Thousands of technology lovers and industry experts have gathered in Las Vegas for the annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES).

The fair showcases the latest technologies and gadgets that will hit the shops in the next year. About 50,000 new products will be unveiled as the show unfolds. Microsoft chief Bill Gates is to make a pre-show keynote speech on Wednesday when he is expected to announce details of the next generation Xbox.

The thrust of this year's show will be on technologies which put people in charge of multimedia content so they can store, listen to, and watch what they want on devices any time, anywhere. About 120,000 people are expected to attend the trade show which stretches over more than 1.5 million square feet. Highlights will include the latest trends in digital imaging, storage technologies, thinner flat screen and high-definition TVs, wireless and portable technologies, gaming, and broadband technologies. The show also includes several speeches from key technology companies such as Intel, Microsoft, and Hewlett Packard among others. ""The story this year remains all about digital and how that is completely transforming and revolutionising products and the way people interact with them,"" Jeff Joseph, from the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) told the BBC News website. ""It is about personalisation - taking your MP3 player and creating your own playlist, taking your digital video recorder and watch what you want to watch when - you are no longer at the whim of the broadcasters.""

Consumer electronics and gadgets had a phenomenal year in 2004, according to figures released by CES organisers, the CEA, on Tuesday. The gadget explosion signalled the strongest growth yet in the US in 2004. Shipments of consumer electronics rose by almost 11% between 2003 and 2004. That trend is predicted to continue, according to CEA analysts, with wholesale shipments of consumer technologies expected to grow by 11% again in 2005. The fastest-growing technologies in 2004 included blank DVD media, Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) TVs, digital video recorders (DVRs), and portable music players. ""This year we will really begin to see that come to life in what we call place shifting - so if you have your PVR [personal video recorder] in your living room, you can move that content around the house. ""Some exhibitors will be showcasing how you can take that content anywhere,"" said Mr Joseph. He said the products which will be making waves in the next year will be about the ""democratisation"" of content - devices and technologies that will give people the freedom to do more with music, video, and images. There will also be more focus on the design of technologies, following the lead that Apple's iPod made, with ease of use and good looks which appeal to a wider range of people a key concern.

The CEA predicted that there would be several key technology trends to watch in the coming year. Gaming would continue to thrive, especially on mobile devices, and would reach out to more diverse gamers such as women. Games consoles sales have been declining, but the launch of next generation consoles, such as Microsoft's Xbox and PlayStation, could buoy up sales. Although it has been widely predicted that Mr Gates would be showcasing the new Xbox, some media reports have cast doubt on what he would be talking about in the keynote. Some have suggested the announcement may take place at the Games Developers Conference in the summer instead. With more than 52% of US homes expected to have home networks, the CEA suggested hard drive boxes - or media servers - capable of storing thousands of images, video and audio files to be accessed through other devices around the home, will be more commonplace. Portable devices that combine mobile telephony, digital music and video players, will also be more popular in 2005. Their popularity will be driven by more multimedia content and services which will let people watch and listen to films, TV, and audio wherever they are. This means more storage technologies will be in demand, such as external hard drives, and flash memory like SD cards. CES runs officially from 6 to 9 January.
","He said the products which will be making waves in the next year will be about the ""democratisation"" of content - devices and technologies that will give people the freedom to do more with music, video, and images.The CEA predicted that there would be several key technology trends to watch in the coming year.The thrust of this year's show will be on technologies which put people in charge of multimedia content so they can store, listen to, and watch what they want on devices any time, anywhere.That trend is predicted to continue, according to CEA analysts, with wholesale shipments of consumer technologies expected to grow by 11% again in 2005.Consumer electronics and gadgets had a phenomenal year in 2004, according to figures released by CES organisers, the CEA, on Tuesday.Thousands of technology lovers and industry experts have gathered in Las Vegas for the annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES).""The story this year remains all about digital and how that is completely transforming and revolutionising products and the way people interact with them,"" Jeff Joseph, from the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) told the BBC News website.The fair showcases the latest technologies and gadgets that will hit the shops in the next year.The fastest-growing technologies in 2004 included blank DVD media, Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) TVs, digital video recorders (DVRs), and portable music players.The show also includes several speeches from key technology companies such as Intel, Microsoft, and Hewlett Packard among others.Portable devices that combine mobile telephony, digital music and video players, will also be more popular in 2005.Although it has been widely predicted that Mr Gates would be showcasing the new Xbox, some media reports have cast doubt on what he would be talking about in the keynote."
"Microsoft debuts security tools

Microsoft is releasing tools that clean up PCs harbouring viruses and spyware.

The virus-fighting program will be updated monthly and is a precursor to Microsoft releasing dedicated anti-virus software. Also being released is a software utility that will help users find and remove any spyware on their home computer. Although initially free it is thought that soon Microsoft will be charging users for the anti-spyware tool.

The anti-spyware tool is available now and the anti-virus utility is expected to be available later this month. Microsoft's Windows operating system has long been a favourite of people who write computer viruses because it is so ubiquitous and has many loopholes that can be exploited. It has proved such a tempting target that there are now thought to be more than 100,000 viruses and other malicious programs in existence. Latest research suggests that new variants of viruses are being cranked out at a rate of up to 200 per week. Spyware is surreptitious software that sneaks on to home computers, often without users' knowledge. In its most benign form it just bombards users with pop-up adverts or hijacks web browser settings. The most malicious forms steal confidential information or log every keystroke that users make. Surveys have shown that most PCs are infested with spyware. Research by technology firms Earthlink and Webroot revealed that 90% of Windows machine have the malicious software on board and, on average, each one harbours 28 separate spyware programs. Before now Microsoft has left the market for PC security software to specialist firms such as Symantec, McAfee, Trend Micro and many others. It said that its virus cleaning program would not stop machines being infected nor remove the need for other anti-virus programs. On spyware freely available programs such as Ad-Aware and Spybot have become widely used by people keen to keep the latest variants at bay. Microsoft's two security tools have emerged as a result of acquisitions the company has made over the last two years. In 2003 it bought Romanian firm GeCAD Software to get hold of its anti-virus technology. In December 2004 it bought New York-based anti-spyware firm Giant Company Software. Last year Microsoft also released the SP2 upgrade for Windows XP that closed many security loopholes in the software and made it easier for people to manage their anti-virus and firewall programs.
","Microsoft is releasing tools that clean up PCs harbouring viruses and spyware.Also being released is a software utility that will help users find and remove any spyware on their home computer.Last year Microsoft also released the SP2 upgrade for Windows XP that closed many security loopholes in the software and made it easier for people to manage their anti-virus and firewall programs.Research by technology firms Earthlink and Webroot revealed that 90% of Windows machine have the malicious software on board and, on average, each one harbours 28 separate spyware programs.The virus-fighting program will be updated monthly and is a precursor to Microsoft releasing dedicated anti-virus software.Before now Microsoft has left the market for PC security software to specialist firms such as Symantec, McAfee, Trend Micro and many others.In 2003 it bought Romanian firm GeCAD Software to get hold of its anti-virus technology.In December 2004 it bought New York-based anti-spyware firm Giant Company Software."
"File-swappers ready new network

Legal attacks on websites that help people swap pirated films have forced the development of a system that could be harder to shut down.

One site behind the success of the BitTorrent file-swapping system is producing its own software that avoids the pitfalls of the earlier program. A test version of the new Exeem program will be released in late January. But doubts remain about the new networks ability to ensure files being swapped are ""quality copies"".

In late December movie studios launched a legal campaign against websites that helped people swap pirated movies using the BitTorrent network. The legal campaign worked because of the way that BitTorrent is organised. That file-sharing system relies on links called ""trackers"" that point users to others happy to share the file they are looking for. Shutting down sites that listed trackers crippled the BitTorrent network. One of the sites shut down by the legal campaign was suprnova.org which helped boost the popularity of the BitTorrent system by checking that trackers led to the movies or TV programmes they claimed to.

Now the man behind suprnova.org, who goes by the nickname Sloncek, is preparing to release software for a new file-swapping network dubbed Exeem. In an interview with Novastream web radio, Sloncek said Exeem would combine ideas from the BitTorrent and Kazaa file-sharing systems. Like BitTorrent, Exeem will have trackers that help point people toward the file they want. Like Kazaa these trackers will be held by everyone. There will be no centrally maintained list. This, said Sloncek, should make the system less vulnerable to legal action aimed at stopping people swapping pirated movies and music. The Exeem software has been under development for a few months and is currently being tested by a closed group of users. An early public version of the software should be available before February. Sloncek said that currently only a Windows version of the software was in development. There were no plans for a Linux or Mac version. He said that costs of writing the software will be paid for by adverts appearing in the finished version of the program. Despite Suprnova administrator Sloncek's involvement with Exeem, the basic technology appears to have been developed by a firm called Swarm Systems that is based on Caribbean island Saint Kitts and Nevis.

Users of the Exeem system will be able to rate files being swapped to help stop the spread of fake files, Sloncek told Novastream.

Dr Johan Pouwelse, a researcher at the Delft University of Technology who studies peer-to-peer networks, said Exeem was the next evolution in file-sharing systems. But, he said, it would struggle to be as popular as BitTorrent and Suprnova because early versions were not taking enough care to make sure good copies of files were being shared. ""Exeem cannot prevent pollution,"" he said. ""The rating system in Exeem seems flawed because it is easy to insert both fake files and fake ratings,"" he said. Studies have shown that organisations working for record labels and movie studios have worked to undermine Kazaa by putting in fakes. By contrast moderators on Suprnova made sure files being shared were high quality. ""The moderators are the difference between having a system that works and one that's full of crap like Kazaa,"" he said. ""There is a fundamental tension between distribution and integrity,"" he said. Mr Pouwelse said that future versions of file-sharing systems are likely to incorporate some kind of distributed reputation system that lets moderators prove who they are to the network and rate which files are worth downloading. When big files were being shared moderation systems were key, said Mr Pouwelse. He added that the legal attacks on BitTorrent had driven people away from sites such as Suprnova but many users had simply migrated to other tracker listing sites many of which have seen huge increases in traffic. ""It's hard to compete with free,"" he said. No-one from the Motion Picture Association of America was immediately available for comment on the file-sharing development.
","Sloncek said that currently only a Windows version of the software was in development.Mr Pouwelse said that future versions of file-sharing systems are likely to incorporate some kind of distributed reputation system that lets moderators prove who they are to the network and rate which files are worth downloading.In an interview with Novastream web radio, Sloncek said Exeem would combine ideas from the BitTorrent and Kazaa file-sharing systems.Like BitTorrent, Exeem will have trackers that help point people toward the file they want.But, he said, it would struggle to be as popular as BitTorrent and Suprnova because early versions were not taking enough care to make sure good copies of files were being shared.When big files were being shared moderation systems were key, said Mr Pouwelse.""The rating system in Exeem seems flawed because it is easy to insert both fake files and fake ratings,"" he said.This, said Sloncek, should make the system less vulnerable to legal action aimed at stopping people swapping pirated movies and music.One of the sites shut down by the legal campaign was suprnova.org which helped boost the popularity of the BitTorrent system by checking that trackers led to the movies or TV programmes they claimed to.""The moderators are the difference between having a system that works and one that's full of crap like Kazaa,"" he said.Users of the Exeem system will be able to rate files being swapped to help stop the spread of fake files, Sloncek told Novastream.""Exeem cannot prevent pollution,"" he said.He said that costs of writing the software will be paid for by adverts appearing in the finished version of the program.One site behind the success of the BitTorrent file-swapping system is producing its own software that avoids the pitfalls of the earlier program."
"Games win for Blu-ray DVD format

The next-generation DVD format Blu-ray is winning more supporters than its rival, according to its backers.

Blu-ray, backed by 100 firms including Sony, is competing against Toshiba and NEC-backed HD-DVD to be the format of choice for future films and games. The Blu-Ray Association said on Thursday that games giants Electronic Arts and Vivendi would both support its DVD format. The next generation of DVDs will hold high-definition video and sound. This offers incredible 3D-like quality of pictures which major Hollywood studios and games publishers are extremely keen to exploit in the coming year. In a separate press conference at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Toshiba announced that DVD players for its technology would be on the market by the end of 2005.

""As we move from standard definition video images to high-definition images, we have a much greater need for storage,"" Richard Doherty, from Panasonic's Hollywood Laboratories, one of the pioneers of Blu-ray, told the BBC news website. ""So by utilising blue laser-based technology we can make an optical laser disc that can hold six times as much as today's DVD."" A Blu-ray disc will be able to store 50GB of high-quality data, while Toshiba's HD-DVD will hold 30GB. Mr Doherty added that it was making sure the discs could satisfy all high-definition needs, including the ability to record onto the DVDs and smaller discs to fit into camcorders. Both Toshiba and Blu-ray are hopeful that the emerging DVD format war, akin to the Betamax and VHS fight in the 1980s, can be resolved over the next year when next-generation DVD players start to come out. When players do come out, they will be able to play standard DVDs too, which is good news for those who have huge libraries of current DVDs.

But the support from Vivendi and Electronics Arts is a big boost to Blu-ray in the battle for supremacy.

Gaming is a $20 billion industry worldwide, so is as crucial as the film industry in terms of money to be made. ""The technical requirement for game development today demands more advanced optical-disc technologies,"" said Michael Heilmann, chief technology officer for Vivendi Universal. ""Blu-ray offers the capacity, performance and high-speed internet connectivity to take us into the future of gaming."" EA, a leading games developer and publisher, added that the delivery of high-definition games of the future was vital and Blu-ray had the capacity, functionality and interactivity needed for the kinds of projects it was planning. Sony recently announced it would be using the technology in its next generation of PlayStations. Mr Doherty said gamers were ""ravenous"" for high-quality graphics and technology for the next generation of titles. ""Gamers, especially those working on PCs, are always focused on more capacity to deliver textures, deeper levels, for delivering higher-resolution playback.""

He added: ""The focus for games moving forward is on increased immersion.

""Gaming companies really like to focus on creating a world which involves creating complicated 3D models and textures and increasing the resolution, increasing the frame rate - all of these are part of getting a more immersive experience."" Fitting these models on current DVD technologies means compressing the graphics so much that much of this quality is lost. As games move to more photo-real capability, the current technology is limiting. ""They are thrilled at the advanced capacity to start to build these immersive environments,"" said Mr Doherty. Currently, graphics-intensive PC games also require multiple discs for installation. High-definition DVDs will cut down on that need. Likewise, consoles rely on single discs, so DVDs that can hold six times more data mean much better, high-resolution games. Blu-ray has already won backing from major Hollywood studios, such as MGM Studios, Disney, and Buena Vista, as well as top technology firms like Dell, LG, Samsung and Phillips amongst others. While Toshiba's HD-DVD technology has won backing from Paramount, Universal and Warner Bros. ""The real world benefits (of HD-DVD) are apparent and obvious,"" said Jim Cardwell, president of Warner Home Video. Mr Cardwell added that rapid time to market and dependability were significant factors in choosing to go with HD-DVD. Both formats are courting Microsoft to be the format of choice for the next generation Xbox, but discussions are still on-going. Next generation DVDs will also be able to store images and other data. CES is the largest consumer electronics show in the world, and runs from 6 to 9 January.
","The Blu-Ray Association said on Thursday that games giants Electronic Arts and Vivendi would both support its DVD format.Mr Doherty said gamers were ""ravenous"" for high-quality graphics and technology for the next generation of titles.The next generation of DVDs will hold high-definition video and sound.Both Toshiba and Blu-ray are hopeful that the emerging DVD format war, akin to the Betamax and VHS fight in the 1980s, can be resolved over the next year when next-generation DVD players start to come out.Next generation DVDs will also be able to store images and other data.EA, a leading games developer and publisher, added that the delivery of high-definition games of the future was vital and Blu-ray had the capacity, functionality and interactivity needed for the kinds of projects it was planning.Blu-ray, backed by 100 firms including Sony, is competing against Toshiba and NEC-backed HD-DVD to be the format of choice for future films and games.A Blu-ray disc will be able to store 50GB of high-quality data, while Toshiba's HD-DVD will hold 30GB.""So by utilising blue laser-based technology we can make an optical laser disc that can hold six times as much as today's DVD.""Sony recently announced it would be using the technology in its next generation of PlayStations.In a separate press conference at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Toshiba announced that DVD players for its technology would be on the market by the end of 2005.Fitting these models on current DVD technologies means compressing the graphics so much that much of this quality is lost.As games move to more photo-real capability, the current technology is limiting.Mr Doherty added that it was making sure the discs could satisfy all high-definition needs, including the ability to record onto the DVDs and smaller discs to fit into camcorders."
"More power to the people says HP

The digital revolution is focused on letting people tell and share their own stories, according to Carly Fiorina, chief of technology giant Hewlett Packard.

The job of firms such as HP now, she said in a speech at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), was to ensure digital and physical worlds fully converged. She said the goal for 2005 was to make people the centre of technology. CES showcases 50,000 new gadgets that will be hitting the shelves in 2005. The tech-fest, the largest of its kind in the world, runs from 6 to 9 January. ""The digital revolution is about the democratisation of technology and the experiences it makes possible,"" she told delegates. ""Revolution has always been about giving power to the people."" She added: ""The real story of the digital revolution is not just new products, but the millions of experiences made possible and stories that millions can tell."" Part of giving people more control has been about the freeing up of content, such as images, video and music. Crucial to this has been the effort to make devices that speak to each other better so that content can be more easily transferred from one device, such as a digital camera, to others, such as portable media players. A lot of work still needs to be done, however, to sort out compatibility issues and standards within the technology industry so that gadgets just work seamlessly, she said.

Ms Fiorina's talk also touted the way technology is being designed to focus on lifestyle, fashion and personalisation, something she sees as key to what people want.

Special guest, singer Gwen Stefani, joined her on-stage to promote her own range of HP digital cameras which Ms Stefani has helped design and which are heavily influenced by Japanese youth culture. The digital cameras, which are due to go on sale in the US by the summer, are based on the HP 607 model. The emphasis on personalisation and lifestyle is a big theme at this year's CES, with tiny, wearable MP3 players at every turn and rainbow hues giving colour to everything. Ms Fiorina also announced that HP was working with Nokia to launch a visual radio service for mobiles, which would launch in Europe early this year. The service will let people listen to radio on their mobiles and download relevant content, like a track's ringtone, simultaneously. The service is designed to make mobile radio more interactive.

Among the other new products she showcased was the Digital Media Hub, a big upgrade to HP's Digital Entertainment Centre. Coming out in the autumn in the US, the box is a networked, high-definition TV, cable set-top box, digital video recorder and DVD recorder. It has a removable hard drive cartridge, memory card slots, and Light Scribe labelling software which lets people design and print customised DVD labels and covers. It is designed to contain all a household's digital media, such as pre-recorded TV shows, pictures, videos and music so it can all be managed in one place. The hub reflects the increasing move to re-box the PC so that it can work as part of other key centres of entertainment. Research suggests that about 258 million images are saved and shared every day, equating to 94 billion a year. Eighty per cent of those remain on cameras. Media hubs are designed to encourage people to organise them on one box. Ms Fiorina was one of several keynote speakers, who also included Microsoft chief Bill Gates, to set out what major technology companies think people will be doing with technologies and gadgets in the next 12 months. In a separate announcement during the keynote speech, Ms Fiorina said that HP would be partnering MTV to replace this year's MTV Asia music award. MTV's Asia Aid will be held in Bangkok on 3 February, and is aimed at helping to raise money for the Asian tsunami disaster.
","She said the goal for 2005 was to make people the centre of technology.Among the other new products she showcased was the Digital Media Hub, a big upgrade to HP's Digital Entertainment Centre.The digital revolution is focused on letting people tell and share their own stories, according to Carly Fiorina, chief of technology giant Hewlett Packard.""The digital revolution is about the democratisation of technology and the experiences it makes possible,"" she told delegates.Ms Fiorina was one of several keynote speakers, who also included Microsoft chief Bill Gates, to set out what major technology companies think people will be doing with technologies and gadgets in the next 12 months.The job of firms such as HP now, she said in a speech at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), was to ensure digital and physical worlds fully converged.Media hubs are designed to encourage people to organise them on one box.""Revolution has always been about giving power to the people.""Part of giving people more control has been about the freeing up of content, such as images, video and music.Ms Fiorina's talk also touted the way technology is being designed to focus on lifestyle, fashion and personalisation, something she sees as key to what people want.It is designed to contain all a household's digital media, such as pre-recorded TV shows, pictures, videos and music so it can all be managed in one place.The digital cameras, which are due to go on sale in the US by the summer, are based on the HP 607 model."
"Gadget market 'to grow in 2005'

The explosion in consumer technology is to continue into 2005, delegates at the world's largest gadget show, in Las Vegas, have been told.

The number of gadgets in the shops is predicted to grow by 11%, while devices which talk to each other will become increasingly important. ""Everything is going digital,"" Kirsten Pfeifer from the Consumer Electronics Association, told the BBC News website. The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) featured the pick of 2005's products. ""Consumers are controlling what they want and technologies like HDTVs [high-definition TVs], digital radio, and digital cameras will remain strong in 2005. ""All the products on show really showed the breadth and depth of the industry."" Despite showing diversity, some delegates attending complained that the showcase lacked as much ""wow factor"" as in previous years.

The portable technologies on show also reflected one of the buzzwords of CES, which was the ""time and place shifting"" of multimedia content - being able to watch and listen to video and music anywhere, at any time. At the start of last year's CES, the CEA predicted there would be an average growth of 4% in 2004. That figure was surpassed with the rise in popularity of portable digital music players, personal video recorders and digital cameras. It was clear also that gadgets are becoming a lot more about lifestyle choice, with fashion and personalisation becoming increasingly key to the way gadgets are designed. Part of this has been the rise in spending power of the ""generation X-ers"" who have grown up with technology and who now have the spending power and desire for more devices that suit them. More than 57% of the consumer electronics market is made up of female buyers, according to CEA research. Hybrid devices, which combine a number of multimedia functions, were also in evidence on the show floor. ""A lot of this is driven by just the ability to do it,"" said Stephen Baker, a consumer electronics analyst with retail research firm NPD Group. ""Some of these functions cost next to nothing to add.""

As well as the show floor showcasing everything from tiny wearable MP3 players to giant high-definition TVs, several keynote speeches were made by industry leaders, such as Microsoft chief Bill Gates. Despite several embarrassing technical glitches during Mr Gate's pre-show speech, he announced several new partnerships - mainly for the US market. He unveiled new ways of letting people take TV shows recorded on personal video recorders and watch them back on portable devices. He disappointed some, however, by failing to announce any details of the next generation of the Xbox games console. Another disappointment was the lack of exposure Sony's new portable games device, the PSP, had at the show. Sony said the much-anticipated gadget would most likely start shipping in March for the US and Europe. It went on sale in Japan before Christmas. There were only two PSPs embedded in glass cabinets at the show though and no representatives to discuss further details. A Sony representative told the BBC News website this was because Sony did not consider it to be part of their ""consumer technology"" offering.

Elsewhere at the show, there was a plethora of colour and plasma screens, including Samsung's 102-inch (2.6 metre) plasma - the largest in the world. Industry experts were also excited about high-definition technologies coming to the fore in 2005, with new formats for DVDs coming out which will hold six times as much data as conventional DVDs. With so many devices on the move there were a lot of products on show offering external storage, like Seagate's 5GB pocket sized external hard drive, which won an innovation for engineering and design prize. More than 120,000 trade professionals attended CES in Las Vegas, which officially ran from 6 to 9 January.
","The explosion in consumer technology is to continue into 2005, delegates at the world's largest gadget show, in Las Vegas, have been told.The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) featured the pick of 2005's products.The portable technologies on show also reflected one of the buzzwords of CES, which was the ""time and place shifting"" of multimedia content - being able to watch and listen to video and music anywhere, at any time.Another disappointment was the lack of exposure Sony's new portable games device, the PSP, had at the show.A Sony representative told the BBC News website this was because Sony did not consider it to be part of their ""consumer technology"" offering.He unveiled new ways of letting people take TV shows recorded on personal video recorders and watch them back on portable devices.""Everything is going digital,"" Kirsten Pfeifer from the Consumer Electronics Association, told the BBC News website.Hybrid devices, which combine a number of multimedia functions, were also in evidence on the show floor.As well as the show floor showcasing everything from tiny wearable MP3 players to giant high-definition TVs, several keynote speeches were made by industry leaders, such as Microsoft chief Bill Gates.""All the products on show really showed the breadth and depth of the industry.""That figure was surpassed with the rise in popularity of portable digital music players, personal video recorders and digital cameras.More than 57% of the consumer electronics market is made up of female buyers, according to CEA research."
"Apple unveils low-cost 'Mac mini'

Apple has unveiled a new, low-cost Macintosh computer for the masses, billed as the Mac mini.

Chief executive Steve Jobs showed off the new machine at his annual MacWorld speech, in San Francisco. The $499 Macintosh, sold for £339 in the UK, was described by Jobs as the ""most important Mac"" made by Apple. Mr Jobs also unveiled the iPod shuffle, a new music player using cheaper flash memory rather than hard drives, which are used in more expensive iPods.

The new computer shifts the company into new territory - traditionally, the firm is known as a design and innovation-led firm rather than as a mass-market manufacturer. The Mac mini comes without a monitor, keyboard and mouse, and a second version with a larger hard drive will also be sold for $599.

The machine - which will be available from 22 January - was described by Jobs as ""BYODKM... bring your own display, keyboard, and mouse"". In an attempt to win over Windows PC customers, Mr Jobs said it would appeal to people thinking of changing operating systems. ""People who are thinking of switching will have no more excuses,"" he said. ""It's the newest and most affordable Mac ever."" The new computer has been the subject of speculation for several weeks and while few people will be surprised by the announcement many analysts had already said it was a sensible move. In January, Apple sued a website after it published what it said were specifications for the new computer. Ian Harris, deputy editor of UK magazine Mac Format, said the machine would appeal to PC-owning consumers who had purchased an iPod.

""They want a further taste of Mac because they like what they have seen with iPod."" Harris added: ""Everybody thought that Apple was happy to remain a niche maker of luxury computers, and moving into a market dominated by low margin manufacturers like Dell is a bold move. ""But it shows that Apple is keen to capitalise on the mass market success it's had with the iPod. The Mac mini will appeal to PC users looking for an attractive, 'no fuss' computer."" The new iPod shuffle comes in two versions - one offering 512mb of storage for $99 (£69 in the Uk) and a second with one gigabyte of storage for $149 (£99) - and went on sale Tuesday. The music player has no display and will play songs either consecutively or shuffled. The smaller iPod will hold about 120 songs, said Mr Jobs. Mr Jobs told the delegates at MacWorld that iPod already had a 65% market share of all digital music players.
","Apple has unveiled a new, low-cost Macintosh computer for the masses, billed as the Mac mini.The $499 Macintosh, sold for £339 in the UK, was described by Jobs as the ""most important Mac"" made by Apple.The smaller iPod will hold about 120 songs, said Mr Jobs.Mr Jobs also unveiled the iPod shuffle, a new music player using cheaper flash memory rather than hard drives, which are used in more expensive iPods.In January, Apple sued a website after it published what it said were specifications for the new computer.Ian Harris, deputy editor of UK magazine Mac Format, said the machine would appeal to PC-owning consumers who had purchased an iPod.The new computer has been the subject of speculation for several weeks and while few people will be surprised by the announcement many analysts had already said it was a sensible move.Mr Jobs told the delegates at MacWorld that iPod already had a 65% market share of all digital music players.In an attempt to win over Windows PC customers, Mr Jobs said it would appeal to people thinking of changing operating systems."
"Napster offers rented music to go

Music downloading, for those that have rejected the free peer to peer services, can be a costly business.

The cost of paying even as little as 70p per track can add up, particularly for those people who own one of the new generation of players that can store thousands of songs. Paying per track for music is becoming as outmoded as paying per minute for internet access and alternative monthly or yearly subscription models are springing up as a more convenient, and ultimately cheaper way of owning music.

""Music fans are moving away from buying the traditional bundled package of a dozen or more songs that we used to call an album to newer ways that fit their lifestyle; either single tracks or subscriptions services,"" said Paul Myers, chief executive of Wippit, a UK-based music download service. While iTunes is doing good business with its sales of individual tracks to iPod owners, others are questioning whether the concept of owning music is even valid in the digital age. Napster is due to launch a new rental subscription service - dubbed Napster to Go in the UK in the next few months. The service can be used on players that support Microsoft Windows latest Digital Rights Management technology known as Janus. This includes players made by Samsung, Rio and Creative.

Currently on offer in beta-version in the US, the service costs $15 per month for unlimited downloads. The technology ensures that music downloaded to the player only remains playable while the user subscribes to the service. Users need to update their license on a monthly basis or the tunes will no longer play.

This has outraged some digital music lovers, especially as Napster already offers a cheaper service for downloading music to the PC. Napster claims the higher price is a result of record labels charging more for the to-go service and says it also offers ""greater value"" for customers. Mr Myers is not convinced a rental model will work for consumers. ""We've been offering our unlimited music subscription service for more than three years now and our customers know what they want. Format interoperability, excellent value and the reassurance that music purchased from Wippit is theirs to keep and enjoy on whatever device they choose,"" he said. ""Who wants to download a track that won't play next month if you decide to unsubscribe to the service or change portable player for an iPod or the latest mobile phone?"" Wippit offers a download subscription service for £4.99 per month or £50 per year. It has a catalogue of around 60,000 songs.
","This has outraged some digital music lovers, especially as Napster already offers a cheaper service for downloading music to the PC.Wippit offers a download subscription service for £4.99 per month or £50 per year.Paying per track for music is becoming as outmoded as paying per minute for internet access and alternative monthly or yearly subscription models are springing up as a more convenient, and ultimately cheaper way of owning music.""Music fans are moving away from buying the traditional bundled package of a dozen or more songs that we used to call an album to newer ways that fit their lifestyle; either single tracks or subscriptions services,"" said Paul Myers, chief executive of Wippit, a UK-based music download service.The technology ensures that music downloaded to the player only remains playable while the user subscribes to the service.""We've been offering our unlimited music subscription service for more than three years now and our customers know what they want.""Who wants to download a track that won't play next month if you decide to unsubscribe to the service or change portable player for an iPod or the latest mobile phone?""Currently on offer in beta-version in the US, the service costs $15 per month for unlimited downloads."
"Rings of steel combat net attacks

Gambling is hugely popular, especially with tech-savvy criminals.

Many extortionists are targeting net-based betting firms and threatening to cripple their websites with deluges of data unless a ransom is paid. But now deep defences are being put in place by some of the UK's biggest net firms to stop these attacks. Increasing numbers of attacks and the huge amounts of data being used to try to bump a site off the web are prompting firms to adopt the measures. ""Net firms are realising that it's not just about anti-virus and firewalls,"" said Paul King, chief security architect at Cisco. ""There are more things that can be done in the network to protect data centres."" Mr King said the only way to properly combat these so-called Distributed Denial-of-Service attacks was with intelligent net-based systems. Many of the gambling sites suffering DDoS attacks are in offshore data and hosting centres, so any large scale data flood could knock out access to many more sites than just the one the criminals were targeting, said Mr King. This overspill effect was only likely to grow as attacks grow in size and scale.

Malcolm Seagrave, security expert at Energis, said the most common types of attacks hit sites with 10 megabytes of data over short periods of time. Bigger attacks sending down 200 megabytes of traffic or more were rarely seen, he said. ""It does feel like they are turning the dial because you see this traffic gradually growing,"" he said.

So far there have been no attacks involving gigabytes of data, said Mr Seagrave. However, he added that it was only a matter of time before such large attacks were mounted. Maria Capella, spokeswoman for net provider Pipex, said that when DDoS attacks were at their height, customers were getting hit every four to five days. The defences being put in place constantly monitor the streams of data flowing across networks and pluck out the traffic destined for target sites. ""It's about understanding what's genuine traffic and keeping attack traffic from going to the site,"" she said. ""We study the profile of their traffic and as soon as we see an anomaly in the profile that's when we start to get the backbone engineering boys to see if we are going to sustain an attack,"" said Ms Capella. This traffic can be hard to spot because DDoS attacks typically use thousands of computers in many different countries, each participating machine only sends a small part of the entire data flood.

Typically these computers have been infected by a virus or worm which reports its success and the net address of compromised machines back to the malicious hacker or hi-tech criminal that set off the virus. Hijacked computers are known as zombies or 'bots and collections of them are called 'bot nets. Many spammers rent out 'bot nets to help them anonymously send junk mail.

Most of the zombies are based outside the country that hosts the target site so getting the attacking PCs shut off can be difficult. Often Pipex and other net suppliers do get advance notice that an attack is about to happen. ""The serious players tend to precede an attack with some kind of ransom e-mail,"" said Ms Capella. ""We ask, as part of the service we provide, that customers notify us of anything they have in advance that would give us forewarning."" Once an attack is spotted dedicated net hardware takes over to remove the attack traffic and ensure that sites stay up. Energis took a similar approach, said Mr Seagrave. ""We have technology out there that allows us to detect attacks in minutes rather than let network engineers spend hours pulling the information together,"" said Mr Seagrave. Also net firms were starting to work more closely together on the problem of DDoS attacks and pool information about where they are coming from. Information gathered on attacks and where they originated has led to some arrests. He said Energis also did its own intelligence work to get in insight into which sites criminal gangs plan to target. ""We have people in places where they shouldn't be, monitoring tech sites,"" he said. Sometimes though, he said, spotting the next victim was easy. ""You can see them going alphabetically through the list with the gambling sites, trying one after another,"" said Mr Seagrave.
","So far there have been no attacks involving gigabytes of data, said Mr Seagrave.Many of the gambling sites suffering DDoS attacks are in offshore data and hosting centres, so any large scale data flood could knock out access to many more sites than just the one the criminals were targeting, said Mr King.""It's about understanding what's genuine traffic and keeping attack traffic from going to the site,"" she said.Malcolm Seagrave, security expert at Energis, said the most common types of attacks hit sites with 10 megabytes of data over short periods of time.Once an attack is spotted dedicated net hardware takes over to remove the attack traffic and ensure that sites stay up.Bigger attacks sending down 200 megabytes of traffic or more were rarely seen, he said.Maria Capella, spokeswoman for net provider Pipex, said that when DDoS attacks were at their height, customers were getting hit every four to five days.""We have technology out there that allows us to detect attacks in minutes rather than let network engineers spend hours pulling the information together,"" said Mr Seagrave.Mr King said the only way to properly combat these so-called Distributed Denial-of-Service attacks was with intelligent net-based systems.""The serious players tend to precede an attack with some kind of ransom e-mail,"" said Ms Capella.""We study the profile of their traffic and as soon as we see an anomaly in the profile that's when we start to get the backbone engineering boys to see if we are going to sustain an attack,"" said Ms Capella.""You can see them going alphabetically through the list with the gambling sites, trying one after another,"" said Mr Seagrave.This traffic can be hard to spot because DDoS attacks typically use thousands of computers in many different countries, each participating machine only sends a small part of the entire data flood.Also net firms were starting to work more closely together on the problem of DDoS attacks and pool information about where they are coming from."
"Apple Mac mini gets warm welcome

The Mac mini has been welcomed by Apple fans, industry experts and PC users.

The release of the tiny, low-cost machine is seen as a good move for Apple which currently has a small share of the desktop computer market. Mac watchers and some analysts say the Mac mini will go a long way to help Apple appeal to the mass of consumers. They speculate that the Mac mini will be bought by iPod owners and those wanting an easy-to-use and administer second home computer.

""It's the bravest move they have made yet,"" said Jonny Evans, news editor at Macworld magazine. Mr Evans said the combination of low cost, small size and huge numbers of iPod users could make it a big success.

He thought that the machine would appeal to those that like Apple technology but who before now have balked at paying high prices for its hardware. ""It's deeply affordable,"" he said. ""Plus you know that you do not get viruses or all of the associated problems."" Already, he said, PC owning friends had declared that they would be buying one. Interest in the new products launched at Macworld expo was so strong that websites for Apple's store and the show struggled to cope with demand. According to response statistics gathered by Netcraft many visiting the Apple store in the wake of Mr Jobs' speech suffered lengthy response times. The Macworld Expo site was completely overwhelmed and went offline.

""I think fundamentally it's a good idea because it's cheap even for a PC,"" said Nick Ross, deputy labs editor at PC Pro. Apple's work on making things easy to use would also help the Mac mini win fans, he said. ""I think people expect it just to work now and really it should,"" hesaid. The Mac mini could find a role in homes that need a second computer that is easy to install and administer, he said. ""For browsing the web, e-mail and all kinds of basic duties it's going to be absolutely adequate,"" said Mr Ross. Ian Fogg, broadband and personal technology analyst at Jupiter Research, agreed that the Mac mini could be very popular. ""Apple has been hoping that sales of the iPod will have a halo effect on the sales of the Mac,"" he said.

Before now, he said, Apple has been seen as a premium brand. But, he said, the Mac mini changed that perception. ""It's a particularly good price when you see that it's Apple that is doing it,"" he said. Apple expects the Mac mini to sell for £339 in the UK and $499 in the US. Adding extras such as a larger hard drive, more memory and networking options will increase the basic price. It will go on sale from 22 January. ""For consumers interested in style, design and small size - which is what the majority of iPod customers are interested in - it's a natural next step,"" said Mr Fogg. Apple has traditionally done well in the market that the Mac mini is aimed at, said Mr Fogg, who also expected many PC makers to release copycat devices in reaction.

His only misgivings were over how easy other consumers, other than iPod owners, would find using the machine. He said anyone wanting to use the Mac mini with the peripherals from an old computer may find it odd to have something so small and sleek next to a hulking monitor. ""They'd be much more likely to pair a Mac mini with a LCD or flat panel monitor which increases the upgrade cost,"" he said. Those with flat screens and LCD monitors are likely to have bought them recently and not be in the market for a new machine.

There are also questions over whether the Mac mini will work with very old peripherals, such as display, keyboard and mouse. The Mac mini also fell short of being a media server that can be a video recorder as well as a store for all the digital music, movies and images people accumulate, said Mr Fogg. ""The Mac mini is not quite ready for that yet,"" he said. ""It does not have the right connectors that fit a TV screen or enough storage."" Said Mr Fogg: ""It's very much a computer."" One dissenting opinion came from Brian Gammage, vice-president of research at analysts Gartner. He said: ""I don't think it changes the world."" Although the Mac mini was very cheap for an Apple computer, it was still expensive compared to many PCs. Also, he said, it appealed in categories that few consumers care about when buying a home computer. ""The PC world is a pile-em-high, sell-em-cheap market,"" he said, ""and all of them are pretty interchangeable."" ""Since the days when Apple ruled the personal computing world its market share has been on a long, slow decline,"" he said. ""Every few years it does something to give its market share a kick then it starts to go back down again,"" said Mr Gammage. The release of the Mac mini fit perfectly with this trend, he said.
","But, he said, the Mac mini changed that perception.""The Mac mini is not quite ready for that yet,"" he said.The release of the Mac mini fit perfectly with this trend, he said.Apple has traditionally done well in the market that the Mac mini is aimed at, said Mr Fogg, who also expected many PC makers to release copycat devices in reaction.The Mac mini could find a role in homes that need a second computer that is easy to install and administer, he said.""Apple has been hoping that sales of the iPod will have a halo effect on the sales of the Mac,"" he said.Apple's work on making things easy to use would also help the Mac mini win fans, he said.Said Mr Fogg: ""It's very much a computer.""""They'd be much more likely to pair a Mac mini with a LCD or flat panel monitor which increases the upgrade cost,"" he said.He said anyone wanting to use the Mac mini with the peripherals from an old computer may find it odd to have something so small and sleek next to a hulking monitor.The Mac mini also fell short of being a media server that can be a video recorder as well as a store for all the digital music, movies and images people accumulate, said Mr Fogg.Mac watchers and some analysts say the Mac mini will go a long way to help Apple appeal to the mass of consumers.Before now, he said, Apple has been seen as a premium brand.""It's a particularly good price when you see that it's Apple that is doing it,"" he said.The Mac mini has been welcomed by Apple fans, industry experts and PC users.Apple expects the Mac mini to sell for £339 in the UK and $499 in the US.Although the Mac mini was very cheap for an Apple computer, it was still expensive compared to many PCs.""It's deeply affordable,"" he said."
"Rivals of the £400 Apple...

The Mac mini is the cheapest Apple computer ever. But though it is cheap for a Mac how does it compare to PCs that cost about the same amount? Dot.life tries to find out if you can you get more for your money if you stick with the beige box.





An extremely small computer that is designed to bring the Macintosh to the masses.

Apple offer a less powerful Mac Mini for £339 but the £399 models has a 1.4ghz Power PC chip, 80 gigabyte hard drive, combined CD burner/DVD player. It comes equipped with USB and Firewire ports for peripheral connections, Ethernet port for broadband, a port for standard video output and an audio/headphone jack.The machine comes with Mac OS X, the Apple operating system, the software suite iLife, which includes iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD and GarageBand.

A monitor, keyboard or mouse. There is also no built-in support for wireless technology or any speakers. The lack of a DVD burner is an omission in the age of backing-up important software. Wireless and a dvd burner can be added at extra cost.

Apple are targeting people who already have a main computer and want to upgrade - especially PC users who have used an Apple iPod.

Compact and stylish, the Mac mini would not look out of place in any home. Apple computers are famously user friendly and offer much better network security, which means fewer viruses. The package of software that comes with the machine is the best money can buy.

The Mac mini is just a box. If you don't already have a monitor etc, adding them to the package sees the value for money begin to dwindle. Macs don't offer the upgrade flexibility of a PC and the machine's specifications lack the horse power for tasks such as high-end video editing or games.

""The Mac Mini puts the Macintosh within the reach of everyone,"" an Apple spokesman said. ""It will bring more customers to the platform, especially PC users and owners.""



An entry-level machine designed for basic home use.

A 2.6ghz Intel Celeron chip, 40 gigabyte hard drive, 256mb, combined CD burner/DVD player. It comes equipped with a 17 inch monitor, keyboard and mouse. The machine has 6 USB ports and an Ethernet port for broadband connection. There's also a port for standard video output. The machine comes with Windows XP home edition. It provides basic home tools such as a media player and word processor.

A DVD burner, or any wireless components built in. Wireless and a dvd burner can be added at extra cost.

Homes and small offices, including those looking to add a low cost second computer.

Cost is the clear advantage. The Dell provides enough power and software for basic gaming and internet surfing. It's easily upgradeable so a bigger hard drive, better sound and graphics cards can be added.

The Dell is hardly stylish and the hard drive is on the small size for anyone wanting to store photos or a decent sized digital music collection.

""This machine is for small businesses and for people who want a second computer for basic home use, perhaps in a kids bedroom,"" a spokesman for Dell said. ""I think we offer better value once you realise all the extras needed for the Mac Mini.""



A desktop computer that PC Pro magazine dubbed best performer in a group test of machines that cost only £399 (£469 including VAT).

A good basic PC that, according to PC Pro, has ""superb upgrade potential"". For your money you get a 1.8GHz AMD Sempron processor, 512MB of Ram, 120GB hard drive, DVD writer, 16-inch monitor, mouse, keyboard and Windows XP2

Much more than the basics. It cannot handle 3D graphics and has no Firewire slots.

Those on a limited budget who want a machine they can add to and improve as their cash allows.

It's cheap and has plenty of room to improve but that could end up making it expensive in the long run. It's a good basic workhorse.

It's not pretty and has a monitor rather than a flat-panel display. Some of the upgrades offered by JAL to the basic model are pricey. You might find that you want to chop and change quite quickly.

Nick Ross, deputy labs editor at PC Pro, said the important point about buying a cheap and cheerful PC is the upgrade path. Interest has switched from processor power to graphics and sound cards as that's what makes the difference in games. ""Even manufacturers are not going to be marketing machines as faster,"" he said, ""they'll emphasise the different features.""



A computer built from bits you buy and put together yourself.

A surprisingly good PC sporting an AMD Athlon XP 2500 processor, 512 megabytes Ram, a graphics card with 128 Ram on board plus TV out, a 40 GB hard drive, CD-writer and DVD player, Windows XP Home.

Anything else. You're building it so you have to buy all the software you want to install and do your own trouble-shooting and tech support. Building your own machine is easier than it used to be but you need to read specifications carefully to make sure all parts work together.

Experienced and keen PC users. Building your own PC, or upgrading the one you have, is a great way to improve your understanding of how it all works.

It's cheap, you can specify exactly what you want and you get the thrill of putting it together yourself. And a bigger thrill if everything works as it should.

Once it's built you won't be able to do much with it until you start buying software for it. If it starts to go wrong it might take a lot of fixing. As Gavin Cox of the excellent buildyourown.org.uk website put it: ""It will be tough to obtain/build a PC to ever be as compact and charming as the Mac mini.""

""Performance-wise, it's not 'cutting edge' and is barely entry-level by today's market, but up against the Mac mini, I believe it will hold its own and even pull a few more tricks,"" says Gavin Cox. The good news is that the machine is eminently expandable. By contrast, says Mr Cox, the Mac mini is almost disposable.
","Apple offer a less powerful Mac Mini for £339 but the £399 models has a 1.4ghz Power PC chip, 80 gigabyte hard drive, combined CD burner/DVD player.A good basic PC that, according to PC Pro, has ""superb upgrade potential"".""This machine is for small businesses and for people who want a second computer for basic home use, perhaps in a kids bedroom,"" a spokesman for Dell said.The Mac mini is the cheapest Apple computer ever.For your money you get a 1.8GHz AMD Sempron processor, 512MB of Ram, 120GB hard drive, DVD writer, 16-inch monitor, mouse, keyboard and Windows XP2  Much more than the basics.Apple are targeting people who already have a main computer and want to upgrade - especially PC users who have used an Apple iPod.A desktop computer that PC Pro magazine dubbed best performer in a group test of machines that cost only £399 (£469 including VAT).The package of software that comes with the machine is the best money can buy.A surprisingly good PC sporting an AMD Athlon XP 2500 processor, 512 megabytes Ram, a graphics card with 128 Ram on board plus TV out, a 40 GB hard drive, CD-writer and DVD player, Windows XP Home.An entry-level machine designed for basic home use.The Mac mini is just a box.Wireless and a dvd burner can be added at extra cost.It comes equipped with USB and Firewire ports for peripheral connections, Ethernet port for broadband, a port for standard video output and an audio/headphone jack.The machine comes with Mac OS X, the Apple operating system, the software suite iLife, which includes iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD and GarageBand.As Gavin Cox of the excellent buildyourown.org.uk website put it: ""It will be tough to obtain/build a PC to ever be as compact and charming as the Mac mini.""""The Mac Mini puts the Macintosh within the reach of everyone,"" an Apple spokesman said.The machine comes with Windows XP home edition.""I think we offer better value once you realise all the extras needed for the Mac Mini.""Compact and stylish, the Mac mini would not look out of place in any home.Nick Ross, deputy labs editor at PC Pro, said the important point about buying a cheap and cheerful PC is the upgrade path.The machine has 6 USB ports and an Ethernet port for broadband connection.A DVD burner, or any wireless components built in.Those on a limited budget who want a machine they can add to and improve as their cash allows.By contrast, says Mr Cox, the Mac mini is almost disposable.But though it is cheap for a Mac how does it compare to PCs that cost about the same amount?Macs don't offer the upgrade flexibility of a PC and the machine's specifications lack the horse power for tasks such as high-end video editing or games."
"Speak easy plan for media players

Music and film fans will be able to control their digital media players just by speaking to them, under plans in development by two US firms.

ScanSoft and Gracenote are developing technology to give people access to their film and music libraries simply by voice control. They want to give people hands-free access to digital music and films in the car, or at home or on the move. Huge media libraries on some players can make finding single songs hard. ""Voice command-and-control unlocks the potential of devices that can store large digital music collections,"" said Ross Blanchard, vice president of business development for Gracenote. ""These applications will radically change the car entertainment experience, allowing drivers to enjoy their entire music collections without ever taking their hands off the steering wheel,"" he added.

Gracenote provides music library information for millions of different albums for jukeboxes such as Apple's iTunes. The new technology will be designed so that people can play any individual song or movie out of a collection, just by saying its name. Users will also be able to request music that fits a mood or an occasion, or a film just by saying the actor's name. ""Speech is a natural fit for today's consumer devices, particularly in mobile environments,"" said Alan Schwartz, vice president of SpeechWorks, a division of ScanSoft. ""Pairing our voice technologies with Gracenote's vast music database will bring the benefits of speech technologies to a host of consumer devices and enable people to access their media in ways they've never imagined."" The two firms did not say if they were developing the technology for languages other than English. Users will also be able to get more information on a favourite song they have been listening to by asking: ""What is this?"" Portable players are becoming popular in cars and a number of auto firms are working with Apple to device interfaces to control the firm's iPod music player. But with tens of thousands of songs able to be stored on one player, voice control would make finding that elusive track by Elvis Presley much easier. The firms gave no indication about whether the iPod, or any other media player, were in mind for the use of the voice control technology. The companies estimate that the technology will be available in the fourth quarter of 2005.
","ScanSoft and Gracenote are developing technology to give people access to their film and music libraries simply by voice control.Music and film fans will be able to control their digital media players just by speaking to them, under plans in development by two US firms.""Pairing our voice technologies with Gracenote's vast music database will bring the benefits of speech technologies to a host of consumer devices and enable people to access their media in ways they've never imagined.""The firms gave no indication about whether the iPod, or any other media player, were in mind for the use of the voice control technology.Portable players are becoming popular in cars and a number of auto firms are working with Apple to device interfaces to control the firm's iPod music player.They want to give people hands-free access to digital music and films in the car, or at home or on the move.Users will also be able to request music that fits a mood or an occasion, or a film just by saying the actor's name."
"US peer-to-peer pirates convicted

The first convictions for piracy over peer-to-peer networks have been handed down in the US.

New Yorker William Trowbridge and Texan Michael Chicoine have pleaded guilty to charges that they infringed copyright by illegally sharing music, movies and software. The two men faced charges following raids in August on suspected pirates by the FBI. The pair face jail terms of up to five years and a $250,000 (£130,000) fine.

In a statement the US Department of Justice said the two men operated the central hubs in a piracy community organised across the Direct Connect peer-to-peer network. The piracy group called itself the Underground Network and membership of it demanded that users share between one and 100 gigabytes of files. Direct Connect allows users to set themselves up as central servers that act as co-ordinating spots for sharers. Users would swap files, such as films and music, by exchanging data over the network. During its investigation FBI agents reportedly downloaded 84 movies, 40 software programs, 13 games and 178 ""sound recordings"" from the five hubs that made up the larger piracy group. The raids were organised under the umbrella of Operation Digital Gridlock which was aimed at fighting ""criminal copyright theft on peer-to-peer networks"". In total, six raids were carried out in August. Five were on the homes of suspected copyright thieves and one on a net service firm. The Department of Justice said that both men pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit felony copyright infringement. They also pleaded guilty to acting for commercial advantage. The two men are due to be sentenced on 29 April.
",In a statement the US Department of Justice said the two men operated the central hubs in a piracy community organised across the Direct Connect peer-to-peer network.The Department of Justice said that both men pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit felony copyright infringement.The two men faced charges following raids in August on suspected pirates by the FBI.The piracy group called itself the Underground Network and membership of it demanded that users share between one and 100 gigabytes of files.The first convictions for piracy over peer-to-peer networks have been handed down in the US.Five were on the homes of suspected copyright thieves and one on a net service firm.
"Format wars could 'confuse users'

Technology firms Sony, Philips, Matsushita and Samsung are developing a common way to stop people pirating digital music and video.

The firms want to make a system that ensures files play on the hardware they make but also thwarts illegal copying. The move could mean more confusion for consumers already faced by many different, and conflicting, content control systems, experts warned. They say there are no guarantees the system will even prevent piracy.

Currently many online stores wrap up downloadable files in an own-brand control system that means they can only be played on a small number of media players. Systems that limit what people can do with the files they download are known as Digital Rights Management systems. By setting up the alliance to work on a common control system, the firms said they hope to end this current fragmentation of file formats. In a joint statement the firms said they wanted to let consumers enjoy ""appropriately licensed video and music on any device, independent of how they originally obtained that content"". The firms hope that it will also make it harder for consumers to make illegal copies of the music, movies and other digital content they have bought. Called the Marlin Joint Development Association, the alliance will define basic specifications that every device made by the electronics firms will conform to. Marlin will be built on technology from rights management firm Intertrust as well as an earlier DRM system developed by a group known as the Coral Consortium.

The move is widely seen as a way for the four firms to decide their own destiny on content control systems instead of having to sign up for those being pushed by Apple and Microsoft. Confusingly for consumers, the technology that comes out of the alliance will sit alongside the content control systems of rival firms such as Microsoft and Apple. ""In many ways the different DRM systems are akin to the different physical formats, such as Betamax and VHS, that consumers have seen in the past,"" said Ian Fogg, personal technology and broadband analyst at Jupiter Research. ""The difference is that it is very fragmented,"" he said. ""It's not a two-horse race, it's a five, six, seven or even eight-horse race"" Mr Fogg said consumers had to be very careful when buying digital content to ensure that it would play on the devices they own. He said currently there were even incompatibilities within DRM families. Although initiatives such as Microsoft's ""Plays for Sure"" program could help remove some of the uncertainty, he said, life was likely to be confusing for consumers for some time to come.

Shelley Taylor, analyst and author of a report about online music services, said the locks and limits on digital files were done to maximise the cash that firms can make from consumers. Apple's iTunes service was a perfect example of this, she said. ""Although iTunes has been hugely successful, Apple could not justify its existence if it did not help sell all those iPods,"" she said.

She said rampant competition between online music services, of which there are now 230 according to recent figures, could drive more openness and freer file formats. ""It always works out that consumer needs win out in the long run,"" she said, ""and the services that win in the long run are the ones that listen to consumers earliest."" Ms Taylor said the limits legal download services place on files could help explain the continuing popularity of file-sharing systems that let people get hold of pirated pop. ""People want portability,"" she said, ""and with peer-to-peer they have 100% portability."" Cory Doctorow, European co-ordinator for the Electronic Frontier Foundation which campaigns for consumers on many cyber-rights issues, expressed doubts that the Marlin system would achieve its aims. ""Not one of these systems has ever prevented piracy or illegal copying,"" he said. He said many firms readily admit that their DRM systems are little protection against skilled attackers such as the organised crime gangs that are responsible for most piracy. Instead, said Mr Doctorow, DRM systems were intended to control the group that electronics firms have most hold over - consumers. ""The studios and labels perceive an opportunity to sell you your media again and again - the iPod version, the auto version, the American and UK version, the ringtone version, and so on.""
","Instead, said Mr Doctorow, DRM systems were intended to control the group that electronics firms have most hold over - consumers.By setting up the alliance to work on a common control system, the firms said they hope to end this current fragmentation of file formats.He said many firms readily admit that their DRM systems are little protection against skilled attackers such as the organised crime gangs that are responsible for most piracy.Shelley Taylor, analyst and author of a report about online music services, said the locks and limits on digital files were done to maximise the cash that firms can make from consumers.""Not one of these systems has ever prevented piracy or illegal copying,"" he said.In a joint statement the firms said they wanted to let consumers enjoy ""appropriately licensed video and music on any device, independent of how they originally obtained that content"".Ms Taylor said the limits legal download services place on files could help explain the continuing popularity of file-sharing systems that let people get hold of pirated pop.Confusingly for consumers, the technology that comes out of the alliance will sit alongside the content control systems of rival firms such as Microsoft and Apple.""In many ways the different DRM systems are akin to the different physical formats, such as Betamax and VHS, that consumers have seen in the past,"" said Ian Fogg, personal technology and broadband analyst at Jupiter Research.The firms want to make a system that ensures files play on the hardware they make but also thwarts illegal copying.The move is widely seen as a way for the four firms to decide their own destiny on content control systems instead of having to sign up for those being pushed by Apple and Microsoft.The firms hope that it will also make it harder for consumers to make illegal copies of the music, movies and other digital content they have bought."
"Mobiles get set for visual radio

The growth in the mobile phone market in the past decade has been nothing less than astonishing, but the ability to communicate on the go is not the only reason we are hooked. Games, cameras and music players have all been added to our handsets in the last few years, but 2005 could see another big innovation that won't just see a change in our mobile phone habits - it might alter the way we listen to the radio. Finnish handset giant Nokia has been working on a technology called Visual Radio, which takes an existing FM signal from a radio station and enables that station to add enhancements such as information and pictures. It is not the first time that such an idea has been suggested - the early days of DAB Digital Radio had similar intentions that never really saw the light of day.

One problem is that the name Visual Radio leads people to think of television but Reidar Wasenius, a senior project manager at Nokia, was adamant that Visual Radio should not be confused with the more traditional medium. He said: ""I'm very happy to say it's not television, what we're talking about is an enhancement of radio as we know it today. ""If you have a Visual Radio enabled handset, when you hear an artist you don't know, or there's a competition or vote that you'd like to participate in, you pull out your handset and with one click you turn on a visual channel parallel to the on-air broadcast you've just been listening to.""

That visual channel is run from a computer within the radio station, and sends out different kinds of information to the handset depending on what you are listening to. As well as details on the track or artist of a particular song, there is also the ability to interact immediately with the radio station itself, in a similar way to digital television's ""red button"" content.

Possible interactive content includes competitions, votes and even the chance to rate the song that is playing. But the interactive aspect will make the service especially attractive to radio stations, who will be able to track the number of people taking part in such activities on a real-time basis. This in turn should lead to an additional source of revenue, as it is very likely that advertisers will be keen to exploit new opportunities to reach listeners.

As the Visual Radio content is transmitted by existing GPRS technology you would need to have that service enabled by your network. And there will be a cost for the service as well, although it may depend on your usage. ""If you enjoy the visual channel occasionally and interact it'll be two or three pounds per month,"" said Mr Wasenius. ""But typically what we see happening is the operator offering a package deal for an 'all you can eat' arrangement per month."" The payment system could therefore be similar to the way that broadband internet works versus dial-up connections. One thing that is for sure - assuming that Nokia retains its market share in handsets, it is estimating that there will be 100 million Visual Radio-enabled mobile phones in circulation by the end of 2006. ""Basically, Visual Radio is not really revolutionary, but rather an evolution where we are providing tools with which people can participate in radio much more easily than ever before.""

The first Visual Radio service in the UK will begin in a few months time with Virgin Radio, who are positive about the impact it could have on their listeners. Station manager Steve Taylor commented: ""Listeners can interact with the radio station in a new way. ""Not only does this give listeners more information on the music we play but means they can instantly purchase things they like; mp3 music downloads and the latest gig tickets."" Initially Visual Radio functionality will be limited to two Nokia handsets due out soon - the 3230 and 7710 - but if successful, it is very likely that other manufacturers will want to join them.

Listen again to the interview on the Radio Five Live website.
","The first Visual Radio service in the UK will begin in a few months time with Virgin Radio, who are positive about the impact it could have on their listeners.Finnish handset giant Nokia has been working on a technology called Visual Radio, which takes an existing FM signal from a radio station and enables that station to add enhancements such as information and pictures.One problem is that the name Visual Radio leads people to think of television but Reidar Wasenius, a senior project manager at Nokia, was adamant that Visual Radio should not be confused with the more traditional medium.""Basically, Visual Radio is not really revolutionary, but rather an evolution where we are providing tools with which people can participate in radio much more easily than ever before.""That visual channel is run from a computer within the radio station, and sends out different kinds of information to the handset depending on what you are listening to.""If you have a Visual Radio enabled handset, when you hear an artist you don't know, or there's a competition or vote that you'd like to participate in, you pull out your handset and with one click you turn on a visual channel parallel to the on-air broadcast you've just been listening to.""As the Visual Radio content is transmitted by existing GPRS technology you would need to have that service enabled by your network.As well as details on the track or artist of a particular song, there is also the ability to interact immediately with the radio station itself, in a similar way to digital television's ""red button"" content.Station manager Steve Taylor commented: ""Listeners can interact with the radio station in a new way.Initially Visual Radio functionality will be limited to two Nokia handsets due out soon - the 3230 and 7710 - but if successful, it is very likely that other manufacturers will want to join them."
"Gamers could drive high-definition

TV, films, and games have been gearing up for some time now for the next revolution to transform the quality of what is on our screens.

It is called high-definition - HD for short - and it is already hugely popular in Japan and the US. It is set, according to analysts, to do for images what CDs did for sound. Different equipment able to receive HD signals is needed though and is expensive. But Europe's gamers may be the early adopters to drive demand. Europeans will have to wait until at least 2006 until they see mainstream HDTV.

To view it, it needs to be transmitted in HD format, and people need special receivers and displays that can handle the high-quality resolution. The next generation of consoles, however, are expected to start appearing at the end of 2005, start of 2006. And most new computer displays and plasma sets are already capable of handling such high-resolution pictures. ""In the next generation [of consoles] HD support is mandatory,"" Dr Mark Tuffy games systems director at digital content firm THX told the BBC News website. ""Every game is going to be playable in HD. ""So consumers who have gone out and spent all this money on HDTVs, and who have no content to watch, are going to be blown away by these really high-detail pictures. ""It's going to change really the way they look at gaming.""

At the end of last year, Chris Deering, Sony's European president, made a prediction that 20 million European households would have HDTV sets by 2008. A previous prediction from analysts Datamonitor put the figure at 4.6 million by 2008, an increase from an estimated 50,000 sets at the end of 2003. But those in Europe may see little point in buying what is quite an expensive bit of technology - about £2,000 - if there are few programmes or films to watch on them. Satellite broadcaster BSkyB is planning HDTV services in 2006 and the BBC intends to produce all of its content in HD by 2010.

Until broadcast rights, format standards - and the practicalities of updating equipment - are agreed, TV content will be limited. All TV images are made up of pixels which go across the screen, and scan lines which go down the screen. Most standard UK TV pictures are made up of 625 lines and about 700 pixels. HD offers up to 1,080 active lines, with each line made up of 1,920 pixels. This means the picture is up to six times as sharp as standard TV. ""Probably, in the UK [gaming] is going to be the only thing you are going to really be able to show off, as in 'look what this TV can do', until HD is really adopted by broadcasters,"" explains Dr Tuffy. But gamers are also the ideal target audience for HD because they always crave better quality graphics, and more immersive gaming experiences. They are used to spending money on hardware to match a game's requirements. Demographics have changed too and the ""sweet spot"" for the games industry is the gamer in his or her late 20s. This means they are likely to have higher disposable incomes and can afford the price of big-screen, high-definition display technologies and HD projectors, earlier than others.

Higher capacity storage discs, such as HD-DVD and blue-ray , are set to be standard in the next round of games consoles - allowing developers more room for detailed graphics.

For console developers though, HD offers some production changes. It could make games production slightly more expensive, thinks Dr Tuffy. ""But we may see the cross-platform development of games becoming more common because they will more easily be able to take a PC game and apply it to a console,"" he says. ""You are literally going to get to the point, with a Lord of the Rings game for example, is going to be closer and closer to the actual film, especially the CGI stuff from the DVD. ""And the transition when they move from a cut scene to the game, just now they have almost got it seamless."" With HD, he says, the transition will be completely seamless and the same quality as the big-screen cinema release. This could herald an increasing convergence between the film and gaming industry. But it may not be until the generation after the next games consoles where the two industries really collide. At that point, says Dr Tuffy, games could become more or less interactive movies.
","""Every game is going to be playable in HD.""Probably, in the UK [gaming] is going to be the only thing you are going to really be able to show off, as in 'look what this TV can do', until HD is really adopted by broadcasters,"" explains Dr Tuffy.But it may not be until the generation after the next games consoles where the two industries really collide.""In the next generation [of consoles] HD support is mandatory,"" Dr Mark Tuffy games systems director at digital content firm THX told the BBC News website.""But we may see the cross-platform development of games becoming more common because they will more easily be able to take a PC game and apply it to a console,"" he says.Higher capacity storage discs, such as HD-DVD and blue-ray , are set to be standard in the next round of games consoles - allowing developers more room for detailed graphics.TV, films, and games have been gearing up for some time now for the next revolution to transform the quality of what is on our screens.HD offers up to 1,080 active lines, with each line made up of 1,920 pixels.It could make games production slightly more expensive, thinks Dr Tuffy.For console developers though, HD offers some production changes.Most standard UK TV pictures are made up of 625 lines and about 700 pixels.At that point, says Dr Tuffy, games could become more or less interactive movies.With HD, he says, the transition will be completely seamless and the same quality as the big-screen cinema release.Different equipment able to receive HD signals is needed though and is expensive.""You are literally going to get to the point, with a Lord of the Rings game for example, is going to be closer and closer to the actual film, especially the CGI stuff from the DVD."
"How to make a greener computer

The hi-tech industry is starting to get more environmentally aware. Bill Thompson thinks it's about time.

My first car ran on four star petrol and pumped vast quantities of lead into the atmosphere as I drove around Cambridge. Now you can't buy petrol with lead additives, and we're all better off as a result. Chip giant Intel recently began shipping computer circuit boards that are lead free too, reflecting a growing awareness on the part of the technology industry that products have to be designed and built in more environmentally friendly ways.

Apart from reducing the use of toxic materials like arsenic, mercury, cadmium and other heavy metals in the products themselves, the manufacturing process is also being cleaned up, with fewer complex and potentially damaging organic chemicals used as solvents. And work is going into making power supplies that are more energy efficient, since current transformers are astonishingly wasteful as they charge our laptops, mobiles and music players.

One of the key aspects of the new approach is to design products that are easier to recycle. If you have got a phone or a computer with toxic chemicals or heavy metals in it then extracting them can be tricky and expensive. A well-designed electronic component is able to be recycled at low cost. This is going to be very important to hardware manufacturers in Europe since from August the new Waste Electronic and Electrical Equipment directive will oblige them to accept returned products for recycling.

They will end up paying if they build things that are expensive or impossible to take apart and will find their profits hit, something which is likely to motivate them where appeals to the wider public interest might fall on deaf ears. It is, as they say, about time. We have a long and depressing history of developing new technologies with complete disregard for their potential impact on the environment, and waiting until there is a crisis looming before we try to redesign them to cause less damage. The car engine is a case in point: lead additives helped stop petrol vapour exploding too early in the cylinder, a phenomenon called 'knocking', so they were simply used without any real thought for the fact that the lead would end up in the atmosphere. Redesigning engines and making petrol slightly different was a lot more work, so it took decades before it was done. We're seeing the same thing in the technology industry and, as a result, there are billions of devices, from old mobile phones to antique handhelds, that will have to be recycled in years to come. If Apple gets its way then a lot of people are going to be buying a new Mac Mini and throwing away their old PC, keeping the monitor and other peripherals.

Even if Apple does not get its way, four or five-year-old computers are not good enough to run modern programs and it's not unreasonable to replace them. But what do we do with the old ones?

I've just looked around my office and I find two monitors, an old 386 PC, two old handhelds, three ancient laptops, four antique mobile phones, a collection of rechargeable batteries and even a Sun workstation that is no longer really much use. They are all old enough to be hazardous waste - the monitors alone will be full of arsenic and lead - but it's possible that some of the components could be useful. I could take them up the to the council recycling centre, but it's a 10-mile drive away across town, and like many other people my commitment to recycling is shallow at best. Here in Cambridge we have green bins for compostable waste, a box for glass, cans and paper that can be recycled, and a black bin for the rest. There are bottle banks and clothing banks scattered around town and in supermarket car parks. Would it be too much to ask for an electronics recycling box too? I'd probably remember to take my old mobile with me to the supermarket and drop it in a box - at least eventually.

Bill Thompson is a regular commentator on the BBC World Service programme Go Digital.
","We're seeing the same thing in the technology industry and, as a result, there are billions of devices, from old mobile phones to antique handhelds, that will have to be recycled in years to come.If Apple gets its way then a lot of people are going to be buying a new Mac Mini and throwing away their old PC, keeping the monitor and other peripherals.They are all old enough to be hazardous waste - the monitors alone will be full of arsenic and lead - but it's possible that some of the components could be useful.I've just looked around my office and I find two monitors, an old 386 PC, two old handhelds, three ancient laptops, four antique mobile phones, a collection of rechargeable batteries and even a Sun workstation that is no longer really much use.Bill Thompson thinks it's about time.I'd probably remember to take my old mobile with me to the supermarket and drop it in a box - at least eventually.My first car ran on four star petrol and pumped vast quantities of lead into the atmosphere as I drove around Cambridge.This is going to be very important to hardware manufacturers in Europe since from August the new Waste Electronic and Electrical Equipment directive will oblige them to accept returned products for recycling.The car engine is a case in point: lead additives helped stop petrol vapour exploding too early in the cylinder, a phenomenon called 'knocking', so they were simply used without any real thought for the fact that the lead would end up in the atmosphere.But what do we do with the old ones?Chip giant Intel recently began shipping computer circuit boards that are lead free too, reflecting a growing awareness on the part of the technology industry that products have to be designed and built in more environmentally friendly ways.Now you can't buy petrol with lead additives, and we're all better off as a result."
"Microsoft makes anti-piracy move

Microsoft says it is clamping down on people running pirated versions of its Windows operating system by restricting their access to security features.

The Windows Genuine Advantage scheme means people will have to prove their software is genuine from mid-2005. It will still allow those with unauthorised copies to get some crucial security fixes via automatic updates, but their options would be ""limited"". Microsoft releases regular security updates to its software to protect PCs. Either PCs detect updates automatically or users manually download fixes through Microsoft's site. Those running pirated Windows programs would not have access to other downloads and ""add-ons"" that the software giant offers.

People who try to manually download security patches will have to let Microsoft run an automated checking procedure on their computer or give an identification number.

Microsoft's regular patches which it releases for newly-found security flaws are important because they stop worms, viruses and other threats penetrating PCs. Some security experts are concerned that restricting access to such patches could mean a rise in such attacks and threats, with more PCs left unprotected. But Graham Cluley, senior consultant at security firm Sophos, told the BBC News website that it was a positive decision. ""It sounds like their decision to allow critical security patches to remain available to both legitimate and illegitimate users of Windows is good news for everyone who uses the net,"" he said. Windows Genuine Advantage was first introduced as a pilot scheme in September 2004 for English-language versions of Windows.

Microsoft's Windows operating system is heavily exploited by virus writers because it is so widespread and they are constantly seeking out new security loopholes to take advantage of. The company is trying to tackle security threats whilst cracking down on pirated software at the same time. Software piracy has cost the company billions, it says. The company announced earlier in January that it was releasing security tools to clean up PCs harbouring viruses and spyware, which 90% of PCs are infected with. The virus-fighting program, updated monthly, is a precursor to Microsoft's dedicated anti-virus software. Last year it introduced the Windows XP Counterfeit Project, a UK-based pilot scheme, which ran from November to December. The scheme meant that anyone with pre-installed copies of the operating system in PCs bought before November could replace counterfeit versions of Windows XP with legal ones for free. It is also increasing efforts to squash software piracy in China, Norway and the Czech Republic, where pirated software is a huge problem, by offering discounts on legitimate software to users of pirated copies Windows. ""China in particular is a problem, with piracy estimated at 92%,"" said Mr Cluley.
","Microsoft releases regular security updates to its software to protect PCs.Microsoft says it is clamping down on people running pirated versions of its Windows operating system by restricting their access to security features.It is also increasing efforts to squash software piracy in China, Norway and the Czech Republic, where pirated software is a huge problem, by offering discounts on legitimate software to users of pirated copies Windows.The company is trying to tackle security threats whilst cracking down on pirated software at the same time.Those running pirated Windows programs would not have access to other downloads and ""add-ons"" that the software giant offers.The Windows Genuine Advantage scheme means people will have to prove their software is genuine from mid-2005.Microsoft's regular patches which it releases for newly-found security flaws are important because they stop worms, viruses and other threats penetrating PCs.Windows Genuine Advantage was first introduced as a pilot scheme in September 2004 for English-language versions of Windows.Microsoft's Windows operating system is heavily exploited by virus writers because it is so widespread and they are constantly seeking out new security loopholes to take advantage of."
"What's next for next-gen consoles?

The next generation of video games consoles are in development but what will the new machines mean for games firms and consumers? We may not know when they will be released, what they will be called or even what they will be able to do but one thing is certain - they are coming. Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo are all expected to release new machines in the next 18 months. The details of PlayStation 3, Xbox 2 (codename Xenon) and Nintendo's so-called Revolution are still to be finalised but developers are having to work on titles for the new machines regardless.

""We know maybe what the PS3 will do, but we can only guess,"" said Rory Armes, studio general manager for video game giant Electronic Arts in Europe. ""It's a horrendous effort in the first year,"" he admitted. Microsoft had delivered development kits to EA, said Mr Armes, but he said the company was still waiting on Sony and Nintendo to send kits. Although the details may not be nailed down, Mr Armes said EA was beginning to get a sense of the capabilities of the new machines. ""The rumours are that PlayStation 3 will have a little more under the hood [than Xbox 2],"" he said.

""Microsoft is obviously a software company first and foremost, while Sony has more experience in hardware. I think Sony will be able to push more into a box at cost.""

What is certain is that the new machines will provide great leaps in processing and graphical power. It is also likely that they will contain convergence technologies to make the machines more of an entertainment hub. At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas Microsoft boss Bill Gates said Xbox 2 would be part of his vision of the digital lifestyle. While short on detail, he painted a picture of a machine that would complement a PC and offer ""great video gaming but video gaming for a broader set of people, more communications, more media, more connectivity"". Sony is thought to have a similar vision for PS3 while Nintendo remain focused on a machine purely for games.

Until it is clear precisely what the new machines can do, developers are working on a first round of titles to harness the new horsepower. Gary Dunn, development director at Codemasters, said the company had a central technology group which was at the forefront of preparing for the next generation of consoles. ""We are working on new libraries of effects. A lot of the major techniques are already out there and in use in PC gaming, such as pixel shaders and normal mapping.""

Mr Dunn said he expected the introduction of real-world physics to be a major part of the new consoles. ""We want to increase that level of immersion and realism in gaming to people can lose themselves in a game."" In the first year at least, developers said gamers should not expect games which harness the full potential of the machines. Graphical spit and polish and better physics in line with the capabilities of current high-end graphics cards for PCs should be expected. Simon Gardner, president of Climax's Action Studio, said: ""It's definitely an exciting time. We want to give more freedom to the player. We want to give players an emotional connection to the characters they play. ""The environments will be much more believable and dramatic, growing and changing as you play. ""There will be a breadth of effects, more involving worlds to play in.

""It's a bit like being an artist and being given a bigger canvas and a smaller brush. We're being given more tools. ""For the average consumer, we can get things of a more filmic quality."" Gerhard Florin, head of EA in Europe, said gamers should expect titles that blur the line between films and video games. Many will be sceptical - gamers were given similar predictions during the last transition of console hardware - but this time it would seem to be more likely. ""PS3 will provide graphics indistinguishable from movies,"" said Mr Florin. He said the distribution method for games would also change radically in the next round of consoles. ""A gamer could buy a starter disc for 10 euros. When he goes home he goes online and he could buy AI and levels as you go.

""It's much smarter if you can get levels as you go."" Mr Armes warned that developers still had to learn how to tell stories effectively in the medium. ""In some ways we are trying to forget about the hardware, go in the opposite direction. We have been very bad at letting technology design our creativity. ""What we have to do as a company is start ignoring the technology and learning our craft in telling stories."" Mr Gardner agreed: ""We can thrown more polygons around and have better AI but if it doesn't make for a better game then that's not very useful."" Developers will certainly have the tools with the new machines, but how they employ them is still to be decided.
","Microsoft had delivered development kits to EA, said Mr Armes, but he said the company was still waiting on Sony and Nintendo to send kits.Although the details may not be nailed down, Mr Armes said EA was beginning to get a sense of the capabilities of the new machines.Mr Dunn said he expected the introduction of real-world physics to be a major part of the new consoles.Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo are all expected to release new machines in the next 18 months.Until it is clear precisely what the new machines can do, developers are working on a first round of titles to harness the new horsepower.The next generation of video games consoles are in development but what will the new machines mean for games firms and consumers?In the first year at least, developers said gamers should not expect games which harness the full potential of the machines.He said the distribution method for games would also change radically in the next round of consoles.Gary Dunn, development director at Codemasters, said the company had a central technology group which was at the forefront of preparing for the next generation of consoles.The details of PlayStation 3, Xbox 2 (codename Xenon) and Nintendo's so-called Revolution are still to be finalised but developers are having to work on titles for the new machines regardless.""We know maybe what the PS3 will do, but we can only guess,"" said Rory Armes, studio general manager for video game giant Electronic Arts in Europe.""PS3 will provide graphics indistinguishable from movies,"" said Mr Florin.What is certain is that the new machines will provide great leaps in processing and graphical power.Gerhard Florin, head of EA in Europe, said gamers should expect titles that blur the line between films and video games.""It's much smarter if you can get levels as you go.""When he goes home he goes online and he could buy AI and levels as you go.""We want to increase that level of immersion and realism in gaming to people can lose themselves in a game.""""We are working on new libraries of effects."
"Latest Opera browser gets vocal

Net browser Opera 8.0, due for official release at the end of next month, will be ""the most accessible browser on the market"", according to its authors.

The latest version of the net browser can be controlled by voice command and will read pages aloud. The voice features, based on IBM technology, are currently only available in the Windows version. Opera can also magnify text by up to 10 times and users can create ""style sheets"", its developers say. This will enable them to view pages with colours and fonts that they prefer. But the browser does not yet work well with screen reader software often used by blind people, so its accessibility features are more likely to appeal to those with some residual vision. ""Our mission was always to provide the best internet experience for everyone,"" said Opera spokeswoman, Berit Hanson. ""So we would obviously not want to exclude disabled computer users.""

Another feature likely to appeal to people with low vision is the ability to make pages fit to the screen width, which eliminates the need for horizontal scrolling.

The company points out that this will also appeal to anyone using Opera with a handheld device. The company says that features like voice activation are not solely aimed at visually impaired people. ""Our idea was to take a first step in making human-computer interaction more natural,"" said Ms Hanson. ""People are not always in a situation where they can access a keyboard, so this makes the web a more hands-free experience."" Unlike commercially available voice recognition software, Opera does not have to be ""trained"" to recognise an individual voice. Around 50 voice commands are available and users will have to wear a headset which incorporates a microphone. The voice recognition function is currently only available in English. Opera is free to download but a paid-for version comes without an ad banner in the top right hand corner and with extra support. Opera began life as a research project - a spin-off from Norwegian telecoms company Telenor. Its browser is used by an estimated 10 million people on a variety of operating systems and a number of different platforms.
","Unlike commercially available voice recognition software, Opera does not have to be ""trained"" to recognise an individual voice.The latest version of the net browser can be controlled by voice command and will read pages aloud.The company says that features like voice activation are not solely aimed at visually impaired people.The voice recognition function is currently only available in English.But the browser does not yet work well with screen reader software often used by blind people, so its accessibility features are more likely to appeal to those with some residual vision.The voice features, based on IBM technology, are currently only available in the Windows version.""Our mission was always to provide the best internet experience for everyone,"" said Opera spokeswoman, Berit Hanson.Around 50 voice commands are available and users will have to wear a headset which incorporates a microphone."
"Mobile games come of age

The BBC News website takes a look at how games on mobile phones are maturing. A brief round-up follows but you can skip straight to the reviews by clicking on the links below. Part two will follow on Monday.

Reviews of Call of Duty, Splinter Cell - Pandora Tomorrow, Lord of the Rings and Pocket Kingdom will follow on Monday If you think of Snake when some mentions ""mobile games"" then you could be in for a bit of a surprise. This is because mobile games have come a long way in a very short time. Even before Nokia's N-Gage game phone launched in late 2003, many mobile operators were realising that there was an audience looking for something to play on their handset.

And given that many more people own handsets than own portable game playing gadgets such as the GameBoy it could be a very lucrative market. That audience includes commuters wanting something to fill their time on the way home, game fans looking for a bit of variety and hard core gamers who like to play every moment they can. Life for all these types of player has got immeasurably better in the last year as the numbers of titles you can download to your phone has snowballed. Now sites such as Wireless Gaming Review list more than 200 different titles for some UK networks and the ranges suit every possible taste. There are ports of PC and arcade classics such as Space Invaders, Lunar Lander and Bejewelled. There are also versions of titles, such as Colin McRae Rally, that you typically find on PCs and consoles.

There are shoot-em-ups, adventure games, strategy titles and many novel games only found on handsets. Rarely now does an action movie launch without a mobile game tie-in. Increasingly such launches are all part of the promotional campaign for a film, understandable when you realise that a good game can rack up millions of downloads. The returns can be pretty good when you consider that some games cost £5. What has also helped games on mobiles thrive is the fact that it is easier than ever to get hold of them thanks to technology known as Wap push. By sending a text message to a game maker you can have the title downloaded to your handset. Far better than having to navigate through the menus of most mobile operator portals. The number of handsets that can play games has grown hugely too. Almost half of all phones now have Java onboard meaning that they can play the increasingly sophisticated games that are available - even the ones that use 3D graphics.

The minimum technology specifications that phones should adhere to are getting more sophisticated which means that games are too. Now double key presses are possible making familiar tactics such as moving and strafing a real option. The processing power on handsets means that physics on mobile games is getting more convincing and the graphics are improving too. Some game makers are also starting to take advantage of the extra capabilities in a mobile. Many titles, particularly racing games, let you upload your best time to see how you compare to others. Usually you can get hold of their best time and race against a ""ghost"" or ""shadow"" to see if you can beat them. A few games also let you take on people in real time via the network or, if you are sitting close to them, via Bluetooth short-range radio technology. With so much going on it is hard to do justice to the sheer diversity of what is happening. But these two features should help point you in the direction of the game makers and give you an idea of where to look and how to get playing.

TOO FAST TOO FURIOUS (DIGITAL BRIDGES)

As soon as I start playing this I remember why I never play driving games - because I'm rubbish at them. No matter if I drive the car via joystick or keypad I just cannot get the hang of braking for corners or timing a rush to pass other drivers. The game rewards replay because to advance you have to complete every section within a time limit. Winning gives you cash for upgrades. Graphically the rolling road is a convincing enough evocation of speed as the palm trees and cactus whip by and the city scrolls past in the background. The cars handle pretty well despite my uselessness but it was not clear if the different models of cars were appreciably different on the track. The only niggle was that the interface was a bit confusing especially when using a joystick rather than the keypad to play.

FATAL FORCE (MACROSPACE)

A futuristic shooter that lets you either play various deathmatch modes against your phone or run through a series of scenarios that involves killing aliens invading Earth. Graphics are a bit cartoon-like but only helps to make clear what is going on and levels are well laid out and encourage you to leap about exploring. Both background music and sounds effects work well. The scenarios are well scripted and you regularly get hints from the Fatal Force commanders. Weapons include flamethrowers, rocket launchers, grenades and at a couple of points you even get chance to use a mech for a short while. With the right power-up you can go into a Matrix-style bullet time to cope with the onslaught of aliens. The game lets you play via Bluetooth if others are in range. Online the game has quite a following with clans, player rankings and even new downloadable maps.
","Even before Nokia's N-Gage game phone launched in late 2003, many mobile operators were realising that there was an audience looking for something to play on their handset.This is because mobile games have come a long way in a very short time.The game lets you play via Bluetooth if others are in range.The number of handsets that can play games has grown hugely too.But these two features should help point you in the direction of the game makers and give you an idea of where to look and how to get playing.Some game makers are also starting to take advantage of the extra capabilities in a mobile.The BBC News website takes a look at how games on mobile phones are maturing.A few games also let you take on people in real time via the network or, if you are sitting close to them, via Bluetooth short-range radio technology.What has also helped games on mobiles thrive is the fact that it is easier than ever to get hold of them thanks to technology known as Wap push.The processing power on handsets means that physics on mobile games is getting more convincing and the graphics are improving too.By sending a text message to a game maker you can have the title downloaded to your handset.That audience includes commuters wanting something to fill their time on the way home, game fans looking for a bit of variety and hard core gamers who like to play every moment they can.Almost half of all phones now have Java onboard meaning that they can play the increasingly sophisticated games that are available - even the ones that use 3D graphics.Rarely now does an action movie launch without a mobile game tie-in.The minimum technology specifications that phones should adhere to are getting more sophisticated which means that games are too.The game rewards replay because to advance you have to complete every section within a time limit.The returns can be pretty good when you consider that some games cost £5.There are shoot-em-ups, adventure games, strategy titles and many novel games only found on handsets."
"Web radio takes Spanish rap global

Spin the radio dial in the US and you are likely to find plenty of Spanish-language music. But what you will not find is much Spanish-language hip-hop.

Hip-hop and rap are actually quite popular in the Spanish-speaking world, but local artists are having trouble marketing their work abroad. But now, a US company is bringing rap and hip-hop en espanol to computer users everywhere. Los Caballeros de Plan G are one of Mexico's hottest hip-hop acts. They have a devoted fan base in their native Monterrey. But most Mexican hip-hop fans, not to mention fans in most of the Spanish-speaking world, rarely get a chance to hear the group's tracks on the radio.

""You can't really just go on the radio and listen to hip-hop in Spanish... it's just not accessible,"" says Manuel Millan, a native of San Diego, California. ""It's really hard for the Spanish hip-hop scene to get into mainstream radio. You usually have a very commercialised sound and the groups are not really known around the country or around the world."" Millan and two friends set out to change that - they wanted to make groups like Los Caballeros de Plan G accessible to fans globally.

Mainstream radio stations were not going to play this kind of music, and starting their own broadcast station was economically impossible. So, Millan and his friends launched a website called latinohiphopradio.com. The name says it all: it is web-based radio, devoted to the hottest Spanish language rap and hip-hop tracks. The site, which is in both in English and Spanish, is meant to be easy to navigate. All the user has to do is download a media player. There are no DJs. It is just music streamed over the net for free. Suddenly, with the help of the website, Los Caballeros de Plan G are producing ""export quality"" rap.

The web might be just the right medium for Spanish language hip-hop right now. The genre is in what Millan calls its ""infant stage"". But the production values are improving, and artists such as Argentina's Mustafa Yoda are pushing to make it better and better. Mustafa Yoda is currently one of the hottest tracks on latinohiphopradio.com. ""He's considered the Eminem of Argentina, and the Latin American hip-hop scene,"" Millan says. ""He really hasn't had that much exposure as far as anywhere in the world, but he's definitely the one to look out for as far as becoming the next big thing in the Spanish-speaking world."" Currently, the Chilean group Makisa is also in latinohiphopradio.com's top 10, as is Cuban artist Papo Record. ""Every country's got it's own cultural differences and they try to put those into their own songs,"" Millan says. Latinohiphopradio.com has been up and running for a couple of months now. The site has listeners from across the Spanish speaking world. Right now, Mexico leads the way, accounting for about 50% of listeners. But web surfers in Spain are logging in as well - about 25% of the web station's traffic comes from there. That is not surprising as many consider Spain to be the leader in Spanish-language rap and hip-hop. Millan says that Spain is actually just behind the United States and France in terms of overall rap and hip-hop production. That might be changing, though, as more and more Latin American artists are finding audiences.

But one Spaniard is still firmly in latinohiphopradio.com's top 10. His name is Tote King and Manuel Millan says that he is the hip-hop leader in Spain. On his track Uno Contra Veinte Emcees, or One Against 20 Emcees, Tote King shows he is well aware of that fact. ""It's basically him bragging that he's one of the best emcees in Spain right now,"" Millan says. ""And it's pretty much true. He has the tightest productions, and his rap flow is impeccable, it's amazing."" Latinohiphopradio.com is hoping to expand in the coming year. Millan says they want to include more music and more news from the world of Spanish language hip-hop and rap.

Clark Boyd is technology correspondent for The World, a BBC World Service and WGBH-Boston co-production.
","Millan says they want to include more music and more news from the world of Spanish language hip-hop and rap.The name says it all: it is web-based radio, devoted to the hottest Spanish language rap and hip-hop tracks.""You can't really just go on the radio and listen to hip-hop in Spanish... it's just not accessible,"" says Manuel Millan, a native of San Diego, California.His name is Tote King and Manuel Millan says that he is the hip-hop leader in Spain.Millan says that Spain is actually just behind the United States and France in terms of overall rap and hip-hop production.The web might be just the right medium for Spanish language hip-hop right now.""It's really hard for the Spanish hip-hop scene to get into mainstream radio.That is not surprising as many consider Spain to be the leader in Spanish-language rap and hip-hop.""He's considered the Eminem of Argentina, and the Latin American hip-hop scene,"" Millan says.But what you will not find is much Spanish-language hip-hop.Los Caballeros de Plan G are one of Mexico's hottest hip-hop acts.Hip-hop and rap are actually quite popular in the Spanish-speaking world, but local artists are having trouble marketing their work abroad.But most Mexican hip-hop fans, not to mention fans in most of the Spanish-speaking world, rarely get a chance to hear the group's tracks on the radio.""It's basically him bragging that he's one of the best emcees in Spain right now,"" Millan says.The site has listeners from across the Spanish speaking world.But now, a US company is bringing rap and hip-hop en espanol to computer users everywhere.Mustafa Yoda is currently one of the hottest tracks on latinohiphopradio.com.Millan and two friends set out to change that - they wanted to make groups like Los Caballeros de Plan G accessible to fans globally."
"What high-definition will do to DVDs

First it was the humble home video, then it was the DVD, and now Hollywood is preparing for the next revolution in home entertainment - high-definition.

High-definition gives incredible, 3D-like pictures and surround sound. The DVD disks and the gear to play them will not be out for another year or so, and there at are still a number of issues to be sorted out. But when high-definition films do come out on the new format DVDs, it will profoundly change home entertainment. For Rick Dean, director of business development for digital content company THX, a high-definition future is an exciting prospect. He has worked on the Star Wars DVD trilogy, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles and Indiana Jones. ""There was a time not so long ago when the film world and the video world were two completely separate worlds,"" he told the BBC News website.

""The technology we are dealing with now means they are very much conjoined. ""The film that we see in theatres is coming from the same digital file that we take the home video master,"" he says. But currently, putting a master feature film onto DVD requires severe compression because current DVD technology cannot hold as much as high-definition films demand. ""As much as you compress the picture data rate wise, you also take qualities away from the picture that we fight so hard to keep in the master,"" he explains. ""I would love to be able to show people what projects that we worked on really look like in the high-def world and I find it very exciting.""

High-definition DVDs can hold up to six times more data than the DVDs we are used to. It will take time though to persuade people who spent money on DVD players to buy the different players and displays required to watch high-definition DVDs in 18 months' time. Mr Dean is confident though: ""I think if they see real HD [high-definition], not some heavily compressed version of it, there is such a remarkable difference. ""I have heard comments from people who say the images pop off the screen.""

High-definition will mean some changes for those working behind the scenes too. On the whole, producing films for high-definition DVDs will be easier in some ways because less compression is needed. Equally, it may mean Hollywood studios ask for more to be put onto the average DVD. ""When we master movies right now, our data rates are running at about 1.2 gigabits per second,"" says Mr Dean. ""Our DVDs that we put out today have to be squashed down to about five or six megabits per second. ""That's a huge amount of compression that has to be applied - about 98%. So if you have anything that allows more space, you don't have to compress so hard."" Studios could fit a lot more marketing material, games, and features, onto high-capacity DVDs. Currently, an entire DVD project can take up to three months, says Mr Dean. Although the step of down-converting will be bypassed, this will realistically only save a day's work, says Mr Dean. One of the most time consuming elements is building DVD navigation and menu systems. On the fairly complex Star Wars disks, making sure the menu buttons worked took 45 human hours alone. If studios want to cash in on the extra space, it could mean extra human hours, for which someone has to pay. ""If the decision on the studio side is that they are going to put a lot more on these disks, it could be more expensive because of all the extra navigation that is required."" And if studios do focus on delivering more ""added value content"", thinks Mr Dean, ultimately it could mean that they will want more money for it. Those costs could filter down to the price ticket on a high-definition DVD. But if the consumer is not willing to pay a premium price, studios will listen, thinks Mr Dean.

High-definition throws up other challenge to film makers and DVD production alike. More clarity on screen means film makers have to make doubly sure that attention to detail is meticulous. ""When we did the first HD version of Star Wars Episode I, everybody was very sun-tanned, but that was make-up. ""In the HD version of Episode I, all these make-up lines showed up,"" explains Mr Dean. The restoration of the older Star Wars episodes revealed some interesting items too.

""There are scans of a corridor [on the Death Star] and fairly plainly in one of those shots, there is a file cabinet stuck behind one of the doorways. ""You never used to be able to see it because things are just blurred enough during the pan that you just didn't see it."" What high-definition revolution ultimately means is that the line between home entertainment and cinema worlds will blur. With home theatre systems turning living rooms into cinemas, this line blurs even further. It could also mean that how we get films, and in what format, will widen. ""In the future we are going to look towards file delivery over IP [internet protocol - broadband], giving a DVD-like experience from the set-top box to the hard drive,"" says Mr Dean. But that is some time off for most, and for now, people still like to show off something physical in their bookshelves.
","But currently, putting a master feature film onto DVD requires severe compression because current DVD technology cannot hold as much as high-definition films demand.What high-definition revolution ultimately means is that the line between home entertainment and cinema worlds will blur.Currently, an entire DVD project can take up to three months, says Mr Dean.But when high-definition films do come out on the new format DVDs, it will profoundly change home entertainment.Those costs could filter down to the price ticket on a high-definition DVD.First it was the humble home video, then it was the DVD, and now Hollywood is preparing for the next revolution in home entertainment - high-definition.And if studios do focus on delivering more ""added value content"", thinks Mr Dean, ultimately it could mean that they will want more money for it.High-definition throws up other challenge to film makers and DVD production alike.It will take time though to persuade people who spent money on DVD players to buy the different players and displays required to watch high-definition DVDs in 18 months' time.High-definition DVDs can hold up to six times more data than the DVDs we are used to.Mr Dean is confident though: ""I think if they see real HD [high-definition], not some heavily compressed version of it, there is such a remarkable difference.High-definition will mean some changes for those working behind the scenes too.On the whole, producing films for high-definition DVDs will be easier in some ways because less compression is needed.Equally, it may mean Hollywood studios ask for more to be put onto the average DVD.""In the HD version of Episode I, all these make-up lines showed up,"" explains Mr Dean.""When we master movies right now, our data rates are running at about 1.2 gigabits per second,"" says Mr Dean.""The film that we see in theatres is coming from the same digital file that we take the home video master,"" he says.If studios want to cash in on the extra space, it could mean extra human hours, for which someone has to pay."
"Junk e-mails on relentless rise

Spam traffic is up by 40%, putting the total amount of e-mail that is junk up to an astonishing 90%.

The figures, from e-mail management firm Email Systems, will alarm firms attempting to cope with the amount of spam in their in-boxes. While virus traffic has slowed down, denial of service attacks are on the increase according to the firm. Virus mail accounts for just over 15% of all e-mail traffic analysis by the firm has found.

It is no longer just multi-nationals that are in danger of so-called denial of service attacks, in which websites are bombarded by requests for information and rendered inaccessible. Email Systems refers to a small UK-based engineering firm, which received a staggering 12 million e-mails in January. The type of spam currently being sent has subtlety altered in the last few months, according to Email Systems analysis. Half of spam received since Christmas has been health-related with gambling and porn also on the increase. Scam mails, offering ways to make a quick buck, have declined by 40%. ""January is clearly a month when consumers are less motivated to purchase financial products or put money into dubious financial opportunities,"" said Neil Hammerton, managing director of Email Systems. ""Spammers seem to have adapted their output to reflect this, focussing instead on medically motivated and pornographic offers, presumably intentionally intended to coincide with what is traditionally considered to be the bleakest month in the calendar,"" he said.
","The figures, from e-mail management firm Email Systems, will alarm firms attempting to cope with the amount of spam in their in-boxes.Virus mail accounts for just over 15% of all e-mail traffic analysis by the firm has found.Email Systems refers to a small UK-based engineering firm, which received a staggering 12 million e-mails in January.While virus traffic has slowed down, denial of service attacks are on the increase according to the firm.The type of spam currently being sent has subtlety altered in the last few months, according to Email Systems analysis."
"Warning over tsunami aid website

Net users are being told to avoid a scam website that claims to collect cash on behalf of tsunami victims.

The site looks plausible because it uses an old version of the official Disasters Emergency Committee webpage. However, DEC has no connection with the fake site and says it has contacted the police about it. The site is just the latest in a long list of scams that try to cash in on the goodwill generated by the tsunami disaster.

The link to the website is contained in a spam e-mail that is currently circulating. The message's subject line reads ""Urgent Tsunami Earthquake Appeal"" and its text bears all the poor grammar and bad spelling that characterises many other phishing attempts. The web address of the fake site is decuk.org which could be close enough to the official www.dec.org.uk address to confuse some people keen to donate. Patricia Sanders, spokeswoman for the Disaster Emergency Committee said it was aware of the site and had contacted the Computer Crime Unit at Scotland Yard to help get it shut down. She said the spam e-mails directing people to the site started circulating two days ago shortly after the domain name of the site was registered. It is thought that the fake site is being run from Romania. Ms Sanders said DEC had contacted US net registrars who handle domain ownership and the net hosting firm that is keeping the site on the web.

DEC was going to push for all cash donated via the site to be handed over to the official organisation. BT and DEC's hosting company were also making efforts to get the site shut down, she said.

Ms Sanders said sending out spam e-mail to solicit donations was not DEC's style and that it would never canvass support in this way. She said that DEC hoped to get the fake site shut down as soon as possible. All attempts by the BBC News website to contact the people behind the site have failed. None of the e-mail addresses supplied on the site work and the real owner of the domain is obscured in publicly available net records. This is not the first attempt to cash in on the outpouring of goodwill that has accompanied appeals for tsunami aid. One e-mail sent out in early January came from someone who claimed that he had lost his parents in the disaster and was asking for help moving an inheritance from a bank account in the Netherlands. The con was very similar to the familiar Nigerian forward fee fraud e-mails that milk money out of people by promising them a cut of a much larger cash pile. Other scam e-mails included a link to a website that supposedly let people donate money but instead loaded spyware on their computers that grabbed confidential information. In a monthly report anti-virus firm Sophos said that two e-mail messages about the tsunami made it to the top 10 hoax list during January. Another tsunami-related e-mail is also circulating that carries the Zar worm which tries to spread via the familiar route of Microsoft's Outlook e-mail program. Anyone opening the attachment of the mail will have their contact list plundered by the worm keen to find new addresses to send itself to.
","She said the spam e-mails directing people to the site started circulating two days ago shortly after the domain name of the site was registered.She said that DEC hoped to get the fake site shut down as soon as possible.The site is just the latest in a long list of scams that try to cash in on the goodwill generated by the tsunami disaster.Patricia Sanders, spokeswoman for the Disaster Emergency Committee said it was aware of the site and had contacted the Computer Crime Unit at Scotland Yard to help get it shut down.Ms Sanders said DEC had contacted US net registrars who handle domain ownership and the net hosting firm that is keeping the site on the web.DEC was going to push for all cash donated via the site to be handed over to the official organisation.None of the e-mail addresses supplied on the site work and the real owner of the domain is obscured in publicly available net records.All attempts by the BBC News website to contact the people behind the site have failed.BT and DEC's hosting company were also making efforts to get the site shut down, she said.The web address of the fake site is decuk.org which could be close enough to the official www.dec.org.uk address to confuse some people keen to donate."
"More women turn to net security

Older people and women are increasingly taking charge of protecting home computers against malicious net attacks, according to a two-year study.

The number of women buying programs to protect PCs from virus, spam and spyware attacks rose by 11.2% each year between 2002 and 2004. The study, for net security firm Preventon, shows that security messages are reaching a diversity of surfers. It is thought that 40% of those buying home net security programs are retired. For the last three years, that has gone up by an average of 13.2%. But more retired women (53%) were buying security software than retired men. The research reflects the changing stereotype and demographics of web users, as well as growing awareness of the greater risks that high-speed broadband net connections can pose to surfers.

The study predicts that 40% of all home PC net security buyers will be women in 2005. They could even overtake men as the main buyers by 2007, if current rates persist, according to the research. ""I think older people have become more vigilant about protecting their PCs as we tend to be more cautious and want an insurance policy in case something does go wrong"", said one over-60 woman who took part in the research.

""You started off with young male stereotype computer users for last 10 years,"" Paul Goosens, head of Preventon told the BBC News website. ""Now we are seeing real people - both sexes and very often it is women who have more access at home."" But net service providers still need to take more responsibility in making sure people are educated about net threats before they go online, particuarly if they are new to broadband, he said.

Programs also need to be tailored so that they can be installed by dial-up users with a slower connection too, said Mr Goosens. Security software should be easy to use, with simple interfaces and instructions written in non-technical language, he added. The nature of the security threats are also becoming more than just about e-mail viruses. High-profile complaints about rogue diallers, and spyware or other programs that surreptitiously install themselves on computers, have also raised awareness about the need to have a combination of anti-virus, firewall and spyware-removal programs too. Without protection, these kinds of programs can be picked up just through surfing the web normally.

More than 30,000 PCs a day globally are being recruited into networks that spread spam and viruses, a study from security from Symantec showed last year. Viruses written to make headlines by infecting millions are also getting rarer, according to net security experts. Programs are being unleashed to directly profit criminal gangs, many based in Eastern Europe, over those which are designed to show off technical skills or cause nuisance. The research shows that more people are taking these criminal net threats more seriously because, said Mr Goosens, they are reported in the press much more. ""You are seeing older users being educated by the media and are seeing them picking up on this threat. They are asking the right questions,"" he explained. ""It is more likely the younger users who naively assume that because they are using a reputable service provider, that they are safe to connect to the net."" An unprotected computer on a broadband connection can be breached and infected with viruses or spyware within minutes. By the end of the year it is thought that more than 30% of UK homes will have broadband net access. In July last year, the number of UK households accessing the net via broadband surpassed those using dial-up for the first time, according to the Office of National Statistics.
","It is thought that 40% of those buying home net security programs are retired.The study predicts that 40% of all home PC net security buyers will be women in 2005.Older people and women are increasingly taking charge of protecting home computers against malicious net attacks, according to a two-year study.The study, for net security firm Preventon, shows that security messages are reaching a diversity of surfers.But net service providers still need to take more responsibility in making sure people are educated about net threats before they go online, particuarly if they are new to broadband, he said.By the end of the year it is thought that more than 30% of UK homes will have broadband net access.The research shows that more people are taking these criminal net threats more seriously because, said Mr Goosens, they are reported in the press much more.Viruses written to make headlines by infecting millions are also getting rarer, according to net security experts.But more retired women (53%) were buying security software than retired men.In July last year, the number of UK households accessing the net via broadband surpassed those using dial-up for the first time, according to the Office of National Statistics.The number of women buying programs to protect PCs from virus, spam and spyware attacks rose by 11.2% each year between 2002 and 2004.More than 30,000 PCs a day globally are being recruited into networks that spread spam and viruses, a study from security from Symantec showed last year."
"Sony PSP console hits US in March

US gamers will be able to buy Sony's PlayStation Portable from 24 March, but there is no news of a Europe debut.

The handheld console will go on sale for $250 (£132) and the first million sold will come with Spider-Man 2 on UMD, the disc format for the machine. Sony has billed the machine as the Walkman of the 21st Century and has sold more than 800,000 units in Japan. The console (12cm by 7.4cm) will play games, movies and music and also offers support for wireless gaming. Sony is entering a market which has been dominated by Nintendo for many years.

It launched its DS handheld in Japan and the US last year and has sold 2.8 million units. Sony has said it wanted to launch the PSP in Europe at roughly the same time as the US, but gamers will now fear that the launch has been put back. Nintendo has said it will release the DS in Europe from 11 March. ""It has gaming at its core, but it's not a gaming device. It's an entertainment device,"" said Kaz Hirai, president of Sony Computer Entertainment America.
","Sony has billed the machine as the Walkman of the 21st Century and has sold more than 800,000 units in Japan.Sony has said it wanted to launch the PSP in Europe at roughly the same time as the US, but gamers will now fear that the launch has been put back.Nintendo has said it will release the DS in Europe from 11 March.It launched its DS handheld in Japan and the US last year and has sold 2.8 million units."
"Ask Jeeves joins web log market

Ask Jeeves has bought the Bloglines website to improve the way it handles content from web journals or blogs.

The Bloglines site has become hugely popular as it gives users one place in which to read, search and share all the blogs they are interested in. Ask Jeeves said it was not planning to change Bloglines but would use the 300 million articles it has archived to round out its index of the web. How much Ask Jeeves paid for Bloglines was not revealed.

Bloglines has become popular because it lets users build a list of the blogs they want to follow without having to visit each journal site individually. To do this it makes use of a technology known as Really Simple Syndication (RSS) that many blogs have adopted to let other sites know when new entries are made on their journals. The acquisition follows similar moves by other search sites. Google acquired Pyra Labs, makers of the Blogger software, in 2003. In 2004 MSN introduced its own blog system and Yahoo has tweaked its technology to do a better job of handling blog entries. Jim Lanzone, vice president of search properties at Ask Jeeves in the US, said it did not acquire Bloglines just to get a foothold in the blog publishing world. He said Ask Jeeves was much more interested in helping people find information they were looking for rather than helping them write it.

""The universe of readers is vastly larger than the universe of writers,"" he said. Mr Lanzone said the acquisition would sit well with Ask's My Jeeves service which lets people customise their own web experience and build up a personal collection of useful links. ""Search engines are about discovering information for the first time and RSS is the ideal way to keep track of and monitor those sites,"" he said. It would also help drive information and entries from blogs to the portals that Ask Jeeves operates. There would be no instant sweeping changes to Bloglines, said Mr Lanzone. ""Our intent is to take our time to figure out the right business model not to try to monetise it right away,"" he said. Though Mr Lanzone added that Ask Jeeves would be helping organise the database of 300m blog entries Bloglines holds with its own net indexing technology. ""Being able to search the blogosphere as one corpus of information will be very useful in its own right,"" said Mr Lanzone. Rumours about the acquisition were broken by the Napsterization weblog which said it got the hint from Ask Jeeves insiders.
","Jim Lanzone, vice president of search properties at Ask Jeeves in the US, said it did not acquire Bloglines just to get a foothold in the blog publishing world.Ask Jeeves said it was not planning to change Bloglines but would use the 300 million articles it has archived to round out its index of the web.Though Mr Lanzone added that Ask Jeeves would be helping organise the database of 300m blog entries Bloglines holds with its own net indexing technology.There would be no instant sweeping changes to Bloglines, said Mr Lanzone.It would also help drive information and entries from blogs to the portals that Ask Jeeves operates.How much Ask Jeeves paid for Bloglines was not revealed.He said Ask Jeeves was much more interested in helping people find information they were looking for rather than helping them write it.Mr Lanzone said the acquisition would sit well with Ask's My Jeeves service which lets people customise their own web experience and build up a personal collection of useful links."
"Why Cell will get the hard sell

The world is casting its gaze on the Cell processor for the first time, but what is so important about it, and why is it so different?

The backers of the processor are big names in the computer industry. IBM is one of the largest and most respected chip-makers in the world, providing cutting edge technology to large businesses. Sony will be using the chip inside its PlayStation 3 console, and its dominance of the games market means that it now has a lot of power to dictate the future of computer and gaming platforms. The technology inside the Cell is being heralded as revolutionary, from a technical standpoint. Traditional computers - whether they are household PCs or PlayStation 2s - use a single processor to carry out the calculations that run the computer. The Cell technology, on the other hand, uses multiple Cell processors linked together to run lots of calculations simultaneously.

This gives it processing power an order of magnitude above its competitors. Whilst its rivals are working on similar technology, it is Sony's which is the most advanced. The speed of computer memory has been slowly increasing over the last few years, but the memory technology that accompanies the Cell is a huge leap in performance.

Using a technology called XDR, created by American firm Rambus, memory can run up to eight times faster than the current standard being promoted by Intel. Perhaps more important than any of the technology is the Cell's role in the imminent ""war on living rooms"". The big trend predicted for this year is the convergence of computers with home entertainment devices such as DVD players and hi-fis. Companies like Microsoft and Sony believe that there is a lot of money to be made by putting a computer underneath the TV of every household and then offering services such as music and video downloads, as well as giving an individual access to all the media they already own in one place.

Microsoft has already made its first tactical move into this area with its Windows Media Center software, which has been adopted by many PC makers. Sony had a stab at something similar with the PSX - a variation on the PlayStation - last year in Japan, although this attempt was generally seen as a failure. Both companies believe that increasing the capabilities of games consoles, to make them as powerful as PCs, will make the technology accessible enough to persuade buyers to give them pride of place on the video rack.

Sony and IBM want to make sure that the dominance of the PC market enjoyed by Microsoft and Intel is not allowed to extend to this market. By creating a radically new architecture, and using that architecture in a games console that is sure to be a huge seller, they hope that the Cell processor can become the dominant technology in the living room, shutting out their rivals. Once they have established themselves under the TV, there is no doubt that they hope to use this as a base camp to extend their might into our traditional PCs and instigate a regime change on the desktop. Cell is, in fact, specifically designed to be deployed throughout the house. The links between the multiple processors can also be extended to reach Cell processors in entirely different systems.

Sony hopes to put Cells in televisions, kitchen appliances and anywhere that could use any sort of computer chip. Each Cell will be linked to the others, creating a vast home network of computing power. Resources of the Cells across the house can be pooled to provide more power, and the links can also be used to enable devices to talk to each other, so that you can programme your microwave from your TV, for example. This digital home of the future depends on the widespread adoption of the Cell processor and there are, as with all things, a number of reasons it could fail. Because the processor is so different, it requires programmers to learn a different way of writing software, and it may be that the changeover is simply too difficult for them to master. You can also guarantee that Microsoft and Intel are not going to sit around and let Cell take over home computing without a fight. Microsoft is going to be pushing its Xbox 2 as hard as possible to make sure that its technology, not Sony's, will be under your tree next Christmas. Intel will be furiously working on new designs that address the problems of its current chips to create a rival technology to Cell, so that it doesn't lose its desktop PC dominance. If Cell succeeds in becoming the living room technology of choice, however, it could provide the jump-start to the fully digital home of the future. The revolution might not be televised, but it could well be played with a videogame controller.
","The Cell technology, on the other hand, uses multiple Cell processors linked together to run lots of calculations simultaneously.If Cell succeeds in becoming the living room technology of choice, however, it could provide the jump-start to the fully digital home of the future.By creating a radically new architecture, and using that architecture in a games console that is sure to be a huge seller, they hope that the Cell processor can become the dominant technology in the living room, shutting out their rivals.The speed of computer memory has been slowly increasing over the last few years, but the memory technology that accompanies the Cell is a huge leap in performance.The links between the multiple processors can also be extended to reach Cell processors in entirely different systems.The world is casting its gaze on the Cell processor for the first time, but what is so important about it, and why is it so different?Intel will be furiously working on new designs that address the problems of its current chips to create a rival technology to Cell, so that it doesn't lose its desktop PC dominance.The technology inside the Cell is being heralded as revolutionary, from a technical standpoint.This digital home of the future depends on the widespread adoption of the Cell processor and there are, as with all things, a number of reasons it could fail.Sony will be using the chip inside its PlayStation 3 console, and its dominance of the games market means that it now has a lot of power to dictate the future of computer and gaming platforms.Traditional computers - whether they are household PCs or PlayStation 2s - use a single processor to carry out the calculations that run the computer.Each Cell will be linked to the others, creating a vast home network of computing power.You can also guarantee that Microsoft and Intel are not going to sit around and let Cell take over home computing without a fight."
"PlayStation 3 processor unveiled

The Cell processor, which will drive Sony's PlayStation 3, will run 10-times faster than current PC chips, its designers have said.

Sony, IBM and Toshiba, who have been working on the Cell processor for three years, unveiled the chip on Monday. It is being designed for use in graphics workstations, the new PlayStation console, and has been described as a supercomputer on a chip. The chip will run at speeds of greater than 4 GHz, the firms said. By comparison, rival chip maker Intel's fastest processor runs at 3.8 GHz. Details of the chip were released at the International Solid State Circuits Conference in San Francisco. The new processor is set to ignite a fresh battle between Intel and the Cell consortium over which processor sits at the centre of digital products. The PlayStation 3 is expected in 2006, while Toshiba plans to incorporate it into high-end televisions next year. IBM has said it will sell a workstation with the chip starting later this year.

Cell is comprised of several computing engines, or cores. A core based on IBM's Power architecture controls eight ""synergistic"" processing centres. In all, they can simultaneously carry out 10 instruction sequences, compared with two for current Intel chips.

Later this year, Intel and Advanced Micro Devices plan to release their own ""multicore"" chips, which also increase the number of instructions that can be executed at once. The Cell's specifications suggest the PlayStation 3 will offer a significant boost in graphics capabilities but analysts cautioned that not all the features in a product announcement will find their way into systems. ""Any new technology like this has two components,"" said Steve Kleynhans, an analyst with Meta Group. He said: ""It has the vision of what it could be because you need the big vision to sell it. ""Then there's the reality of how it's really going to be used, which generally is several levels down the chain from there.""

While the PlayStation 3 is likely to be the first mass-market product to use Cell, the chip's designers have said the flexible architecture means that it would be useful for a wide range of applications, from servers to mobile phones. Initial devices are unlikely to be any smaller than a games console, however, because the first version of the Cell will run hot enough to need a cooling fan. And while marketing speak describes the chip as a ""supercomputer"" - it remains significantly slower than the slowest computer on the list of the world's top 500 supercomputers. IBM said Cell was ""OS neutral"" and would support multiple operating systems simultaneously but designers would not confirm if Microsoft's Windows was among those tested with the chip. If Cell is to challenge Intel's range of chips in the marketplace, it will need to find itself inside PCs, which predominantly run using Windows.
","The Cell processor, which will drive Sony's PlayStation 3, will run 10-times faster than current PC chips, its designers have said.IBM has said it will sell a workstation with the chip starting later this year.The chip will run at speeds of greater than 4 GHz, the firms said.While the PlayStation 3 is likely to be the first mass-market product to use Cell, the chip's designers have said the flexible architecture means that it would be useful for a wide range of applications, from servers to mobile phones.If Cell is to challenge Intel's range of chips in the marketplace, it will need to find itself inside PCs, which predominantly run using Windows.Sony, IBM and Toshiba, who have been working on the Cell processor for three years, unveiled the chip on Monday.It is being designed for use in graphics workstations, the new PlayStation console, and has been described as a supercomputer on a chip.By comparison, rival chip maker Intel's fastest processor runs at 3.8 GHz.IBM said Cell was ""OS neutral"" and would support multiple operating systems simultaneously but designers would not confirm if Microsoft's Windows was among those tested with the chip."
"Consumer concern over RFID tags

Consumers are very concerned about the use of radio frequency ID (RFID) tags in shops, a survey says.

More than half of 2,000 people surveyed said they had privacy worries about the tags, which can be used to monitor stock on shelves or in warehouses. Some consumer groups have expressed concern that the tags could be used to monitor shoppers once they had left shops with their purchases. The survey showed that awareness of tags among consumers in Europe was low. The survey of consumers in the UK, France, Germany and the Netherlands was carried out by consultancy group Capgemini. The firm works on behalf of more than 30 firms who are seeking to promote the growth of RFID technology. The tags are a combination of computer chip and antenna which can be read by a scanner - each item contains a unique identification number.

More than half (55%) of the respondents said they were either concerned or very concerned that RFID tags would allow businesses to track consumers via product purchases. Fifty nine percent of people said they were worried that RFID tags would allow data to be used more freely by third parties. Ard Jan Vetham, Capgemini's principal consultant on RFID, said the survey showed that retailers needed to inform and educate people about RFID before it would become accepted technology. ""Acceptance of new technologies always has a tipping point at which consumers believe that benefits outweigh concerns. ""With the right RFID approach and ongoing communication with consumers, the industry can reach this point."" He said that the survey also showed people would accept RFID if they felt that the technology could mean a reduction in car theft or faster recovery of stolen items. The tags are currently being used at one Tesco distribution centre in the UK - the tags allow the rapid inventory of bulk items. They are also in use as a passcard for the M6 Toll in the Midlands, in the UK. Mr Vetham said the majority of people surveyed (52%) believed that RFID tags could be read from a distance. He said that was a misconception based on a lack of awareness of the technology. At least once consumer group - Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering (Caspian) - has claimed that RFID chips could be used to secretly identify people and the things they are carrying or wearing. All kinds of personal belongings, including clothes, could constantly broadcast messages about their whereabouts and their owners, it warned.
","Mr Vetham said the majority of people surveyed (52%) believed that RFID tags could be read from a distance.He said that the survey also showed people would accept RFID if they felt that the technology could mean a reduction in car theft or faster recovery of stolen items.Fifty nine percent of people said they were worried that RFID tags would allow data to be used more freely by third parties.Ard Jan Vetham, Capgemini's principal consultant on RFID, said the survey showed that retailers needed to inform and educate people about RFID before it would become accepted technology.More than half (55%) of the respondents said they were either concerned or very concerned that RFID tags would allow businesses to track consumers via product purchases.Consumers are very concerned about the use of radio frequency ID (RFID) tags in shops, a survey says.At least once consumer group - Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering (Caspian) - has claimed that RFID chips could be used to secretly identify people and the things they are carrying or wearing.The survey showed that awareness of tags among consumers in Europe was low."
"Mobiles 'not media players yet'

Mobiles are not yet ready to be all-singing, all-dancing multimedia devices which will replace portable media players, say two reports.

Despite moves to bring music download services to mobiles, people do not want to trade multimedia services with size and battery life, said Jupiter. A separate study by Gartner has also said real-time TV broadcasts to mobiles is ""unlikely"" in Europe until 2007. Technical issues and standards must be resolved first, said the report. Batteries already have to cope with other services that operators offer, like video playback, video messaging, megapixel cameras and games amongst others. Bringing music download services based on the success of computer-based download services will put more demands on battery life.

Fifty percent of Europeans said the size of a mobile was the most important factor when it came to choosing their phone, but more power demands tend to mean larger handsets. ""Mobile phone music services must not be positioned to compete with the PC music experience as the handsets are not yet ready,"" said Thomas Husson, mobile analyst at Jupiter research. ""Mobile music services should be new and different, and enable operators to differentiate their brands and support third generation network launches."" Other problems facing mobile music include limited storage on phones, compared to portable players which can hold up to 40GB of music. The mobile industry is keen to get into music downloading, after the success of Apple's iTunes, Napster and other net music download services.

With phones getting smarter and more powerful, there are also demands to be able to watch TV on the move. In the US, services like TiVo To Go let people transfer pre-recorded TV content onto their phones. But, the Gartner report on mobile TV broadcasting in Europe suggests direct broadcasting will have to wait. Currently, TV-like services, where clips are downloaded, are offered by several European operators, like Italy's TIM and 3. Mobile TV will have to overcome several barriers before it is widely taken up though, said the report.

Various standards and ways of getting TV signals to mobiles are being worked on globally. In Europe, trials in Berlin and Helsinki are making use of terrestrial TV masts to broadcast compressed signals to handsets with extra receivers. A service from the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation lets people watch TV programmes on their mobiles 24 hours a day. The service uses 3GP technology, one of the standards for mobile TV. But at the end of 2004, the European Telecommunications Institute (Etsi) formally adopted Digital Video Broadcasting Handheld (DVB-H) as the mobile TV broadcasting standard for Europe. Operators will be working on the standard as a way to bring real-time broadcasts to mobiles, as well as trying to overcome several other barriers. The cost and infrastructure needs to set up the services will need to be addressed. Handsets also need to be able to work with the DVB-H standard. TV services will have to live up to the expectations of the digital TV generation too, which expects good quality images at low prices, according to analysts. People are also likely to be put off watching TV on such small screens, said Gartner. Digital video recorders, like Europe's Sky+ box, and video-on-demand services mean people have much more control over what TV they watch. As a result, people may see broadcasting straight to mobiles as taking away that control. More powerful smartphones like the XDA II, Nokia 6600, SonyEricsson P900 and the Orange E200, offering web access, text and multimedia messaging, e-mail, calendar and gaming are becoming increasingly common. A report by analysts InStat/MDR has predicted that smartphone shipments will grow by 44% over the next five years. It says that smartphones will make up 117 million out of 833 million handsets shipped globally by 2009.
","The service uses 3GP technology, one of the standards for mobile TV.A service from the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation lets people watch TV programmes on their mobiles 24 hours a day.""Mobile phone music services must not be positioned to compete with the PC music experience as the handsets are not yet ready,"" said Thomas Husson, mobile analyst at Jupiter research.A separate study by Gartner has also said real-time TV broadcasts to mobiles is ""unlikely"" in Europe until 2007.Mobile TV will have to overcome several barriers before it is widely taken up though, said the report.Despite moves to bring music download services to mobiles, people do not want to trade multimedia services with size and battery life, said Jupiter.Various standards and ways of getting TV signals to mobiles are being worked on globally.But, the Gartner report on mobile TV broadcasting in Europe suggests direct broadcasting will have to wait.But at the end of 2004, the European Telecommunications Institute (Etsi) formally adopted Digital Video Broadcasting Handheld (DVB-H) as the mobile TV broadcasting standard for Europe.Digital video recorders, like Europe's Sky+ box, and video-on-demand services mean people have much more control over what TV they watch.In the US, services like TiVo To Go let people transfer pre-recorded TV content onto their phones.People are also likely to be put off watching TV on such small screens, said Gartner.TV services will have to live up to the expectations of the digital TV generation too, which expects good quality images at low prices, according to analysts."
"Blind student 'hears in colour'

A blind student has developed software that turns colours into musical notes so that he can read weather maps.

Victor Wong, a graduate student from Hong Kong studying at Cornell University in New York State, had to read coloured maps of the upper atmosphere as part of his research. To study ""space weather"" Mr Wong needed to explore minute fluctuations in order to create mathematical models. A number of solutions were tried, including having a colleague describe the maps and attempting to print them in Braille. Mr Wong eventually hit upon the idea of translating individual colours into music, and enlisted the help of a computer graphics specialist and another student to do the programming work.

""The images have three dimensions and I had to find a way of reading them myself,"" Mr Wong told the BBC News website. ""For the sake of my own study - and for the sake of blind scientists generally - I felt it would be good to develop software that could help us to read colour images."" He tried a prototype version of the software to explore a photograph of a parrot. In order to have an exact reference to the screen, a pen and tablet device is used. The software then assigns one of 88 piano notes to individually coloured pixels - ranging from blue at the lower end of this scale to red at the upper end. Mr Wong says the application is still very much in its infancy and is only useful for reading images that have been created digitally. ""If I took a random picture and scanned it and then used my software to recognise it, it wouldn't work that well.""

Mr Wong has been blind from the age of seven and he thinks that having a ""colour memory"" makes the software more useful than it would be to a scientist who had never had any vision. ""As the notes increase in pitch I know the colour's getting redder and redder, and in my mind's eye a patch of red appears."" The colour to music software has not yet been made available commercially, and Mr Wong believes that several people would have to work together to make it viable. But he hopes that one day it can be developed to give blind people access to photographs and other images.
","Mr Wong has been blind from the age of seven and he thinks that having a ""colour memory"" makes the software more useful than it would be to a scientist who had never had any vision.The colour to music software has not yet been made available commercially, and Mr Wong believes that several people would have to work together to make it viable.A blind student has developed software that turns colours into musical notes so that he can read weather maps.""For the sake of my own study - and for the sake of blind scientists generally - I felt it would be good to develop software that could help us to read colour images.""Mr Wong eventually hit upon the idea of translating individual colours into music, and enlisted the help of a computer graphics specialist and another student to do the programming work.To study ""space weather"" Mr Wong needed to explore minute fluctuations in order to create mathematical models.He tried a prototype version of the software to explore a photograph of a parrot."
"Apple attacked over sources row

Civil liberties group the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has joined a legal fight between three US online journalists and Apple.

Apple wants the reporters to reveal 20 sources used for stories which leaked information about forthcoming products, including the Mac Mini. The EFF, representing the reporters, has asked California's Superior court to stop Apple pursuing the sources. It argues that the journalists are protected by the American constitution. The EFF says the case threatens the basic freedoms of the press.

Apple is particularly keen to find the source for information about an unreleased product code-named Asteroid and has asked the journalists' e-mail providers to hand over communications relevant to that. ""Rather than confronting the issue of reporter's privilege head-on, Apple is going to the journalist's ISPs for his e-mails,"" said EFF lawyer Kurt Opsahl. ""This undermines a fundamental First Amendment right that protects all reporters. ""If the court lets Apple get away with this, and exposes the confidences gained by these reporters, potential confidential sources will be deterred from providing information to the media and the public will lose a vital outlet for independent news, analysis and commentary,"" he said. The case began in December 2004 when Apple asked a local Californian court to get the journalists to reveal their sources for articles published on websites AppleInsider.com and PowerPage.org.

Apple also sent requested information from the Nfox.com, the internet service provider of PowerPage's publisher Jason O-Grady. As well as looking at how far corporations can go in preventing information from being published, the case will also examine whether online journalists have the same privileges and protections as those writing for newspapers and magazines. The EFF has gained some powerful allies in its legal battle with Apple, including Professor Tom Goldstein, former dean of the Journalism School at the University of California and Dan Gillmor, a well-known Silicon Valley journalist. Apple was not immediately available for comment.
","The EFF, representing the reporters, has asked California's Superior court to stop Apple pursuing the sources.The case began in December 2004 when Apple asked a local Californian court to get the journalists to reveal their sources for articles published on websites AppleInsider.com and PowerPage.org.Civil liberties group the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has joined a legal fight between three US online journalists and Apple.Apple is particularly keen to find the source for information about an unreleased product code-named Asteroid and has asked the journalists' e-mail providers to hand over communications relevant to that.""Rather than confronting the issue of reporter's privilege head-on, Apple is going to the journalist's ISPs for his e-mails,"" said EFF lawyer Kurt Opsahl.The EFF has gained some powerful allies in its legal battle with Apple, including Professor Tom Goldstein, former dean of the Journalism School at the University of California and Dan Gillmor, a well-known Silicon Valley journalist."
"Mobile audio enters new dimension

As mobile phones move closer to being a ubiquitous, all-in-one media player, audio is becoming ever more important. But how good can that sound be from such a small device?

The sound of a buzzing bee jumps from left to right before disappearing around the back of my head. The surround sound demo is unremarkable when heard on a multi-speaker home cinema system but startling when emerging from a small mobile phone. British firm Sonaptic is one of a number of companies to have developed 3D audio technology that emerges from stereo speakers. Firms AM3D and SRS both offer stereo-widening technology for mobile phones. But Sonaptic's managing director David Monteith says his firm is the only company to offer positional 3D audio on a mobile.

""There are quite a few basic technologies out there, making the sound seem a bit bigger, headphones a bit nicer.

""No-one has really tried before to make proper 3D positional audio - where an individual channel can be moved around."" Sonaptic has been working with Japanese mobile network NTT DoCoMo to set standards for 3D audio on mobile phones. In the last few months handsets from NEC, Fujitsu and Mitsubishi have been released on to the Japanese marker which have chips produced by Yamaha and Rohm with Sonaptic's technology. ""The technology has been around on PCs and games consoles for some time but what we are doing is making it more efficient so it can go on a small consumer device like a mobile phone,"" said Mr Monteith.

The technology works through applying the science of psychoacoustics and grew out of medical research done by the company's research director Dr Alastair Sibbald. ""We are basically trying to fool your ears into thinking sound is coming from areas it actually isn't. ""Your brain uses certain bits of information which we are effectively synthesising on a mobile phone handset."" The structure of the ear works as a 3D encoder for sound - helping the brain understand from where sound is emanating. Sonaptic's audio processing algorithms mimic that 3D encoding, giving the impression that sound is coming from the left, right, and behind a listener when in fact it is coming from a single source. Mr Montieth says: ""If the sound is off to one side it will get to one ear before the other - if it is on the right it has to bend around your head to get to your left ear.

""The shape of your ear causes differences in sound from one ear to the other. We are synthesising those differences."" Sonaptic hopes the technology will have a big impact in the growing market of mobile gaming and music downloading. ""Handhelds often have limitations - screens will be small by definition. ""If you want to get impact from media you are running - either a movie, a game or watching TV - if you want it to be more immersive then our technology can help."" A fishing game is the first title to use the technology, creating a 3D sound field while the gamer plays. Driving games and shoot 'em ups using the technology are in development. The technology can also be used for music - giving songs a much more expansive and immersive feel. Sonaptic offers its technology on a chip or in software and is about to release a new version which significantly improves the efficiency of the audio processing. ""It's important we only use 10 or 15% of the processor otherwise you won't be able to play a game on the handset,"" explained Mr Montieth. The company is now looking to the US and European markets, where it has been working with network Vodafone. ""We have focused first on Japan because it has a very advanced mobile phone market. ""We knew Japan would be the first place to have the handsets that could use our technology. ""There should be handsets out in the UK in the next six months.""
","""The technology has been around on PCs and games consoles for some time but what we are doing is making it more efficient so it can go on a small consumer device like a mobile phone,"" said Mr Monteith.A fishing game is the first title to use the technology, creating a 3D sound field while the gamer plays.Sonaptic has been working with Japanese mobile network NTT DoCoMo to set standards for 3D audio on mobile phones.""Your brain uses certain bits of information which we are effectively synthesising on a mobile phone handset.""Mr Montieth says: ""If the sound is off to one side it will get to one ear before the other - if it is on the right it has to bend around your head to get to your left ear.Firms AM3D and SRS both offer stereo-widening technology for mobile phones.Sonaptic hopes the technology will have a big impact in the growing market of mobile gaming and music downloading.""We have focused first on Japan because it has a very advanced mobile phone market.""We knew Japan would be the first place to have the handsets that could use our technology.British firm Sonaptic is one of a number of companies to have developed 3D audio technology that emerges from stereo speakers.The surround sound demo is unremarkable when heard on a multi-speaker home cinema system but startling when emerging from a small mobile phone.The structure of the ear works as a 3D encoder for sound - helping the brain understand from where sound is emanating.""There are quite a few basic technologies out there, making the sound seem a bit bigger, headphones a bit nicer."
"DVD copy protection strengthened

DVDs will be harder to copy thanks to new anti-piracy measures devised by copy protection firm Macrovision.

The pirated DVD market is enormous because current copy protection was hacked more than five years ago. Macrovision says its new RipGuard technology will thwart most, but not all, of the current DVD ripping (copying) programs used to pirate DVDs. ""RipGuard is designed to... reduce DVD ripping and the resulting supply of illegal peer to peer,"" said the firm. Macrovision said the new technology will work in ""nearly all"" current DVD players when applied to the discs, but it did not specify how many machines could have a problem with RipGuard. Some BBC News website users have expressed concerns that the new technology will mean that DVDs will not work on PCs running the operating system Linux. The new technology will be welcomed by Hollywood film studios which are increasingly relying on revenue from DVD sales.

The film industry has stepped up efforts to fight DVD piracy in the last 12 months, taking legal action against websites which offer pirated copies of DVD movies for download.

""Ultimately, we see RipGuard DVD... evolving beyond anti-piracy, and towards enablement of legitimate online transactions, interoperability in tomorrow's digital home, and the upcoming high-definition formats,"" said Steve Weinstein, executive vice president and general manager of Macrovision's Entertainment Technologies Group. Macrovision said RipGuard would also prevent against ""rent, rip and return"" - where people would rent a DVD, copy it and then return the original. RipGuard is expected to be rolled out on DVDs from the middle of 2005, the company said. The new system works specifically to block most ripping programs - if used, those programs will now most likely crash, the company said. Macrovision has said that Rip Guard can be updated if hackers find a way around the new anti-copying measures.
","Macrovision says its new RipGuard technology will thwart most, but not all, of the current DVD ripping (copying) programs used to pirate DVDs.Macrovision said the new technology will work in ""nearly all"" current DVD players when applied to the discs, but it did not specify how many machines could have a problem with RipGuard.Macrovision said RipGuard would also prevent against ""rent, rip and return"" - where people would rent a DVD, copy it and then return the original.DVDs will be harder to copy thanks to new anti-piracy measures devised by copy protection firm Macrovision.""RipGuard is designed to... reduce DVD ripping and the resulting supply of illegal peer to peer,"" said the firm.The new system works specifically to block most ripping programs - if used, those programs will now most likely crash, the company said."
"Millions buy MP3 players in US

One in 10 adult Americans - equivalent to 22 million people - owns an MP3 player, according to a survey.

A study by the Pew Internet and American Life Project found that MP3 players are the gadget of choice among affluent young Americans. The survey did not interview teenagers but it is likely that millions of under-18s also have MP3 players. The American love affair with digital music players has been made possible as more and more homes get broadband.

Of the 22 million Americans who own MP3 players, 59% are men compared to 41% of women. Those on high income - judged to be $75,000 (£39,000) or above - are four times more likely to have players than those earning less than $30, 000 ( £15,000). Broadband access plays a big part in ownership too. Almost a quarter of those with broadband at home have players, compared to 9% of those who have dial-up access. MP3 players are still the gadget of choice for younger adults. Almost one in five US citizens aged under 30 have one. This compares to 14% of those aged 30-39 and 14% of those aged 40-48. The influence of children also plays a part. Sixteen percent of parents living with children under 18 have digital players compared to 9% of those who don't. The ease of use and growth of music available on the net are the main factors for the upsurge in ownership, the survey found. People are beginning to use them as instruments of social activity - sharing songs and taking part in podcasting - the survey found. ""IPods and MP3 players are becoming a mainstream technology for consumers"" said Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Internet and American Life Project. ""More growth in the market is inevitable as new devices become available, as new players enter the market, and as new social uses for iPods/MP3 players become popular,"" he added.
","One in 10 adult Americans - equivalent to 22 million people - owns an MP3 player, according to a survey.A study by the Pew Internet and American Life Project found that MP3 players are the gadget of choice among affluent young Americans.The survey did not interview teenagers but it is likely that millions of under-18s also have MP3 players.MP3 players are still the gadget of choice for younger adults.Of the 22 million Americans who own MP3 players, 59% are men compared to 41% of women.""IPods and MP3 players are becoming a mainstream technology for consumers"" said Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Internet and American Life Project.The American love affair with digital music players has been made possible as more and more homes get broadband."
"Britons fed up with net service

A survey conducted by PC Pro Magazine has revealed that many Britons are unhappy with their internet service.

They are fed up with slow speeds, high prices and the level of customer service they receive. 17% of readers have switched suppliers and a further 16% are considering changing in the near future. It is particularly bad news for BT, the UK's biggest internet supplier, with almost three times as many people trying to leave as joining.

A third of the 2,000 broadband users interviewed were fed up with their current providers but this could be just the tip of the iceberg thinks Tim Danton, editor of PC Pro Magazine. ""We expect these figures to leap in 2005. Every month the prices drop, and more and more people are trying to switch,"" he said. The survey found that BT and Tiscali have been actively dissuading customers from leaving by offering them a lower price when they phone up to cancel their subscription. Some readers were offered a price drop just 25p more expensive than that offered by an alternative operator, making it hardly worth while swapping.

Other found themselves tied into 12-month contracts. Broadband has become hugely competitive and providers are desperate to hold on to customers. 12% of those surveyed found themselves unable to swap at all. ""We discovered a huge variety of problems, but one of the biggest issues is the current supplier withholding the information that people need to give to their new supplier,"" said Tim Danton, editor of PC Pro. ""This breaks the code of practice, but because that code is voluntary there's nothing we or Ofcom can do to help,"" he said. There is a vast choice of internet service providers in the UK now and an often bewildering array of broadband packages. With prices set to drop even further in coming months Mr Danton advises everyone to shop around carefully. ""If you just stick with your current connection then there's every chance you're being ripped off,"" he warned.
","Every month the prices drop, and more and more people are trying to switch,"" he said.""We discovered a huge variety of problems, but one of the biggest issues is the current supplier withholding the information that people need to give to their new supplier,"" said Tim Danton, editor of PC Pro.A third of the 2,000 broadband users interviewed were fed up with their current providers but this could be just the tip of the iceberg thinks Tim Danton, editor of PC Pro Magazine.A survey conducted by PC Pro Magazine has revealed that many Britons are unhappy with their internet service.With prices set to drop even further in coming months Mr Danton advises everyone to shop around carefully.The survey found that BT and Tiscali have been actively dissuading customers from leaving by offering them a lower price when they phone up to cancel their subscription.It is particularly bad news for BT, the UK's biggest internet supplier, with almost three times as many people trying to leave as joining."
"Intel unveils laser breakthrough

Intel has said it has found a way to put a silicon-based laser on a chip, raising hopes of much faster networks.

Scientists at Intel have overcome a fundamental problem that before now has prevented silicon being used to generate and amplify laser light. The breakthrough should make it easier to interconnect data networks with the chips that process the information. The Intel researchers said products exploiting the breakthrough should appear by the end of the decade.

""We've overcome a fundamental limit,"" said Dr Mario Paniccia, director of Intel's photonics technology lab. Writing in the journal Nature, Dr Paniccia - and colleagues Haisheng Rong, Richard Jones, Ansheng Liu, Oded Cohen, Dani Hak and Alexander Fang - show how they have made a continuous laser from the same material used to make computer processors. Currently, says Dr Paniccia, telecommunications equipment that amplifies the laser light that travels down fibre optic cables is very expensive because of the exotic materials, such as gallium arsenide, used to make it.

Telecommunications firms and chip makers would prefer to use silicon for these light-moving elements because it is cheap and many of the problems of using it in high-volume manufacturing have been solved. ""We're trying to take our silicon competency in manufacturing and apply it to new areas,"" said Dr Paniccia. While work has been done to make some of the components that can move light around, before now silicon has not successfully been used to generate or amplify the laser light pulses used to send data over long distances. This is despite the fact that silicon is a much better amplifier of light pulses than the form of the material used in fibre optic cables. This improved amplification is due to the crystalline structure of the silicon used to make computer chips. Dr Paniccia said that the structure of silicon meant that when laser light passed through it, some colliding photons rip electrons off the atoms within the material. ""It creates a cloud of electrons sitting in the silicon and that absorbs all the light,"" he said. But the Intel researchers have found a way to suck away these errant electrons and turn silicon into a material that can both generate and amplify laser light. Even better, the laser light produced in this way can, with the help of easy-to-make filters, be tuned across a very wide range of frequencies. Semi-conductor lasers made before now have only produced light in a narrow frequency ranges. The result could be the close integration of the fibre optic cables that carry data as light with the computer chips that process it. Dr Paniccia said the work was the one of several steps needed if silicon was to be used to make components that could carry and process light in the form of data pulses. ""It's a technical validation that it can work,"" he said.
","While work has been done to make some of the components that can move light around, before now silicon has not successfully been used to generate or amplify the laser light pulses used to send data over long distances.Dr Paniccia said the work was the one of several steps needed if silicon was to be used to make components that could carry and process light in the form of data pulses.Dr Paniccia said that the structure of silicon meant that when laser light passed through it, some colliding photons rip electrons off the atoms within the material.Scientists at Intel have overcome a fundamental problem that before now has prevented silicon being used to generate and amplify laser light.But the Intel researchers have found a way to suck away these errant electrons and turn silicon into a material that can both generate and amplify laser light.""It creates a cloud of electrons sitting in the silicon and that absorbs all the light,"" he said.Currently, says Dr Paniccia, telecommunications equipment that amplifies the laser light that travels down fibre optic cables is very expensive because of the exotic materials, such as gallium arsenide, used to make it.This is despite the fact that silicon is a much better amplifier of light pulses than the form of the material used in fibre optic cables."
"EU software patent law faces axe

The European Parliament has thrown out a bill that would have allowed software to be patented.

Politicians unanimously rejected the bill and now it must go through another round of consultation if it is to have a chance of becoming law. During consultation the software patents bill could be substantially re-drafted or even scrapped. The bill was backed by some hi-tech firms, saying they needed protections it offered to make research worthwhile.

Hugo Lueders, European director for public policy at CompTIA, an umbrella organization for technology companies, said only when intellectual property was adequately protected would European inventors prosper. He said the benefits of the bill had been obscured by special interest groups which muddied debate over the rights and wrongs of software patents. Other proponents of the bill said it was a good compromise that avoided the excesses of the American system which allows the patenting of business practices as well as software. But opponents of the bill said that it could stifle innovation, be abused by firms keen to protect existing monopolies and could hamper the growth of the open source movement. The proposed law had a troubled passage through the European parliament. Its progress was delayed twice when Polish MEPs rejected plans to adopt it. Also earlier this month the influential European Legal Affairs Committee (JURI) said the law should be re-drafted after it failed to win the support of MEPs. To become law both the European Parliament and a qualified majority of EU states have to approve of the draft wording of the bill. The latest rejection means that now the bill on computer inventions must go back to the EU for re-consideration.
",The European Parliament has thrown out a bill that would have allowed software to be patented.To become law both the European Parliament and a qualified majority of EU states have to approve of the draft wording of the bill.During consultation the software patents bill could be substantially re-drafted or even scrapped.Politicians unanimously rejected the bill and now it must go through another round of consultation if it is to have a chance of becoming law.Other proponents of the bill said it was a good compromise that avoided the excesses of the American system which allows the patenting of business practices as well as software.He said the benefits of the bill had been obscured by special interest groups which muddied debate over the rights and wrongs of software patents.
"IBM puts cash behind Linux push

IBM is spending $100m (£52m) over the next three years beefing up its commitment to Linux software.

The cash injection will be used to help its customers use Linux on every type of device from handheld computers and phones right up to powerful servers. IBM said the money will fund a variety of technical, research and marketing initiatives to boost Linux use. IBM said it had taken the step in response to greater customer demand for the open source software.

In 2004 IBM said it had seen double digit growth in the number of customers using Linux to help staff work together more closely. The money will be used to help this push towards greater collaboration and will add Linux-based elements to IBM's Workplace software. Workplace is a suite of programs and tools that allow workers to get at core business applications no matter what device they use to connect to corporate networks. One of the main focuses of the initiative will be to make it easier to use Linux-based desktop computers and mobile devices with Workplace. Even before IBM announced this latest spending boost it was one of the biggest advocates of the open source way of working. In 2001 it put $300m into a three-year Linux program and has produced Linux versions of many of its programs. Linux and the open source software movement are based on the premise that developers should be free to tinker with the core components of software programs. They reason that more open scrutiny of software produces better programs and fuels innovation.
","IBM said it had taken the step in response to greater customer demand for the open source software.Linux and the open source software movement are based on the premise that developers should be free to tinker with the core components of software programs.IBM is spending $100m (£52m) over the next three years beefing up its commitment to Linux software.IBM said the money will fund a variety of technical, research and marketing initiatives to boost Linux use.The cash injection will be used to help its customers use Linux on every type of device from handheld computers and phones right up to powerful servers."
"Apple iPod family expands market

Apple has expanded its iPod family with the release of its next generation of the digital music players.

Its latest challenges to the growing digital music gadget market include an iPod mini model which can hold 6GB compared to a previous 4GB. The company, which hopes to keep its dominant place in the digital music market, also said the gold coloured version of the mini would be dropped. A 30GB version has also been added to the iPod Photo family. The latest models have a longer battery life and their prices have been cut by an average of £40. The original iPod took an early lead in the digital music player market thanks to its large storage capacity and simple design.

During 2004 about 25 million portable players were sold, 10 million of which were Apple iPods. But analysts agree that the success is also down to its integration with the iTunes online store, which has given the company a 70% share of the legal download music market. Mike McGuire, a research director at analyst Gartner, told the BBC News website that Apple had done a good job in ""sealing off the market from competition"" so far. ""They have created a very seamless package which I think is the idea of the product - the design, function and the software are very impressive,"" he said. He added that the threat from others was always present, however. ""Creative, other Microsoft-partnered devices, Real, Sony and so on, are ratcheting up the marketing message and advertising,"" he said. Creative was very upbeat about how many of its Creative Zen players it had shipped by the end of last year, he said. Its second-generation models, like the Creative Zen Micro Photo, is due out in the summer. It will have 5GB of memory on board.

Digital music players are now the gadget of choice among young Americans, according to recent research by the Pew Internet and American Life Project. One in 10 US adults - 22 million people - now owns a digital music player of some sort. Sales of legally downloaded songs also rose more than tenfold in 2004, according to the record industry, with 200 million tracks bought online in the US and Europe in 12 months. The IFPI industry body said that the popularity of portable music players was behind the growth. Analysts say that the ease of use and growth of music services available on the net will continue to drive the trend towards portable music players.

People are also starting to use them in novel ways. Some are combining automatic syncing functions many of them have with other net functions to automatically distribute DIY radio shows, called podcasts. But 2005 will also see more competition from mobile phone operators who are keen to offer streaming services on much more powerful and sophisticated handsets. According to Mr McGuire, research suggests that people like the idea of building up huge libraries of music, which they can do with high-capacity storage devices, like iPods and Creative Zens. Mobiles do not yet have this capacity though, and there are issues about the ease of portability of mobile music. Mr McGuire said Apple was ensuring it kept a foot in the mobile music door with its recent deal with Motorola to produce a version of iTunes for Motorola phones.
","The IFPI industry body said that the popularity of portable music players was behind the growth.The company, which hopes to keep its dominant place in the digital music market, also said the gold coloured version of the mini would be dropped.Its latest challenges to the growing digital music gadget market include an iPod mini model which can hold 6GB compared to a previous 4GB.One in 10 US adults - 22 million people - now owns a digital music player of some sort.The original iPod took an early lead in the digital music player market thanks to its large storage capacity and simple design.Apple has expanded its iPod family with the release of its next generation of the digital music players.A 30GB version has also been added to the iPod Photo family.Analysts say that the ease of use and growth of music services available on the net will continue to drive the trend towards portable music players.Mr McGuire said Apple was ensuring it kept a foot in the mobile music door with its recent deal with Motorola to produce a version of iTunes for Motorola phones.According to Mr McGuire, research suggests that people like the idea of building up huge libraries of music, which they can do with high-capacity storage devices, like iPods and Creative Zens.Digital music players are now the gadget of choice among young Americans, according to recent research by the Pew Internet and American Life Project."
"US woman sues over ink cartridges

A US woman is suing Hewlett Packard (HP), saying its printer ink cartridges are secretly programmed to expire on a certain date.

The unnamed woman from Georgia says that a chip inside the cartridge tells the printer that it needs re-filling even when it does not. The lawsuit seeks to represent anyone in the US who has purchased an HP inkjet printer since February 2001. HP, the world's biggest printer firm, declined to comment on the lawsuit. HP ink cartridges use a chip technology to sense when they are low on ink and advise the user to make a change.

But the suit claims the chips also shut down the cartridges at a predetermined date regardless of whether they are empty. ""The smart chip is dually engineered to prematurely register ink depletion and to render a cartridge unusable through the use of a built-in expiration date that is not revealed to the consumer,"" the suit said. The lawsuit is asking for restitution, damages and other compensation. The cost of printer cartridges has been a contentious issue in Europe for the last 18 months. The price of inkjet printers has come down to as little as £34 but it could cost up to £1,700 in running costs over an 18-month period due to cartridge, a study by Computeractive Magazine revealed last year. The inkjet printer market has been the subject of an investigation by the UK's Office of Fair Trading (OFT), which concluded in a 2002 report that retailers and manufacturers needed to make pricing more transparent for consumers.
","A US woman is suing Hewlett Packard (HP), saying its printer ink cartridges are secretly programmed to expire on a certain date.The cost of printer cartridges has been a contentious issue in Europe for the last 18 months.The lawsuit seeks to represent anyone in the US who has purchased an HP inkjet printer since February 2001.The price of inkjet printers has come down to as little as £34 but it could cost up to £1,700 in running costs over an 18-month period due to cartridge, a study by Computeractive Magazine revealed last year.HP ink cartridges use a chip technology to sense when they are low on ink and advise the user to make a change."
"Security warning over 'FBI virus'

The US Federal Bureau of Investigation is warning that a computer virus is being spread via e-mails that purport to be from the FBI.

The e-mails show that they have come from an fbi.gov address and tell recipients that they have accessed illegal websites. The messages warn that their internet use has been monitored by the FBI's Internet Fraud Complaint Center. An attachment in the e-mail contains the virus, the FBI said. The message asks recipients to click on the attachment and answer some questions about their internet use. But rather than being a questionnaire, the attachment contains a virus that infects the recipient's computer, according to the agency. It is not clear what the virus does once it has infected a computer. Users are warned never to open attachment from unsolicited e-mails or from people they do not know.

""Recipients of this or similar solicitations should know that the FBI does not engage in the practice of sending unsolicited e-mails to the public in this manner,"" the FBI said in a statement. The bureau is investigating the phoney e-mails. The agency earlier this month shut down fbi.gov accounts, used to communicate with the public, because of a security breach. A spokeswoman said the two incidents appear to be unrelated.
","An attachment in the e-mail contains the virus, the FBI said.The US Federal Bureau of Investigation is warning that a computer virus is being spread via e-mails that purport to be from the FBI.""Recipients of this or similar solicitations should know that the FBI does not engage in the practice of sending unsolicited e-mails to the public in this manner,"" the FBI said in a statement.But rather than being a questionnaire, the attachment contains a virus that infects the recipient's computer, according to the agency.Users are warned never to open attachment from unsolicited e-mails or from people they do not know."
"Mobile networks seek turbo boost

Third-generation mobile (3G) networks need to get faster if they are to deliver fast internet surfing on the move and exciting new services.

That was one of the messages from the mobile industry at the 3GSM World Congress in Cannes last week. Fast 3G networks are here but the focus has shifted to their evolution into a higher bandwidth service, says the Global Mobile Suppliers Association. At 3GSM, Siemens showed off a system that transmits faster mobile data. The German company said data could be transmitted at one gigabit a second - up to 20 times faster than current 3G networks. The system is not available commercially yet, but Motorola, the US mobile handset and infrastructure maker, held a clinic for mobile operators on HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Access), a high-speed, high bandwidth technology available now. Early HSDPA systems typically offer around two megabits per second (Mbps) compared with less than 384 kilobits per second (Kbps) on standard 3G networks.

""High-Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) - sometimes called Super 3G - will be vital for profitable services like mobile internet browsing and mobile video clips,"" according to a report published by UK-based research consultancy Analysys. A number of companies are developing the technology. Nokia and Canada-based wireless communication products company Sierra Wireless recently agreed to work together on High Speed Downlink Packet Access. The two companies aim to jointly market the HSDPA solution to global network operator customers.

""While HSDPA theoretically enables data rates up to a maximum of 14Mbps, practical throughputs will be lower than this in wide-area networks,"" said Dr Alastair Brydon, author of the Analysys report: Pushing Beyond the Limits of 3G with HSDPA and Other Enhancements. ""The typical average user rate in a real implementation is likely to be in the region of one megabit per second which, even at this lower rate, will more than double the capacity... when compared to basic WCDMA [3G],"" he added. Motorola has conducted five trials of its technology and says speeds of 2.9Mbps have been recorded at the edge of an outdoor 3G cell using a single HSDPA device. But some mobile operators are opting for a technology called Evolution, Data Optimised (EV-DO).

US operator Sprint ordered a broadband data upgrade to its 3G network at the end of last year. We are ""expanding our network and deploying EV-DO technology to meet customer demand for faster wireless speeds,"" said Oliver Valente, Sprint's vice president for technology development, when the contract was announced. As part of $3bn in multi-year contracts announced late last year, Sprint will spend around $1bn on EV-DO technology from Lucent Technologies, Nortel Networks and Motorola that provides average data speeds of 0.3-0.5 megabits a second, and peak download rates of 2.4Mbps. MMO2, the UK-based operator with services in the UK, Ireland and Germany, has opted for technology based on HSDPA. Using technology from Lucent, it will offer data speeds of 3.6Mbps from next summer on its Isle of Man 3G network, and will eventually support speeds of up to 14.4Mbps. US operator Cingular Wireless is also adopting HSDPA, using technology from Lucent alongside equipment from Siemens and Ericsson.

Siemens' plans for a one gigabit network may be more than a user needs today, but Christoph Caselitz, president of the mobile networks division at the firm says that: ""By the time the next generation of mobile communication debuts in 2015, the need for transmission capacities for voice, data, image and multimedia is conservatively anticipated to rise by a factor of 10."" Siemens - in collaboration with the Fraunhofer German-Sino Lab for Mobile Communications and the Institute for Applied Radio System Technology - has souped up mobile communications by using three transmitting and four receiving antennae, instead of the usual one. This enables a data transmission, such as sending a big file or video, to be broken up into different flows of data that can be sent simultaneously over one radio frequency band. The speeds offered by 3G mobile seemed fast at the time mobile operators were paying huge sums for 3G licences. But today, instead of connecting to the internet by slow, dial-up phone connection, many people are used to broadband networks that offer speeds of 0.5 megabits a second - much faster than 3G. This means users are likely to find 3G disappointing unless the networks are souped up. If they aren't, those lucrative ""power users"", such as computer geeks and busy business people will avoid them for all but the most urgent tasks, reducing the potential revenues available to mobile operators. But one gigabit a second systems will not be available immediately. Siemens says that though the system works in the laboratory, it still has to assess the mobility of multiple-antennae devices and conduct field trials. A commercial system could be as far away as 2012, though Siemens did not rule out an earlier date.
","The speeds offered by 3G mobile seemed fast at the time mobile operators were paying huge sums for 3G licences.The system is not available commercially yet, but Motorola, the US mobile handset and infrastructure maker, held a clinic for mobile operators on HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Access), a high-speed, high bandwidth technology available now.Using technology from Lucent, it will offer data speeds of 3.6Mbps from next summer on its Isle of Man 3G network, and will eventually support speeds of up to 14.4Mbps.But some mobile operators are opting for a technology called Evolution, Data Optimised (EV-DO).At 3GSM, Siemens showed off a system that transmits faster mobile data.The German company said data could be transmitted at one gigabit a second - up to 20 times faster than current 3G networks.Siemens' plans for a one gigabit network may be more than a user needs today, but Christoph Caselitz, president of the mobile networks division at the firm says that: ""By the time the next generation of mobile communication debuts in 2015, the need for transmission capacities for voice, data, image and multimedia is conservatively anticipated to rise by a factor of 10.""Siemens - in collaboration with the Fraunhofer German-Sino Lab for Mobile Communications and the Institute for Applied Radio System Technology - has souped up mobile communications by using three transmitting and four receiving antennae, instead of the usual one.Fast 3G networks are here but the focus has shifted to their evolution into a higher bandwidth service, says the Global Mobile Suppliers Association.Motorola has conducted five trials of its technology and says speeds of 2.9Mbps have been recorded at the edge of an outdoor 3G cell using a single HSDPA device.US operator Sprint ordered a broadband data upgrade to its 3G network at the end of last year.""High-Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) - sometimes called Super 3G - will be vital for profitable services like mobile internet browsing and mobile video clips,"" according to a report published by UK-based research consultancy Analysys.Third-generation mobile (3G) networks need to get faster if they are to deliver fast internet surfing on the move and exciting new services."
"Mac Mini heralds mini revolution

The Mac Mini was launched amid much fanfare by Apple and great excitement by Apple watchers last month. But does the latest Macintosh justify the hype? Let us get a few things dealt with at the outset - yes, the Mac Mini is really, really small, and yes, it is another piece of inspired Apple design. There is more to be said on the computer's size and design but it is worth highlighting that the Mac Mini is a just a computer. Inside that small box there is a G4 processor, a CD/DVD player, a hard drive, some other technical bits and bobs and an operating system. A DVD burner, wireless and bluetooth technologies can be bought at extra cost. And if you do not have a monitor, keyboard or mouse then you will need to purchase those also.

It is not the fastest computer for the money but for under £400 you are getting something more interesting than mere technical specifications - Apple software. The Mac Mini comes bundled with Mac OS X, the operating system, as well as iLife 05, a suite of software which includes iTunes, web browser Safari, iPhoto, Garage Band and iDVD. I doubt many PC lovers would seriously argue that Windows XP comes with a better suite of programs than Mac OS X.

Of course, users of open source operating system Linux draw up their own menu of programs. For people who want to do interesting things with their music, photos and home movies then a Mac Mini is an ideal first computer or companion to a main computer. ""It's a good little machine with a reasonable amount of power and just perfect for the average computer user who wants to leave the tyranny of Window and viruses,"" said Mark Sparrow, technical and reviews editor at Mac Format magazine. He added: ""In essence, it's a laptop in a biscuit tin, minus the screen and the keyboard. ""The software bundle that comes with the mini makes your average budget PC look a bit sick."" The relatively low price of the machine has also encouraged the more technically-savvy to experiment with their Macs. One user has already created a ""dock"" to enable him to plug in and out his Mac Mini in his car.

The small size of the machine makes it a practical solution for in-car entertainment - playing movies and music - as well as navigation. Another user has mounted his Mac Mini to the back of his large plasma screen and then controls the computer via a wireless keyboard and mouse. When it was first announced some pundits thought the Mini was designed as a sort of stealth media centre - ie the machine would be used to serve TV programmes, music, films and photos - partly due to its small, living room friendly design. But there are obvious reasons why this is not the case - at least not in the here and now The hard drive - at 80GB for the larger model - is too small to be realistically used as media centre.

While commercial Personal Video Recorders are on the market with smaller than 80GB hard drives it is worth remembering that they only store TV content. A media centre computer has to store music, files and photos and as such 80GB just seems too small. Most PCs running Windows Media Center have at least 120GB hard disks. Coupled with the lack of a TV tuner card, a digital audio out and any kind of media centre software bundled with the machine then the Mac Mini should be judged on what it is, not what it is not. But that has not stopped more enterprising users from adapting the Mac Mini to media centre uses. So - is the Mac Mini just another computer or a revolution in computing? Graham Barlow, editor of Mac Format, understandably has a rather partisan viewpoint. ""It's just a Mac, but we should be very excited - it's revolutionary in its size (smaller than PCs), looks (looks better than PCs), and the fact that it's the first Mac designed to really go for the low-cost PC market."" The design of the Mac Mini is further evidence of a future when PCs are more than just bland, bulky boxes. There are a number of companies who already produce miniature PCs based on mini-ITX motherboards. But at the moment these PCs tend to be either for the home-build enthusiast or expensive pre-built options based around Microsoft's Media Center software. But for the value the Mac Mini offers, bringing some of the best software packages within reach of more consumers than ever before, Apple is to be congratulated. Let us say then that if the Mac Mini is not a fully fledged revolution - it is a mini revolution.
","Another user has mounted his Mac Mini to the back of his large plasma screen and then controls the computer via a wireless keyboard and mouse.So - is the Mac Mini just another computer or a revolution in computing?But that has not stopped more enterprising users from adapting the Mac Mini to media centre uses.There is more to be said on the computer's size and design but it is worth highlighting that the Mac Mini is a just a computer.The Mac Mini comes bundled with Mac OS X, the operating system, as well as iLife 05, a suite of software which includes iTunes, web browser Safari, iPhoto, Garage Band and iDVD.The design of the Mac Mini is further evidence of a future when PCs are more than just bland, bulky boxes.One user has already created a ""dock"" to enable him to plug in and out his Mac Mini in his car.For people who want to do interesting things with their music, photos and home movies then a Mac Mini is an ideal first computer or companion to a main computer.Coupled with the lack of a TV tuner card, a digital audio out and any kind of media centre software bundled with the machine then the Mac Mini should be judged on what it is, not what it is not.Let us say then that if the Mac Mini is not a fully fledged revolution - it is a mini revolution.""It's just a Mac, but we should be very excited - it's revolutionary in its size (smaller than PCs), looks (looks better than PCs), and the fact that it's the first Mac designed to really go for the low-cost PC market.""Let us get a few things dealt with at the outset - yes, the Mac Mini is really, really small, and yes, it is another piece of inspired Apple design.But for the value the Mac Mini offers, bringing some of the best software packages within reach of more consumers than ever before, Apple is to be congratulated.A media centre computer has to store music, files and photos and as such 80GB just seems too small."
"Can Yahoo dominate next decade?

Yahoo has reached the grand old age of 10 and, in internet years, that is a long time.

For many, Yahoo remains synonymous with the internet - a veteran that managed to ride the dot-com wave and the subsequent crash and maintain itself as one of the web's top brands. But for others there is another, newer net icon threatening to overshadow Yahoo in the post dot-com world - Google.

The veteran and the upstart have plenty in common - Yahoo was the first internet firm to offer initial public shares and Google was arguably the most watched IPO (Initial Public Offering) of the post-dot-com era. Both began life as search engines although in 2000, when Yahoo chose Google to power its search facility while it concentrated on its web portal business, it was very much Yahoo that commanded press attention. In recent years, the column inches have stacked up in Google's favour as the search engine also diversifies with the launch of services such as Gmail, its shopping channel Froogle and Google News.

For Jupiter analyst Olivier Beauvillain, Yahoo's initial decision to put its investment on search on hold was an error. ""Yahoo was busy building a portal and while it was good to diversify they made a big mistake in outsourcing search to Google,"" he said ""They thought Google would just be a technology provider but it has become a portal in its own right and a direct competitor,"" he added. He believes Yahoo failed to see how crucial search would become to internet users, something it has rediscovered in recent years. ""It is interesting that in these last few years, it has refocused on search following the success of Google,"" he said. But for Allen Weiner, a research director at analyst firm Gartner and someone who has followed Yahoo's progress since the early years, the future of search is not going to be purely about the technology powering it. ""Search technology is valuable but the next generation of search is going to be about premium content and the interface that users have to that content,"" he said. He believes the rivalry between Google and Yahoo is overblown and instead thinks the real battle is going to be between Yahoo and MSN. It is a battle that Yahoo is currently winning, he believes. ""Microsoft has amazing assets including software capability and a global name but it has yet to show me it can create a rival product to Yahoo,"" he said.

He is convinced Yahoo remains the single most important brand on the world wide web.

""I believe Yahoo is the seminal brand on the web. If you are looking for a text book definition of web portal then Yahoo is it,"" he said. It has achieved this dominance, Mr Weiner believes, by a canny combination of acquisitions such as that of Inktomi and Overture, and by avoiding direct involvement in either content creation or internet access. That is not to say that Yahoo hasn't had its dark days. When the dot-com bubble burst, it lost one-third of its revenue in a single year, bore a succession of losses and saw its market value fall from a peak of $120bn to $4.6bn at one point. Crucial to its survival was the decision to replace chief executive Tim Koogle with Terry Semel in May 2001, thinks Mr Weiner. His business savvy, coupled with the technical genius of founder Jerry Yang has proved a winning combination, he says.

So as the internet giant emerges from its first decade as a survivor, how will it fare as it enters its teenage years? ""The game is theirs to lose and MSN is the only one that stands in the way of Yahoo's domination,"" predicted Mr Weiner. Nick Hazel, Yahoo's head of consumer services in the UK, thinks the fact that Yahoo has grown up with the first wave of the internet generation will stand it in good stead. Search will be a key focus as will making Yahoo Messenger available on mobiles, forging new broadband partnerships such as that with BT in the UK and continuing to provide a range of services beyond the desktop, he says. Mr Weiner thinks Yahoo's vision of becoming the ultimate gateway to the web will move increasing towards movies and television as more and more people get broadband access. ""It will spread its portal wings to expand into rich media,"" he predicts.
","Both began life as search engines although in 2000, when Yahoo chose Google to power its search facility while it concentrated on its web portal business, it was very much Yahoo that commanded press attention.He believes Yahoo failed to see how crucial search would become to internet users, something it has rediscovered in recent years.""Yahoo was busy building a portal and while it was good to diversify they made a big mistake in outsourcing search to Google,"" he said ""They thought Google would just be a technology provider but it has become a portal in its own right and a direct competitor,"" he added.He believes the rivalry between Google and Yahoo is overblown and instead thinks the real battle is going to be between Yahoo and MSN.Yahoo has reached the grand old age of 10 and, in internet years, that is a long time.Nick Hazel, Yahoo's head of consumer services in the UK, thinks the fact that Yahoo has grown up with the first wave of the internet generation will stand it in good stead.If you are looking for a text book definition of web portal then Yahoo is it,"" he said.""I believe Yahoo is the seminal brand on the web.""It is interesting that in these last few years, it has refocused on search following the success of Google,"" he said.He is convinced Yahoo remains the single most important brand on the world wide web.It is a battle that Yahoo is currently winning, he believes.""Microsoft has amazing assets including software capability and a global name but it has yet to show me it can create a rival product to Yahoo,"" he said."
"Looks and music to drive mobiles

Mobile phones are still enjoying a boom time in sales, according to research from technology analysts Gartner.

More than 674 million mobiles were sold last year globally, said the report, the highest total sold to date. The figure was 30% more than in 2003 and surpassed even the most optimistic predictions, Gartner said. Good design and the look of a mobile, as well as new services such as music downloads, could go some way to pushing up sales in 2005, said analysts. Although people were still looking for better replacement phones, there was evidence, according to Gartner, that some markets were seeing a slow-down in replacement sales.

""All the markets grew apart from Japan which shows that replacement sales are continuing in western Europe,"" mobile analyst Carolina Milanesi told the BBC News website. ""Japan is where north America and western European markets can be in a couple of years' time. ""They already have TV, music, ringtones, cameras, and all that we can think of on mobiles, so people have stopped buying replacement phones.""

But there could be a slight slowdown in sales in European and US markets too, according to Gartner, as people wait to see what comes next in mobile technology. This means mobile companies have to think carefully about what they are offering in new models so that people see a compelling reason to upgrade, said Gartner. Third generation mobiles (3G) with the ability to handle large amounts of data transfer, like video, could drive people into upgrading their phones, but Ms Milanesi said it was difficult to say how quickly that would happen. ""At the end of the day, people have cameras and colour screens on mobiles and for the majority of people out there who don't really care about technology the speed of data to a phone is not critical."" Nor would the rush to produce two or three megapixel camera phones be a reason for mobile owners to upgrade on its own. The majority of camera phone models are not at the stage where they can compete with digital cameras which also have flashes and zooms.

More likely to drive sales in 2005 would be the attention to design and aesthetics, as well as music services. The Motorola Razr V3 phone was typical of the attention to design that would be more commonplace in 2005, she added. This was not a ""women's thing"", she said, but a desire from men and women to have a gadget that is a form of self-expression too. It was not just about how the phone functioned, but about what it said about its owner. ""Western Europe has always been a market which is quite attentive to design,"" said Ms Milanesi.

""People are after something that is nice-looking, and together with that, there is the entertainment side. ""This year music will have a part to play in this."" The market for full-track music downloads was worth just $20 million (£10.5 million) in 2004, but is set to be worth $1.8 billion (£94 million) by 2009, according to Juniper Research. Sony Ericsson just released its Walkman branded mobile phone, the W800, which combines a digital music player with up to 30 hours' battery life, and a two megapixel camera. In July last year, Motorola and Apple announced a version of iTunes online music downloading service would be released which would be compatible with Motorola mobile phones. Apple said the new iTunes music player would become Motorola's standard music application for its music phones. But the challenge will be balancing storage capacity with battery life if mobile music hopes to compete with digital music players like the iPod. Ms Milanesi said more models would likely be released in the coming year with hard drives. But they would be more likely to compete with the smaller capacity music players that have around four gigabyte storage capacity, which would not put too much strain on battery life.
","Apple said the new iTunes music player would become Motorola's standard music application for its music phones.Third generation mobiles (3G) with the ability to handle large amounts of data transfer, like video, could drive people into upgrading their phones, but Ms Milanesi said it was difficult to say how quickly that would happen.Good design and the look of a mobile, as well as new services such as music downloads, could go some way to pushing up sales in 2005, said analysts.In July last year, Motorola and Apple announced a version of iTunes online music downloading service would be released which would be compatible with Motorola mobile phones.But the challenge will be balancing storage capacity with battery life if mobile music hopes to compete with digital music players like the iPod.Sony Ericsson just released its Walkman branded mobile phone, the W800, which combines a digital music player with up to 30 hours' battery life, and a two megapixel camera.This means mobile companies have to think carefully about what they are offering in new models so that people see a compelling reason to upgrade, said Gartner.It was not just about how the phone functioned, but about what it said about its owner.But there could be a slight slowdown in sales in European and US markets too, according to Gartner, as people wait to see what comes next in mobile technology.Nor would the rush to produce two or three megapixel camera phones be a reason for mobile owners to upgrade on its own.Ms Milanesi said more models would likely be released in the coming year with hard drives.More likely to drive sales in 2005 would be the attention to design and aesthetics, as well as music services."
"Hotspot users gain free net calls

People using wireless net hotspots will soon be able to make free phone calls as well as surf the net.

Wireless provider Broadreach and net telephony firm Skype are rolling out a service at 350 hotspots around the UK this week. Users will need a Skype account - downloadable for free - and they will then be able to make net calls via wi-fi without paying for net access. Skype allows people to make free PC-based calls to other Skype users.

Users of the system can also make calls to landlines and mobiles for a fee. The system is gaining in popularity and now has 28 million users around the world. Its paid service - dubbed Skype Out - has so far attracted 940,000 users. It plans to add more paid services with forthcoming launches of video conferencing, voice mail and Skype In, a service which would allow users to receive phone calls from landlines and mobiles. London-based software developer Connectotel has unveiled software that will expand the SMS functions of Skype, allowing users to send text messages to mobile phones from the service. Broadreach Networks has around two million users and hotspots in places such as Virgin Megastores, the Travelodge chain of hotels and all London's major rail terminals. The company is due to launch wi-fi on Virgin Trains later in the year. ""Skype's success at spreading the world about internet telephony is well-known and we are delighted to be offering free access to Skype users in our hotspots,"" commented Broadreach chief executive Magnus McEwen-King.
","Skype allows people to make free PC-based calls to other Skype users.Users will need a Skype account - downloadable for free - and they will then be able to make net calls via wi-fi without paying for net access.Its paid service - dubbed Skype Out - has so far attracted 940,000 users.Wireless provider Broadreach and net telephony firm Skype are rolling out a service at 350 hotspots around the UK this week.It plans to add more paid services with forthcoming launches of video conferencing, voice mail and Skype In, a service which would allow users to receive phone calls from landlines and mobiles."
"Domain system opens door to scams

A system to make it easier to create website addresses using alphabets like Cyrillic could open a back door for scammers, a trade body has warned.

The Internationalised Domain Names system has been a work in progress for years and has recently been approved by the Internet Engineering Task Force. But the UK Internet Forum (UKIF) is concerned that the system will let scammers create fake sites more easily. The problem lies in the computer codes used to represent language.

Registering names that look like that of legitimate companies but lead users to fake sites designed to steal passwords and credit card details could become a whole lot easier for determined scammers, says Stephen Dyer, director of UKIF. Domain names are the ""real language"" addresses of websites, rather than their internet protocol address, which is a series of numbers. They are used so people can more easily navigate the web. So-called ASCII codes are used to represent European languages but for other languages a hybrid of a system called Unicode is used. So, for example, website PayPal could now be coded using a mixture of the Latin alphabet and the Russian alphabet. The resulting domain as displayed to the users would look identical to the real site as a Russian 'a' look just like an English 'a'. But the computer code would be different, and the site it would lead users to could be a fake. This is more than just a theory. A fake Paypal.com has already been registered with net domain giant Verisign by someone who has followed the debate around the Internationalised Domain Name (IDN) system, said Mr Dyer. As the idea was to prove a point rather than be malicious the fake domain has now been handed back to Paypal but it sets a worrying precedent, Mr Dyer said. ""Although the IDN problem is well known in technical circles, the commercial world is totally unaware how easily their websites can be faked,"" said Mr Dyer.

""It is important to alert users that there is a new and invisible and almost undetectable way of diverting them to what looks like a perfectly genuine site,"" he added. There are solutions. For instance, browsers could spot domains that use mixed characters and display them in different colours as a warning to users. Mr Dyer acknowledged that it would be a huge undertaking to update all the world's browsers. Another solution, to introduce IDN-disabled browsers could be a case of ""throwing out the baby with the bath water,"" he said. CENTR, the Council of European National Top Level Domain Registries, agrees. ""A rush to introduce IDN-disabled browsers into the marketplace is an overly-zealous step that will harm public confidence in IDNs - a technology that is desperately needed in the non-English speaking world,"" the organisation said in a statement.
","A fake Paypal.com has already been registered with net domain giant Verisign by someone who has followed the debate around the Internationalised Domain Name (IDN) system, said Mr Dyer.But the computer code would be different, and the site it would lead users to could be a fake.As the idea was to prove a point rather than be malicious the fake domain has now been handed back to Paypal but it sets a worrying precedent, Mr Dyer said.The resulting domain as displayed to the users would look identical to the real site as a Russian 'a' look just like an English 'a'.A system to make it easier to create website addresses using alphabets like Cyrillic could open a back door for scammers, a trade body has warned.Registering names that look like that of legitimate companies but lead users to fake sites designed to steal passwords and credit card details could become a whole lot easier for determined scammers, says Stephen Dyer, director of UKIF.So-called ASCII codes are used to represent European languages but for other languages a hybrid of a system called Unicode is used.But the UK Internet Forum (UKIF) is concerned that the system will let scammers create fake sites more easily.The Internationalised Domain Names system has been a work in progress for years and has recently been approved by the Internet Engineering Task Force."
"Sony PSP tipped as a 'must-have'

Sony's Playstation Portable is the top UK gadget for 2005, according to a round-up of ultimate gizmos compiled by Stuff Magazine.

It beats the iPod into second place in the Top Ten Essentials list which predicts what gadget-lovers are likely to covet this year. Owning all 10 gadgets will set the gadget lover back £7,455. That is £1,000 cheaper than last year's list due to falling manufacturing costs making gadgets more affordable.

Portable gadgets dominate the list, including Sharp's 902 3G mobile phone, the Pentax Optio SV digital camera and Samsung's Yepp YH-999 video jukebox.

""What this year's Essentials shows is that gadgets are now cheaper, sexier and more indispensable than ever. We've got to the point where we can't live our lives without certain technology,"" said Adam Vaughan, editor of Stuff Essentials. The proliferation of gadgets in our homes is inexorably altering the role of the high street in our lives thinks Mr Vaughan. ""Take digital cameras, who would now pay to develop an entire film of photos? Or legitimate downloads, who would travel miles to a record shop when they could download the song in minutes for 70p?"" he asks. Next year will see a new set of technologies capturing the imaginations of gadget lovers, Stuff predicts. The Xbox 2, high-definition TV and MP3 mobiles will be among the list of must-haves that will dominate 2006, it says. The spring launch of the PSP in the UK is eagerly awaited by gaming fans.
","Owning all 10 gadgets will set the gadget lover back £7,455.Portable gadgets dominate the list, including Sharp's 902 3G mobile phone, the Pentax Optio SV digital camera and Samsung's Yepp YH-999 video jukebox.""What this year's Essentials shows is that gadgets are now cheaper, sexier and more indispensable than ever.Next year will see a new set of technologies capturing the imaginations of gadget lovers, Stuff predicts.That is £1,000 cheaper than last year's list due to falling manufacturing costs making gadgets more affordable.Sony's Playstation Portable is the top UK gadget for 2005, according to a round-up of ultimate gizmos compiled by Stuff Magazine."
"'No re-draft' for EU patent law

A proposed European law on software patents will not be re-drafted by the European Commission (EC) despite requests by MEPs.

The law is proving controversial and has been in limbo for a year. Some major tech firms say it is needed to protect inventions, while others fear it will hurt smaller tech firms. The EC says the Council of Ministers will adopt a draft version that was agreed upon last May but said it would review ""all aspects of the directive"". The directive is intended to offer patent protection to inventions that use software to achieve their effect, in other words, ""computer implemented invention"".

In a letter, EC President José Manuel Barroso told the President of the European Parliament, Josep Borrell, that the Commission ""did not intend to refer a new proposal to the Parliament and the Council (of ministers)"" as it had supported the agreement reached by ministers in May 2004.

If the European Council agrees on the draft directive it will then return for a second reading at the European Parliament. But that will not guarantee that the directive will become law - instead it will probably mean further delays and controversy over the directive. Most EU legislation now needs the approval of both parliament and the Council of Ministers before it becomes law. French Green MEP Alain Lipietz warned two weeks ago that if the Commission ignored the Parliament's request it would be an ""insult"" to the assembly. He said that the parliament would then reject the Council's version of the legislation as part of the final or conciliation stage of the decision procedure. In the US, the patenting of computer programs and internet business methods is permitted.

This means that the US-based Amazon.com holds a patent for its ""one-click shopping"" service, for example. Critics are concerned that the directive could lead to a similar model happening in Europe. This, they fear, could hurt small software developers because they do not have the legal and financial might of larger companies if they had to fight patent legal action in court. Supporters say current laws are inefficient and it would serve to even up a playing field without bringing EU laws in line with the US.
","A proposed European law on software patents will not be re-drafted by the European Commission (EC) despite requests by MEPs.But that will not guarantee that the directive will become law - instead it will probably mean further delays and controversy over the directive.The EC says the Council of Ministers will adopt a draft version that was agreed upon last May but said it would review ""all aspects of the directive"".Supporters say current laws are inefficient and it would serve to even up a playing field without bringing EU laws in line with the US.If the European Council agrees on the draft directive it will then return for a second reading at the European Parliament.Most EU legislation now needs the approval of both parliament and the Council of Ministers before it becomes law."
"Ultra fast wi-fi nears completion

Ultra high speed wi-fi connections moved closer to reality on Thursday when Intel said it would list standards for the technology later this year.

Intel is developing ultra-wideband technology (UWB) which would allow fast data transfer but with low power needs. UWB is tipped to be used for wireless transfer of video in the home or office and for use in wireless USB devices which need low power consumption. A rival UWB standard is being developed by Motorola and chip firm Freescale. At the mobile phone conference 3GSM in Cannes last month Samsung demonstrated a phone using UWB technology from Freescale.

At a press conference on Thursday Intel announced that two UWB groups, WiMedia Alliance and Multi-band OFDM alliance had merged to support the technology. UWB makes it possible to stream huge amounts of data through the air over short distances. One of the more likely uses of UWB is to make it possible to send DVD quality video images wirelessly to TV screens or to let people beam music to media players around their home.

The technology has the potential to transmit hundreds of megabits of data per second. ""Consumer electronics companies want UWB to replace cables and simplify set-up,"" Jeff Ravencraft, technology strategist at Intel and chairman of the Wireless USB Promoter Group, told technology site ZDNet. ""Thirty percent of consumer electronics returns are because the consumer couldn't set up the equipment."" The first products using UWB technology from Intel are due to hit the market later this year. Initially they will be products using wireless USB 2.0 connections. UWB could also be used to create so-called Personal Area Networks that let a person's gadgets quickly and easily swap data amongst themselves. The technology works over a range up to 10 metres and uses billions of short radio pulses every second to carry data. Intel says the benefit of UWB is that it does not interfere with other wi-fi technologies already in use such as wi-fi, wimax and mobile phone networks.
","""Consumer electronics companies want UWB to replace cables and simplify set-up,"" Jeff Ravencraft, technology strategist at Intel and chairman of the Wireless USB Promoter Group, told technology site ZDNet.The first products using UWB technology from Intel are due to hit the market later this year.Intel is developing ultra-wideband technology (UWB) which would allow fast data transfer but with low power needs.Intel says the benefit of UWB is that it does not interfere with other wi-fi technologies already in use such as wi-fi, wimax and mobile phone networks.At the mobile phone conference 3GSM in Cannes last month Samsung demonstrated a phone using UWB technology from Freescale.At a press conference on Thursday Intel announced that two UWB groups, WiMedia Alliance and Multi-band OFDM alliance had merged to support the technology.UWB is tipped to be used for wireless transfer of video in the home or office and for use in wireless USB devices which need low power consumption."
"Virgin Radio offers 3G broadcast

UK broadcaster Virgin Radio says it will become the first station in the world to offer radio via 3G mobiles.

The radio station, in partnership with technology firm Sydus, will broadcast on selected 2G and high-speed 3G networks. Later this year listeners will be able to download software from the Virgin website which enables the service. James Cridland, head of new media at Virgin Radio, said: ""It places radio at the heart of the 3G revolution."" Virgin Radio will be the first station made available followed by two digital stations, Virgin Radio Classic Rock and Virgin Radio Groove.

Mr Cridland said: ""This application will enable anyone, anywhere to listen to Virgin Radio simply with the phone in their pocket. ""This allows us to tap into a huge new audience and keep radio relevant for a new generation of listeners."" Saumil Nanavati, president of Sydus, said, ""This radio player is what the 3G network was built for, giving consumers high-quality and high-data products through a handset in their pocket."" Virgin says an hour's listening to the station via mobile would involve about 7.2MB of data, which could prove expensive for people using pay as you download GPRS or 3G services. Some networks, such as Orange, charge up to £1 for every one megabyte of data downloaded. Virgin says radio via 2G or 3G mobiles is therefore going to appeal to people with unlimited download deals. There are 30 compatible handsets available from major manufacturers including Nokia and Samsung while Virgin said more than 14.9 million consumers across the globe can use the service currently.
","James Cridland, head of new media at Virgin Radio, said: ""It places radio at the heart of the 3G revolution.""UK broadcaster Virgin Radio says it will become the first station in the world to offer radio via 3G mobiles.Virgin Radio will be the first station made available followed by two digital stations, Virgin Radio Classic Rock and Virgin Radio Groove.Virgin says radio via 2G or 3G mobiles is therefore going to appeal to people with unlimited download deals.The radio station, in partnership with technology firm Sydus, will broadcast on selected 2G and high-speed 3G networks."
"More movies head to Sony's PSP

Movies Open Water and Saw are among those to be made available for Sony's PSP games console.

Film studio Lions Gate entertainment has announced an initial list of 12 movies that will be on the UMD format used by the handheld. ""The typical buyer of the machine [is] the core demographic to whom our films generally appeal,"" said Steve Beeks, president of Lions Gate. Already available in Japan, the PSP is released in the US on 24 March. Spider-Man 2 on UMD will be given to the first million customers in the US.

The Punisher and House of the Dead along with older titles such as Total Recall and Rambo: First Blood, will be in the UMD format, with disks costing between $20 (£10.40) to $30 (£15.60) for new titles and $10 (£5.20) to $20 for older films.

""When we first saw the machine and started talking to Sony, we immediately decided it was going to be a winner, both from the gaming perspective and from the perspective of people watching movies on the go,"" Mr Beeks said. The disks, which are smaller than DVDs, only work in Sony's PSP and can hold up to 1.8GB of data. ""We actually believe people who buy the UMD would not have bought it on DVD,"" he said. ""There are people who will want UMD because of the portability. Maybe they're already taking the games with them out of the house, and they're bigger gamers than they are movie watchers."" Four movies have already been announced for PSP. They are: XXX, Hellboy, Resident Evil: Apocalypse and Once Upon a Time in Mexico.
","Four movies have already been announced for PSP.Film studio Lions Gate entertainment has announced an initial list of 12 movies that will be on the UMD format used by the handheld.Already available in Japan, the PSP is released in the US on 24 March.""There are people who will want UMD because of the portability.""We actually believe people who buy the UMD would not have bought it on DVD,"" he said.""When we first saw the machine and started talking to Sony, we immediately decided it was going to be a winner, both from the gaming perspective and from the perspective of people watching movies on the go,"" Mr Beeks said."
"Warnings on woeful wi-fi security

Companies are getting worse at keeping their wireless data networks secure.

A survey of wi-fi networks in London, Frankfurt, New York and San Francisco by RSA Security found more than a third had basic security features turned off. By contrast last year's survey found that 15% of firms had failed to take basic steps to improve security. RSA warned that wi-fi's growing popularity made it much more likely that insecure networks would be found and exploited.

Wireless or wi-fi networks have become hugely popular over the last few years in offices because they are easy to set up and make going online much more convenient. This popularity shows no sign of slowing reveals the annual RSA Security and NetSurity survey which found an annual 66% growth rate in the number of wireless nets being installed in London and Frankfurt. Although most firms do take steps to turn on the security functions built in to the wi-fi standard and protect themselves from attack, the survey found that a significant proportion were taking unnecessary risks. On average 33% of the wireless networks found by RSA and NetSurity researchers in London, Frankfurt, New York and San Francisco had not used basic security systems. Many firms were simply turning on their wireless net access points and use default settings that anyone familiar with wi-fi could easily find out. RSA said that 26% of wi-fi networks found London used default settings compared to 30% in Frankfurt, 31% in New York and 28% in San Francisco. Many users of wi-fi nets did not even turn on the encryption that scrambles data traffic between users and the access point helping them go online. This is despite a series of stories warning firms about the dangers of ""drive-by hacking"" in which computer criminals walk or drive around city centres using easy to use tools to spot wi-fi nets. ""These figures are another stark warning to unsecured businesses to get their act together,"" said Phil Cracknell, chief technology officer at NetSurity. As more public wi-fi hotspots appear and people become more familiar with using them, it was getting more likely that insecure would be found, warned Mr Cracknell. ""Accidental or intentional connection to a corporate network can bring with it a series of security issues including loss of confidential data and installation of malicious code,"" he said.
","A survey of wi-fi networks in London, Frankfurt, New York and San Francisco by RSA Security found more than a third had basic security features turned off.On average 33% of the wireless networks found by RSA and NetSurity researchers in London, Frankfurt, New York and San Francisco had not used basic security systems.RSA said that 26% of wi-fi networks found London used default settings compared to 30% in Frankfurt, 31% in New York and 28% in San Francisco.This popularity shows no sign of slowing reveals the annual RSA Security and NetSurity survey which found an annual 66% growth rate in the number of wireless nets being installed in London and Frankfurt.Although most firms do take steps to turn on the security functions built in to the wi-fi standard and protect themselves from attack, the survey found that a significant proportion were taking unnecessary risks.By contrast last year's survey found that 15% of firms had failed to take basic steps to improve security."
"Cebit opens to mobile music tune

Cebit, the world's largest hi-tech fair, has opened its doors in Hanover for a look at the latest technologies for homes and businesses.

There are more than 6,000 exhibitors registered and about 500,000 visitors are expected to pass through the doors. Third generation mobiles, the digital home and broadband are key themes at the show. Camera phones will get better resolutions as vendors set out to prove that bigger is definitely better. Samsung is set to steal some initial limelight with the launch of a 7-megapixel phone on the opening day.

The SCH-V770 has some of the features of high-end digital single lens reflex cameras such as manual focus and the ability to attach a telephoto or wide-angle lens. Camera phones are likely to prove an interesting battle ground at the show, said Ben Wood, principal analyst at research firm Gartner. ""It is firmly established that cameras are an integral part of phones and now the technology arms race is on in terms of megapixels. There will be a certain amount of 'look how big mine is',"" he said. There will also be increasing focus on music-enabled mobiles. ""At 3GSM in Cannes everyone went music mad and music is going to be a big theme for all the vendors at Cebit,"" said Mr Wood. Sony Ericsson will use the fair to show off the W800 - its recently unveiled Walkman branded phone - and there is speculation that Motorola may unveil its ROKR handset, widely tipped as the first to carry Apple's iTunes music software. Apple and Motorola announced they were getting together at the end of last year as a result of a long-standing friendship between Motorola's chief executive Ed Zander and Steve Jobs.

Some analysts think Motorola may save the launch for CTIA, a wireless show in America the following week, which could be a telling sign about how operators are coming to view the German tech fair.

""One of the interesting things is that CeBIT is clearly a show in decline,"" said Mr Wood. ""A lot of the big players, such as Nokia, are pulling back saying it is hard to justify a big presence at all of the shows. It could be the last big year for Cebit,"" he said. Other themes include TV-enabled mobiles which are bound to create a buzz in the halls as Vodafone unveils a prototype handset that can show live digital television. There has been a glut of recent headlines about mobile TV - French operators are teaming up, O2 is trialling a system in Oxford, UK, and Nokia begins trialling a system in Finland with the Finnish Broadcasting Company, YLE TV and commercial TV channels. Cebit could become the battleground for the two competing methods for getting TV on to mobiles, and is also likely to provide a stage for a technology slated to compete with 3G. HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Access) has been described as ""3G on steroids"" and could offer consumers much faster download times. For instance, a song which currently takes one and a half minutes to download to a phone could be done in 10 seconds. Korean giants LG Electronics and Samsung will show off HSDPA handsets at the show and the technology is set to be rolled out in the US, Europe and Korea next year. Broadband will continue to be a key theme at the show with internet telephony proving this year's killer application.

Germany's largest online service provider, T-Online, is tipped to reveal software for low-cost net telephony which would see it competing with its parent company Deutsche Telekom. Cebit is used by many to unveil cutting edge products and in the mobile sphere this is likely to mean a lot of bright, colourful handsets as fashion continues to compete with technology when it comes to the device everyone has in their pockets. Rainbow-coloured phones, influenced by handsets from Japan, are just one example of how Asian companies will stamp their mark on this year's show, at which they will have their biggest ever presence. Cebit organisers have created a digital home in Hall 25 of the 27 hangar-like buildings that will house the show. ""The digital home will be a hyped theme at the show. The house will be totally wired and full of things that can be used for home entertainment,"" said Cebit organiser Gabriele Dorries.
","""The digital home will be a hyped theme at the show.It could be the last big year for Cebit,"" he said.Third generation mobiles, the digital home and broadband are key themes at the show.""One of the interesting things is that CeBIT is clearly a show in decline,"" said Mr Wood.Cebit organisers have created a digital home in Hall 25 of the 27 hangar-like buildings that will house the show.Camera phones are likely to prove an interesting battle ground at the show, said Ben Wood, principal analyst at research firm Gartner.Korean giants LG Electronics and Samsung will show off HSDPA handsets at the show and the technology is set to be rolled out in the US, Europe and Korea next year.""At 3GSM in Cannes everyone went music mad and music is going to be a big theme for all the vendors at Cebit,"" said Mr Wood.Cebit could become the battleground for the two competing methods for getting TV on to mobiles, and is also likely to provide a stage for a technology slated to compete with 3G.Other themes include TV-enabled mobiles which are bound to create a buzz in the halls as Vodafone unveils a prototype handset that can show live digital television.Cebit, the world's largest hi-tech fair, has opened its doors in Hanover for a look at the latest technologies for homes and businesses.Sony Ericsson will use the fair to show off the W800 - its recently unveiled Walkman branded phone - and there is speculation that Motorola may unveil its ROKR handset, widely tipped as the first to carry Apple's iTunes music software."
"Game makers get Xbox 2 sneak peek

Microsoft has given game makers a glimpse of the new Xbox 2 console.

Some details of the Xbox's performance and what gaming will be like with the device were given at the annual Game Developers Conference in the US. Xbox frontman J. Allard said the console looked set to be capable of one trillion calculations per second. Also all titles for the new Xbox will have the same interface to make it easy to play online and buy extras for characters or other add-ons for games.

Microsoft is saving the official unveiling of the Xbox 2, codenamed Xenon, for the E3 show in May and the device could be on shop shelves by November. However, during his keynote speech at GDC Mr Allard, who heads development of game-making tools for the console, gave a glimpse into how some of its core software will work. He said gaming was entering a ""high-definition"" era that demanded detailed and convincing graphics that could adequately compete with the HDTV people were starting to watch as well as the HD DVDs that will soon start to appear.

Industry watchers took this to mean that the Xbox 2 will push for HDTV quality graphics as standard as well as multi-channel audio to give gamers an authentic experience. Mr Allard said Microsoft had to work hard to ensure that it was easy for game makers to produce titles for the Xbox 2 and for players to get playing. To this end Microsoft was building in to Xbox hardware systems to support headset chat, buddy list controls and custom soundtracks so developers were free to concentrate on the games. The Xbox would also support well-known industry specifications, such as DirectX, to make it simple for game studios to make titles for the console. For gamers this emphasis on ease of use would mean every Xbox title uses the same interface to set up online play and get at music stored on the hardware. This interface will hold details of a player's statistics and skill level on a ""gamer card"" as well as give access to a store where people can spend small amounts of cash to buy extras for their avatars or add-ons, such as new maps or vehicles, for games they possess. This ability to personalise games and in-game characters would be key in the future, said Mr Allard. Only with such consistency would the Xbox be able to support the 10-20 million subscribers that it was aiming for, said Mr Allard. During his speech Mr Allard took several swipes at the Playstation and said processors for consoles had to be made with developers, not just engineers, in mind. ""Our approach is Bruce Lee, not brute force,"" he said.
","Mr Allard said Microsoft had to work hard to ensure that it was easy for game makers to produce titles for the Xbox 2 and for players to get playing.Only with such consistency would the Xbox be able to support the 10-20 million subscribers that it was aiming for, said Mr Allard.Microsoft has given game makers a glimpse of the new Xbox 2 console.The Xbox would also support well-known industry specifications, such as DirectX, to make it simple for game studios to make titles for the console.This ability to personalise games and in-game characters would be key in the future, said Mr Allard.Xbox frontman J. Allard said the console looked set to be capable of one trillion calculations per second.Also all titles for the new Xbox will have the same interface to make it easy to play online and buy extras for characters or other add-ons for games."
"Broadband set to revolutionise TV

BT is starting its push into television with plans to offer TV over broadband.

As a telecoms company, BT is moving to a content distribution strategy, Andrew Burke, chief of BT's new Entertainment unit told the IPTV World Forum. ""We want to be an entertainment facilitator,"" he said on the opening day of the London conference. The BBC is also trialling a service to play programmes over the net and has not ruled out offering it to non-licence fee payers overseas. The corporation's Interactive Media Player (iMP) is its first foray into broadband TV - known as IPTV (Internet Protocol TV).

""We see several opportunities for delivering the type of content that normally broadcasters find it difficult to get to viewers,"" said BT's Andrew Burke.

With more people on broadband, and connection speeds increasing, telcos around the world are looking for new ways to make money from it. Increased competition between net service providers, encouraged by Ofcom, has eroded BT's position in the market. It is looking for a good return on its investment in the technology which has made broadband over ADSL a reality. It also sees delivering TV over broadband as a way of getting high-definition (HD) content to people sooner than they will be able to get it through conventional, regular broadcasts. The BBC's iMP has just finished successful technical trials and is set for much larger consumer trials later in 2005. Before it officially launches, the BBC must show the government how it offers value for money. Delivering programmes over broadband offers clear public value, says the BBC, because it gives people more control, and more choice.

IPTV is a similar idea to VoIP services, like Skype. Both use broadband net connections to carry information, like video and voice, in packets of data instead of conventional means. Since it uses internet technology, IPTV could mean more choice of programmes, more, more interactivity, tailored programming, and more localised content outside of conventional satellite, digital cable, and terrestrial broadcasts.

It is all part of the larger changing TV technology landscape and, like personal digital video recorders (PVRs), gives people much more control over TV. Broadcasters see IPTV and PVRs as both as a threat and an opportunity. The BBC recognises that TV over broadband is a reality and aims to innovate with it, said Rahul Chakkara, controller of BBCi's 24/7 interactive TV services. The iMP is based on peer-to-peer technology, and lets people download programmes the BBC owns the rights to for up to seven days after broadcast. ""IPTV enables us to take back that programme to our audience at different times,"" said Mr Chakkara.

""So we can tell our audience that that programme they paid for [via the licence fee], they can access it any time they want."" It helps, said Mr Burke, that people are more au fait with terms like ""digital"", ""interactive"", now that digital TV reaches more than 56% of UK homes. According to Benoit Joly from broadband telecoms firm Thales, 30% of Europe cannot get satellite TV or digital TV. They could get IPTV though. Analysts say that IPTV will account for 10% of the digital TV market in Europe alone by the end of the decade. What needs to happen now, agree analysts, is for connection speeds to be bumped up to handle the service; 20Mbps connections would be ideal. BT does not see itself as a broadcaster of IPTV services, rather as an ""enabler"", said Mr Burke. Its strategy is a ""hybrid"" approach, he explained, where over-the-air conventional broadcasts are supplemented with content over broadband.

Initially appealing to niche markets, like sports fans, it will widen out. But IPTV could be used for home-monitoring, ""pet cams"", localised news services, and local authority TV, too says BT. It even suggests that it could target those households in the UK that do not own a computer, 40% of the country.

Broadband to them would not be about data and the net - that could come later for them - but about cheap phone calls and more choice of TV programmes. Home Choice already offers 10,000 hours of shows and channels, delivered over broadband to homes in London. With a broadband net subscription, you can also get your TV and phone service. Through content deals and partnerships, it offers satellite as well as terrestrial channels, and bespoke channels based on what viewers pick and choose from its catalogues. It aims to expand nationally, but is seeing a lot of success with what it offers its 15,000 subscribers now, and aims to double uptake as well as reach by the summer. Although still at a very early stage, IPTV is another application for broadband that underlines its growing prominence as a backbone network - another utility like electricity.
","With a broadband net subscription, you can also get your TV and phone service.The BBC recognises that TV over broadband is a reality and aims to innovate with it, said Rahul Chakkara, controller of BBCi's 24/7 interactive TV services.The corporation's Interactive Media Player (iMP) is its first foray into broadband TV - known as IPTV (Internet Protocol TV).It also sees delivering TV over broadband as a way of getting high-definition (HD) content to people sooner than they will be able to get it through conventional, regular broadcasts.According to Benoit Joly from broadband telecoms firm Thales, 30% of Europe cannot get satellite TV or digital TV.Broadband to them would not be about data and the net - that could come later for them - but about cheap phone calls and more choice of TV programmes.BT is starting its push into television with plans to offer TV over broadband.Delivering programmes over broadband offers clear public value, says the BBC, because it gives people more control, and more choice.It is all part of the larger changing TV technology landscape and, like personal digital video recorders (PVRs), gives people much more control over TV.It helps, said Mr Burke, that people are more au fait with terms like ""digital"", ""interactive"", now that digital TV reaches more than 56% of UK homes.But IPTV could be used for home-monitoring, ""pet cams"", localised news services, and local authority TV, too says BT.Analysts say that IPTV will account for 10% of the digital TV market in Europe alone by the end of the decade.BT does not see itself as a broadcaster of IPTV services, rather as an ""enabler"", said Mr Burke.They could get IPTV though.Since it uses internet technology, IPTV could mean more choice of programmes, more, more interactivity, tailored programming, and more localised content outside of conventional satellite, digital cable, and terrestrial broadcasts.Both use broadband net connections to carry information, like video and voice, in packets of data instead of conventional means."
"Chip maker backs net phone calls

Rich Templeton, the head of giant chip maker Texas Instruments, has given his backing to the growing sector of Voice over Internet Telephony (Voip)

Voip allows PC users, and in some cases those with just a broadband connection, to make telephone calls via the net. Mr Templeton said Voip would be the next major application to drive broadband connections into homes. Internet service provider Wanadoo has announced it is launching its own broadband telephony service in the UK.

Subscribers to Wanadoo's broadband service will be able to use the service to make free evening and weekend calls to any UK landline, and free calls at any time to other Wanadoo users. The service will cost an extra £4 a month and will come with a free Livebox, the broadband hub which Wanadoo plans will be used in future to provide video-on-demand and home security services. The secondary phone line will mean customers can have an extra home phone number and will also provide wireless internet access around the home. Eventually the service will replace existing landline services as Wanadoo goes head to head with BT. ""Voice-over broadband is a key trend across Europe and is set to have a dramatic impact on the telecommunications industry, "" Eric Abensur, Wanadoo's chief executive told the BBC News website. Mr Templeton said he agreed. ""Voice-over-packet is going to be the second killer application after broadband internet access,"" he said. The world's largest maker of chips for mobile phones believes the technology will grow rapidly from the relatively small user base it has currently.

Almost 83 million people have downloaded the software that powers the Skype Voip service, according to the net telephony firm's website. Skype lets people make free calls to other Skype users and also make low-cost calls to ordinary phone numbers. US firm Vonage also offers a Voip service, but one which lets people plug an ordinary phone into a broadband router to make calls. Bill Simmelink, general manager of TI's Voip business, said the technology would only take off when people were making net calls with the ease of making a normal call. ""It's not about the pipe, if you will, or the silicon per se, it's about the application,"" he said.

""We want to communicate freely, effortlessly and economically wherever we are."" In a sign that Voip is seeping into the mainstream, giant ISP AOL announced on Tuesday that it had plans to launch a net-based phone service for some of its members within the month. Customers will continue to use their traditional phones, but they will plug them into adapters connected to their broadband source rather than the jack provided by the telephone company. Calls are received and placed just like on the old telephone network. ""We can help mass-market adoption of Voip,"" said AOL chief executive Jonathan Miller. ""We can utilise our national footprint. We can help the entire industry become well known.""
","US firm Vonage also offers a Voip service, but one which lets people plug an ordinary phone into a broadband router to make calls.Rich Templeton, the head of giant chip maker Texas Instruments, has given his backing to the growing sector of Voice over Internet Telephony (Voip)  Voip allows PC users, and in some cases those with just a broadband connection, to make telephone calls via the net.Subscribers to Wanadoo's broadband service will be able to use the service to make free evening and weekend calls to any UK landline, and free calls at any time to other Wanadoo users.Internet service provider Wanadoo has announced it is launching its own broadband telephony service in the UK.Mr Templeton said Voip would be the next major application to drive broadband connections into homes.""Voice-over-packet is going to be the second killer application after broadband internet access,"" he said.The service will cost an extra £4 a month and will come with a free Livebox, the broadband hub which Wanadoo plans will be used in future to provide video-on-demand and home security services.Skype lets people make free calls to other Skype users and also make low-cost calls to ordinary phone numbers.Almost 83 million people have downloaded the software that powers the Skype Voip service, according to the net telephony firm's website.""We can help mass-market adoption of Voip,"" said AOL chief executive Jonathan Miller."
"Nintendo DS makes its Euro debut

Nintendo's DS handheld game console has officially gone on sale in Europe.

Many stores around the UK opened at midnight to let keen gamers get their hands on the device. The two-screen clamshell gadget costs £99 (149 euros) and 15 games are available for it at launch, some featuring well-known characters such as Super Mario and Rayman. The DS spearheads Nintendo's attempt to continue its dominance of the handheld gaming market.

Since going on sale in Japan and the US at the end of 2004, Nintendo has sold almost 4m DS consoles.

Part of this popularity may be due to the fact that the DS can run any of the catalogue of 700 games produced for Nintendo's GameBoy Advance handheld. Games for the DS are expected to cost between £19 and £29. About 130 games for the DS are in development.

As well as having two screens, one of which is controlled by touch, the DS also lets players take on up to 16 other people via wireless. A ""download play"" option means DS owners can take each other on even if only one of them owns a copy of a particular game. Other DS owners can also be sent text messages and drawings. Nintendo is also planning to release a media adapter for the handheld so it can play music and video. Five Virgin megastores and 150 Game shops were expected to open early on Friday morning to let people buy a DS. ""We know that customers want it as soon as it's released - and that means the minute, not the day,"" said Robert Quinn, Game's UK sales director.

But Nintendo will only have sole control of Europe's handheld gaming market for a few weeks because soon Sony is expected to release its PSP console. Although Nintendo is aiming for younger players and the PSP is more for older gamers, it is likely that the two firms will be competing for many of the same customers. Sony's PSP represents a real threat to Nintendo because of the huge number of PlayStation owners around the world and the greater flexibility of the sleek black gadget. The PSP uses small discs for games, can play music and movies without the need for add-ons and also supports short-range wireless play. When it goes on sale the PSP is likely to cost between £130 and £200.
","Nintendo's DS handheld game console has officially gone on sale in Europe.About 130 games for the DS are in development.Games for the DS are expected to cost between £19 and £29.A ""download play"" option means DS owners can take each other on even if only one of them owns a copy of a particular game.The DS spearheads Nintendo's attempt to continue its dominance of the handheld gaming market.Part of this popularity may be due to the fact that the DS can run any of the catalogue of 700 games produced for Nintendo's GameBoy Advance handheld.Five Virgin megastores and 150 Game shops were expected to open early on Friday morning to let people buy a DS.As well as having two screens, one of which is controlled by touch, the DS also lets players take on up to 16 other people via wireless."
"Slow start to speedy net services

Faster broadband in the UK is becoming a reality as more internet providers offer super-fast services.

Some lucky Britons can already take advantage of UK Online's 8 megabits per second service, which was launched in November 2004. BT Retail has announced that it will trial the same speed service, with a national rollout by year end. Other service providers are expected to follow suit and a glut of new voice and video services will follow.

""If the bandwidth is there then ISPs will buy it,"" said Jill Finger, a research director at analyst firm IDC. Others will be watching BT Retail's trials, which is initially for employees and later in the summer for customers, with interest. For BT Retail, she said, the super-fast service could be a way of differentiating it from other players. ""It has been losing market share and this could be one way of gaining some of that back,"" said Ms Finger. Wanadoo is set to trial an 8Mbps service in the summer and also plans to roll out unbundled services - which means it takes over the network from BT - which will provide speeds of up to 15Mbps. There is no timetable for this at the moment. Cable firms ntl and Telewest are also bound to increase bandwidth at some time in the future and, according to an ntl spokesman, are in a better position than BT in the long term. ""BT's network is limited compared to that of cable. With all the other services coming on stream such as video on demand, the question is will 8Mbps be enough?"" he asked.
","For BT Retail, she said, the super-fast service could be a way of differentiating it from other players.Wanadoo is set to trial an 8Mbps service in the summer and also plans to roll out unbundled services - which means it takes over the network from BT - which will provide speeds of up to 15Mbps.BT Retail has announced that it will trial the same speed service, with a national rollout by year end.Other service providers are expected to follow suit and a glut of new voice and video services will follow.With all the other services coming on stream such as video on demand, the question is will 8Mbps be enough?""Some lucky Britons can already take advantage of UK Online's 8 megabits per second service, which was launched in November 2004."
"Anti-tremor mouse stops PC shakes

A special adaptor that helps people with hand tremors control a computer mouse more easily has been developed.

The device uses similar ""steady cam"" technology found in camcorders to filter out shaking hand movements. People with hand tremors find it hard to use conventional mice for simple computer tasks because of the erratic movements of the cursor on the screen. About three million Britons have some sort of hand tremor condition, said the UK National Tremor Foundation. ""Using a computer mouse is well known for being extremely hard for people with tremors so we're delighted to hear that a technology has been developed to address this problem,"" said Karen Walsh, from the UK National Tremor Foundation. Most commonly associated with tremors is Parkinson's disease, but they can also be caused by other conditions like Essential Tremor (ET). Tremors more often affect older people, but can hit all ages. ET, for example, is genetic and can afflict people throughout their lives.

The Assistive Mouse Adapter (AMA) is the brainchild of IBM researcher Jim Levine who developed the prototype after seeing his uncle, who has Parkinson's disease, struggle with mouse control. ""I knew that there must be way to improve the situation for him and the millions of other tremor sufferers around the world, including the elderly.

""The number of elderly computer users will increase as the population ages, and at the same time, the need for computer access grows,"" he said. Computer users plug the device into a PC, and it can be adjusted depending on how severe the tremor is. It is also able to recognise multiple clicking on a mouse button caused by shaky digits. IBM said it would partner up with a small UK-based electronics firm, Montrose Secam, to produce the devices which will cost about £70. James Cosgrave, one of the company's directors, said it would make a big difference to those with tremors. ""I'm a pilot and my tremor condition has not limited my ability to fly a plane,"" he said. ""But using a PC has proven almost impossible simply because everything revolves around using the mouse to accurately manipulate the tiny cursor on the screen."" He said a prototype of the gadget had transformed his life.

The device could help open up computing to millions more people who have found shaking to be a barrier. Last year, the Office for National Statistics reported that for the first time, more than half of all households in Britain had a home computer. With prices getting cheaper to get online too, computer ownership is increasing. But although 62% of British people have tried the internet, only 15% of Britons aged 65 or over have been online. More than six million UK households now have a broadband net. By the middle of 2005, it is estimated that 50% of all UK net users will be on broadband. There are still millions using the net through dial-up connections too.
","""Using a computer mouse is well known for being extremely hard for people with tremors so we're delighted to hear that a technology has been developed to address this problem,"" said Karen Walsh, from the UK National Tremor Foundation.A special adaptor that helps people with hand tremors control a computer mouse more easily has been developed.About three million Britons have some sort of hand tremor condition, said the UK National Tremor Foundation.People with hand tremors find it hard to use conventional mice for simple computer tasks because of the erratic movements of the cursor on the screen.Computer users plug the device into a PC, and it can be adjusted depending on how severe the tremor is.""The number of elderly computer users will increase as the population ages, and at the same time, the need for computer access grows,"" he said.""I'm a pilot and my tremor condition has not limited my ability to fly a plane,"" he said.Most commonly associated with tremors is Parkinson's disease, but they can also be caused by other conditions like Essential Tremor (ET).The device could help open up computing to millions more people who have found shaking to be a barrier.More than six million UK households now have a broadband net."
"The pirates with no profit motive

Two men who were part of a huge network of internet software pirates, known as Drink Or Die, have been convicted at the Old Bailey. BBC News investigates how the network worked and what motivated those involved.

They called themselves Drink Or Die (DOD). They were a network of computer buffs who derived pleasure from cracking codes protecting copyrighted software such as Windows 95. They would then share it with each other. There is no suggestion any of them profited financially. But the authorities in both Britain and the United States considered it software piracy and took a dim view of networks such as DOD, one of a number of so-called warez organisations operating on the internet. In October 2000 the US Customs Service began an investigation into DOD and other networks, such as Razor 1911, Risciso, Myth and Popz.

Fourteen months later US Customs co-ordinated a series of raids across the globe as part of Operation Buccaneer. Seventy search warrants were executed in the US, Britain, Australia, Norway, Sweden and Finland. At least 60 people were arrested worldwide - 45 of them in the US. Among the leaders of the network were Americans John Sankus - known by his internet nickname Eriflleh (Hellfire spelt backwards) - Richard Berry, Kent Kartadinata and Christopher Tresco, who used a server based at the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

The longest jail sentence - 46 months - was handed down to Sankus, a 28-year-old from Philadelphia. US Attorney Paul McNulty said at the time: ""John Sankus and his techno-gang operated in the faceless world of the internet and thought they would never be caught. ""They were wrong. These sentences, and those to follow, should send a message to others entertaining similar beliefs of invincibility."" But one man still in legal limbo is British-born Australian Hew Raymond Griffiths, who is still fighting against extradition to the US.

US Customs claimed Mr Griffiths was one of DOD's leaders but his lawyer, Antony Townsden, told the BBC News website it was a laughable suggestion and added: ""He was living on welfare and had such an old computer that he couldn't even download software. ""The allegation that he was the group's co-leader is illusory. He had the least technical skills of anyone, he couldn't crack any codes and he has only been called a leader because he was a loudmouth who wrote a lot on their messageboard."" Mr Townsden said if he had committed any crimes he should be prosecuted in Australia, not the US. He claimed the Australian government's decision to accept the extradition request was typical of their current ""acquiescent"" attitude to the US.

Mr Griffiths is expecting to hear this week the outcome of his appeal against the decision to extradite him. Those involved would give themselves internet aliases which would act in the same way as tags used by graffiti artists. They could then brag about their code-cracking abilities without giving away their real identities. Alex Bell, whose trial at the Old Bailey ended on Friday, was known as Mr 2940 - after a computer device - while his co-defendant Steven Dowd's nickname, curiously, was Tim.

A spokesman for US Immigration, Customs and Enforcement, Dean Boyd, said DOD did not appear to be motivated by money. Their motivation was the kudos which surrounded being able to crack sophisticated software. He told the BBC News website: ""Primarily they were just interested in how fast they could crack the code. It was all about underground notoriety."" But Mr Boyd pointed out that once the software had been distributed on the internet it fell into the hands of organised criminals who were able to mass produce pirated software at zero cost.

""It cost US industries a lot of money, billions of dollars,"" he said. Mr Boyd said: ""It was truly global in scope. We raided a number of universities, including Duke (in North Carolina) and MIT, and found that several of the people involved were employed by major computer corporations. ""They would go home from work in the evenings and get involved in this warez culture."" Warez groups, which began to surface in the early 1990s, operate according to a strict code of honour.

For example if one group cracked the software first its rivals would respect that achievement and not seek to claim it themselves. Mr Boyd said the destruction of DOD was a great coup but he added: ""I'm not going to sit here and say we have sorted the problem. There are still hackers and people who do this for fun. ""Internet piracy of computer software remains a gigantic problem."" A spokesman for the Business Software Alliance said: ""DOD members claim they did not profit at all. But they did profit by getting access to very expensive servers."" He said DOD and other warez groups were fostering a ""culture of piracy"" on the internet. He said 29% of computer software in Britain was believed to have been pirated and this cost £1bn in revenue for software companies, their suppliers and distributors. ""It may seem like a victimless crime but it touches more people than you might care to believe.""
","US Customs claimed Mr Griffiths was one of DOD's leaders but his lawyer, Antony Townsden, told the BBC News website it was a laughable suggestion and added: ""He was living on welfare and had such an old computer that he couldn't even download software.He said 29% of computer software in Britain was believed to have been pirated and this cost £1bn in revenue for software companies, their suppliers and distributors.Mr Boyd said: ""It was truly global in scope.A spokesman for the Business Software Alliance said: ""DOD members claim they did not profit at all.He said DOD and other warez groups were fostering a ""culture of piracy"" on the internet.A spokesman for US Immigration, Customs and Enforcement, Dean Boyd, said DOD did not appear to be motivated by money.Mr Boyd said the destruction of DOD was a great coup but he added: ""I'm not going to sit here and say we have sorted the problem.Mr Townsden said if he had committed any crimes he should be prosecuted in Australia, not the US.But the authorities in both Britain and the United States considered it software piracy and took a dim view of networks such as DOD, one of a number of so-called warez organisations operating on the internet.Their motivation was the kudos which surrounded being able to crack sophisticated software.But Mr Boyd pointed out that once the software had been distributed on the internet it fell into the hands of organised criminals who were able to mass produce pirated software at zero cost.US Attorney Paul McNulty said at the time: ""John Sankus and his techno-gang operated in the faceless world of the internet and thought they would never be caught.""Internet piracy of computer software remains a gigantic problem.""Alex Bell, whose trial at the Old Bailey ended on Friday, was known as Mr 2940 - after a computer device - while his co-defendant Steven Dowd's nickname, curiously, was Tim.""It cost US industries a lot of money, billions of dollars,"" he said.Two men who were part of a huge network of internet software pirates, known as Drink Or Die, have been convicted at the Old Bailey.He claimed the Australian government's decision to accept the extradition request was typical of their current ""acquiescent"" attitude to the US.At least 60 people were arrested worldwide - 45 of them in the US."
"Apple makes blogs reveal sources

Apple has won its legal fight to make three bloggers reveal who told them about unreleased products.

The bid to unmask the employees leaking information was launched in December 2004 following online articles about Apple's Asteroid product. Now Apple has won the right to see e-mail records from the three bloggers to root out the culprit. A lawyer for the three bloggers said the ruling set a dangerous precedent that could harm all news reporters.

Apple's lawsuit accused anonymous people of stealing trade secrets about the Asteroid music product and leaking them to the PowerPage, Apple Insider and Think Secret websites. All three are Apple fan sites that obsessively watch the iconic firm for information about future products. Apple is notoriously secretive about upcoming products which gives any snippets of information about what it is working on all the more value. The lawsuit to reveal the names of the leakers was filed against the Power Page and Apple Insider sites.

The separate legal fight with Think Secret has yet to be resolved. In the ruling handed down this week by Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge James Kleinberg, Apple can now get its hands on e-mail records from the bloggers' net providers. In making his ruling, Judge Kleinberg said that laws covering the divulging of trade secrets outweighed considerations of public interest. California has so-called ""shield"" laws which protect journalists from prosecution if what they are writing about can be shown to be in the public interest. The Judge wrote: ""...it is not surprising that hundreds of thousands of 'hits' on a website about Apple have and will happen. But an interested public is not the same as the public interest"". Judge Kleinberg said the question of whether the bloggers were journalists or not did not apply because laws governing the right to keep trade secrets confidential covered journalists, too. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, which is acting as legal counsel for Power Page and Apple Insider, said the ruling had potentially wide implications. ""Anyone who reports on companies or the trade press should be concerned about this ruling,"" said EFF lawyer Kurt Opsahl. Mr Opsahl said the EFF was planning to appeal against the ruling because the bloggers were journalists and US federal laws stop net firms handing over copies of e-mail messages if the owner of that account does not give their consent.
","In making his ruling, Judge Kleinberg said that laws covering the divulging of trade secrets outweighed considerations of public interest.Apple has won its legal fight to make three bloggers reveal who told them about unreleased products.Now Apple has won the right to see e-mail records from the three bloggers to root out the culprit.Apple's lawsuit accused anonymous people of stealing trade secrets about the Asteroid music product and leaking them to the PowerPage, Apple Insider and Think Secret websites.Judge Kleinberg said the question of whether the bloggers were journalists or not did not apply because laws governing the right to keep trade secrets confidential covered journalists, too.The Electronic Frontier Foundation, which is acting as legal counsel for Power Page and Apple Insider, said the ruling had potentially wide implications.Mr Opsahl said the EFF was planning to appeal against the ruling because the bloggers were journalists and US federal laws stop net firms handing over copies of e-mail messages if the owner of that account does not give their consent.In the ruling handed down this week by Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge James Kleinberg, Apple can now get its hands on e-mail records from the bloggers' net providers."
"Hitachi unveils 'fastest robot'

Japanese electronics firm Hitachi has unveiled its first humanoid robot, called Emiew, to challenge Honda's Asimo and Sony's Qrio robots.

Hitachi said the 1.3m (4.2ft) Emiew was the world's quickest-moving robot yet. Two wheel-based Emiews, Pal and Chum, introduced themselves to reporters at a press conference in Japan. The robots will be guests at the World Expo later this month. Sony and Honda have both built sophisticated robots to show off developments in electronics. Explaining why Hitachi's Emiew used wheels instead of feet, Toshihiko Horiuchi, from Hitachi's Mechanical Engineering Research Laboratory, said: ""We aimed to create a robot that could live and co-exist with people."" ""We want to make the robots useful for people ... If the robots moved slower than people, users would be frustrated."" Emiew - Excellent Mobility and Interactive Existence as Workmate - can move at 3.7m/h. Its ""wheel feet"" resemble the bottom half of a Segway scooter. With sensors on the head, waist, and near the wheels, Pal and Chum demonstrated how they could react to commands. ""I want to be able to walk about in places like Shinjuku and Shibuya [shopping districts] in the future without bumping into people and cars,"" Pal told reporters. Hitachi said Pal and Chum, which have a vocabulary of about 100 words, could be ""trained"" for practical office and factory use in as little as five to six years.

Robotics researchers have long been challenged by developing robots that walk in the gait of a human. At the recent AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science) annual meeting in Washington DC, researchers showed off bipedal designs. The three designs, each built by a different research group, use the same principle to achieve a human-like gait.

Sony and Honda have both used humanoid robots, which are not commercially available, as a way of showing off computing power and engineering expertise. Honda's Asimo was ""born"" five years ago. Since then, Honda and Sony's Qrio have tried to trump each other with what the robots can do at various technology events. Asimo, has visited the UK, Germany, the Czech Republic, France and Ireland as part of a world tour. Sony's Qrio has been singing, jogging and dancing in formation around the world too and was, until last year, the fastest robot on two legs. But its record was beaten by Asimo. It is capable of 3km/h, which its makers claim is almost four times as fast as Qrio. Last year, car maker Toyota also stepped into the ring and unveiled its trumpet-playing humanoid robot. By 2007, it is predicted that there will be almost 2.5 million ""entertainment and leisure"" robots in homes, compared to about 137,000 currently, according to the United Nations (UN). By the end of that year, 4.1 million robots will be doing jobs in homes, said the report by the UN Economic Commission for Europe and the International Federation of Robotics. Hitachi is one of the companies with home cleaning robot machines on the market.
","Japanese electronics firm Hitachi has unveiled its first humanoid robot, called Emiew, to challenge Honda's Asimo and Sony's Qrio robots.Hitachi said the 1.3m (4.2ft) Emiew was the world's quickest-moving robot yet.""We want to make the robots useful for people ...Sony's Qrio has been singing, jogging and dancing in formation around the world too and was, until last year, the fastest robot on two legs.Explaining why Hitachi's Emiew used wheels instead of feet, Toshihiko Horiuchi, from Hitachi's Mechanical Engineering Research Laboratory, said: ""We aimed to create a robot that could live and co-exist with people.""Sony and Honda have both built sophisticated robots to show off developments in electronics.Since then, Honda and Sony's Qrio have tried to trump each other with what the robots can do at various technology events.Robotics researchers have long been challenged by developing robots that walk in the gait of a human.If the robots moved slower than people, users would be frustrated.""Last year, car maker Toyota also stepped into the ring and unveiled its trumpet-playing humanoid robot.The robots will be guests at the World Expo later this month."
"Have hackers recruited your PC?

More than one million computers on the net have been hijacked to attack websites and pump out spam and viruses.

The huge number was revealed by security researchers who have spent months tracking more than 100 networks of remotely-controlled machines. The largest network of so-called zombie networks spied on by the team was made up of 50,000 hijacked home computers. Data was gathered using machines that looked innocent but which logged everything hackers did to them.

The detailed look at zombie or 'bot nets of hijacked computers was done by the Honeynet Project - a group of security researchers that gather information using networks of computers that act as ""honey pots"" to attract hackers and gather information about how they work. While 'bot nets have been known about for some time, estimates of how widespread they are from security firms have varied widely.

To gather its information the German arm of the Honeynet Project created software tools to log what happened to the machines they put on the web. Getting the machines hijacked was worryingly easy. The longest time a Honeynet machine survived without being found by an automatic attack tool was only a few minutes. The shortest compromise time was only a few seconds. The research found that, once compromised machines tend to report in to chat channels on IRC servers and wait instructions from the malicious hacker behind the tools used to recruit the machine. Many well-known vulnerabilities in the Windows operating system were exploited by 'bot net controllers to find and take over target machines. Especially coveted were home PCs sitting on broadband connections that are never turned off.

The months of surveillance revealed that the different 'bot nets - which involve a few hundred to tens of thousands of machines - are used for a variety of purposes. Many are used as relays for spam, to route unwanted adverts to PC users or as launch platforms for viruses. But the research team found that many are put to very different uses. During the monitoring period, the team saw 'bot nets used to launch 226 distributed denial-of-service attacks on 99 separate targets. These attacks bombard websites with data in an attempt to overwhelm the target. Using a 'bot net of machines spread around different networks and nations makes such attacks hard to defend against. One DDoS attack was used by one firm to knock its competitors offline. Other 'bot nets were used to abuse the Google Adsense program that rewards websites for displaying adverts from the search engine. Some networks were used to abuse or manipulate online polls and games. Criminals also seem to be starting to use 'bot nets for mass identity theft, to host websites that look like those of banks so confidential information can be gathered and to peep into online traffic to steal sensitive data. ""Leveraging the power of several thousand bots, it is viable to take down almost any website or network instantly,"" said the researchers. ""Even in unskilled hands, it should be obvious that 'bot nets are a loaded and powerful weapon.""
","Using a 'bot net of machines spread around different networks and nations makes such attacks hard to defend against.The detailed look at zombie or 'bot nets of hijacked computers was done by the Honeynet Project - a group of security researchers that gather information using networks of computers that act as ""honey pots"" to attract hackers and gather information about how they work.The months of surveillance revealed that the different 'bot nets - which involve a few hundred to tens of thousands of machines - are used for a variety of purposes.During the monitoring period, the team saw 'bot nets used to launch 226 distributed denial-of-service attacks on 99 separate targets.More than one million computers on the net have been hijacked to attack websites and pump out spam and viruses.The longest time a Honeynet machine survived without being found by an automatic attack tool was only a few minutes.Other 'bot nets were used to abuse the Google Adsense program that rewards websites for displaying adverts from the search engine.The largest network of so-called zombie networks spied on by the team was made up of 50,000 hijacked home computers.Getting the machines hijacked was worryingly easy.While 'bot nets have been known about for some time, estimates of how widespread they are from security firms have varied widely."
"What price for 'trusted PC security'?

You can now buy ""trusted computers"", but can we really trust the PC vendors, asks technology analyst Bill Thompson.

If you have recently bought an IBM ThinkVantage computer, a Dell Optiplex, or one of a whole range of laptops from Toshiba, HP/Compaq or Samsung then you may have got more for your money than you realised. Inside your shiny new PC is an extra chip called the trusted platform module (TPM) that can be used for a range of hardware-based security features. Eventually the TPM will be built into the main processor itself, and if the trusted computing group has its way then you will find one in every piece of hardware you own, from mobile phones to TV set top boxes to children's toys. But for the moment it is a separate piece of hardware, providing enhanced security features to programs that know how to use them. And as part of a well-designed network system, it can provide a lot more security than we enjoy today. A big advantage of the TPM is that it is hardware-based.

At the moment most of us rely on software to keep our information safe and secure. It might be password-protected user accounts, data encryption programs or a firewall, but it all relies on program code running on an inherently insecure processor.

Hardware security is less common, even if it is a lot safer. This is partly because it is more expensive to give someone a smartcard than a password, but also because its more work for users, systems administrators and managers. As a result we settle for second best. So when it comes to computer security, trusted systems could be a major step forward. After all, if you have a laptop that will only run programs that have been digitally signed then it will be a lot harder for virus writers to get their malicious code to run. And if all your files are locked automatically then even if you get your computer stolen your personal data will be safeguarded. At the moment support for trusted hardware is not built into major operating systems. Instead you have to use special software, like HP's ProtectTools or Wave Systems' Embassy. This provides file encryption, password management and identity protection, usually for business users who connect to company networks. Full support for the trusted computing specification will not be available from Microsoft until the next release of Windows, ""Longhorn"". This will include what Microsoft, in a typical act of obscurantism, calls the ""Next Generation Secure Computing Base"", and it will give user-level programs access to the trusted computing hardware. When that happens we can expect to see a lot of publicity around the new capabilities, and no doubt the Windows security centre will encourage users to turn on their trusted computing capability just as they turn on their firewall. However there is a downside to the increased security from viruses, spyware and data theft that this will provide.

Because the trusted computing base is also used to make digital rights management (DRM) systems more secure, this will give content providers a lot more control over what we can do with music, movies and books that we have bought from them. We have seen recently how allowing digital rights management services into our lives can lead to unwelcome consequences. Users of Apple's iTunes used to be able to stream the music they had brought to up to five other iTunes users, a great way of letting your mates discover your music collection.

But the latest version of iTunes limits this capability, just as an earlier upgrade reduced the number of times you could burn a selected playlist of purchased songs to a CD. Another took away the ability to play songs downloaded from Real's Harmony service on your iPod. Apple can do this because they wrote the software and they control the rights management. Once it is embedded in trusted hardware it will be even harder for dedicated programmers to find their way around these restrictions and give us back the fair use rights that should be guaranteed under copyright law. Similarly, users of TiVo digital video recorders have found that they cannot record some shows, and other programmes that they have recorded are automatically deleted after a day. This happens because of changes that TiVo have made to their software, and the users cannot control it. One wonders whether hardware-based DRM will work for those who believe that locking-down digital content is a bad idea, and that the flexibility of copyright law is something that should be embraced and not taken away. It will not work because of the fundamental flaw at the heart of the system: in order for the purchaser to view the content it has to be unlocked. Once it is unlocked then someone, somewhere, will figure out a way to make a copy of the unlocked version. And once an unlocked version leaks onto the network it will be uncontrollable. The efforts going into DRM would be much better spent building efficient distribution services, finding business models that are based on trusting your customers, and offering high quality downloads at fair prices. What we want is not so much a trusted computing platform as a trusted customer platform. The record companies and the film industry need to recognise that most of us, most of the time, will pay a reasonable amount for good quality material. They will benefit more by building a market in which I can share songs with my friends, record shows I want to watch later, and burn CDs for my kids; a market which respects the spirit of copyright law and does not seek to replace it by restrictive contracts or end user agreements. We need to ensure that trusted computing remains under the control of the users and is not used to take away the freedoms we enjoy today.

Bill Thompson is a regular commentator on the BBC World Service programme Go Digital.
","Because the trusted computing base is also used to make digital rights management (DRM) systems more secure, this will give content providers a lot more control over what we can do with music, movies and books that we have bought from them.We need to ensure that trusted computing remains under the control of the users and is not used to take away the freedoms we enjoy today.So when it comes to computer security, trusted systems could be a major step forward.Once it is embedded in trusted hardware it will be even harder for dedicated programmers to find their way around these restrictions and give us back the fair use rights that should be guaranteed under copyright law.When that happens we can expect to see a lot of publicity around the new capabilities, and no doubt the Windows security centre will encourage users to turn on their trusted computing capability just as they turn on their firewall.This will include what Microsoft, in a typical act of obscurantism, calls the ""Next Generation Secure Computing Base"", and it will give user-level programs access to the trusted computing hardware.What we want is not so much a trusted computing platform as a trusted customer platform.Inside your shiny new PC is an extra chip called the trusted platform module (TPM) that can be used for a range of hardware-based security features.At the moment support for trusted hardware is not built into major operating systems.Eventually the TPM will be built into the main processor itself, and if the trusted computing group has its way then you will find one in every piece of hardware you own, from mobile phones to TV set top boxes to children's toys.And as part of a well-designed network system, it can provide a lot more security than we enjoy today.Hardware security is less common, even if it is a lot safer.But for the moment it is a separate piece of hardware, providing enhanced security features to programs that know how to use them.Full support for the trusted computing specification will not be available from Microsoft until the next release of Windows, ""Longhorn"".This happens because of changes that TiVo have made to their software, and the users cannot control it.Apple can do this because they wrote the software and they control the rights management.One wonders whether hardware-based DRM will work for those who believe that locking-down digital content is a bad idea, and that the flexibility of copyright law is something that should be embraced and not taken away."
"Gizmondo gadget hits the shelves

The Gizmondo combined media player, phone and gaming gadget goes on sale on Saturday.

Priced at £229, the handheld device is debuting in the UK and goes on sale in the US and mainland Europe in the next few weeks. A catalogue of about 20 games is being prepared for the gadget including The Great Escape and Conflict Vietnam. The British-backed gadget faces stiff competition from handheld gaming devices made by Nintendo and Sony.

The Gizmondo device packs a lot of functions inside its black cover and is aimed at gamers and those that want more from their game-playing gadgets.

It can be used to play games, music tracks and movies. It can take and store digital photos and be used like a mobile phone to send text, multimedia and e-mail messages. The phone service to enable people to send messages is being provided by pre-pay Vodafone accounts bundled in with the device. It also works with GPS (Global Position System) so can also be used as a navigation aid or to support a variety of location-based services. The GPRS and Bluetooth wireless data systems onboard mean that it can be used for multi-player gaming. The gadget will be available from the Gizmondo store on London's Regent Street and from several other retail partners. Although the device rolls together an impressive list of functions, it will face serious competition from three established names in mobile gaming: Nintendo, Nokia and Sony.

The main competition is likely to come from Nintendo and Sony. Nintendo's DS handheld went on sale on 11 March and priced at £99 costs far less than the Gizmondo. It also has a ready pool of fans of earlier Nintendo handhelds to draw on. In the first two days it was on sale in Europe the 87,000 DS handhelds were sold - a better debut than the GameCube enjoyed. Sony's PSP was due to make its European debut in March but now this is likely to be delayed by a few months. The PSP is due to go on sale in the US later this month and a bundle including the player, accessories and a copy of Spiderman 2 is expected to cost about $250 (£129). The PSP can also play music and movies and supports wireless multiplayer gaming. Nokia's N-Gage could also be a competitor on the telecommunications side. This too crams a fully functional phone into a gadget that also plays games.
","The British-backed gadget faces stiff competition from handheld gaming devices made by Nintendo and Sony.The Gizmondo combined media player, phone and gaming gadget goes on sale on Saturday.The PSP can also play music and movies and supports wireless multiplayer gaming.This too crams a fully functional phone into a gadget that also plays games.Although the device rolls together an impressive list of functions, it will face serious competition from three established names in mobile gaming: Nintendo, Nokia and Sony.Priced at £229, the handheld device is debuting in the UK and goes on sale in the US and mainland Europe in the next few weeks.Nintendo's DS handheld went on sale on 11 March and priced at £99 costs far less than the Gizmondo.It also works with GPS (Global Position System) so can also be used as a navigation aid or to support a variety of location-based services.The PSP is due to go on sale in the US later this month and a bundle including the player, accessories and a copy of Spiderman 2 is expected to cost about $250 (£129)."
"Confusion over high-definition TV

Now that a critical mass of people have embraced digital TV, DVDs, and digital video recorders, the next revolution for TV is being prepared for our sets.

In most corners of TV and technology industries, high-definition (HDTV) is being heralded as the biggest thing to happen to the television since colour. HD essentially makes TV picture quality at least four times better than now. But there is real concern that people are not getting the right information about HD on the High Street. Thousands of flat panel screens - LCDs (liquid crystal displays), plasma screens, and DLP rear-projection TV sets - have already been sold as ""HD"", but are in fact not able to display HD.

""The UK is the largest display market in Europe,"" according to John Binks, director of GfK, which monitors global consumer markets.

But, he added: ""Of all the flat panel screens sold, just 1.3% in the UK are capable of getting high-definition."" There are 74 different devices that are being sold as HD but are not HD-ready, according to Alexander Oudendijk, senior vice president of marketing for satellite giant Astra. They may be fantastic quality TVs, but many do not have adaptors in them - called DVI or HDMI (High-Definition Multimedia Interface) connectors - which let the set handle the higher resolution digital images. Part of this is down to lack of understanding and training on the High Street, say industry experts, who gathered at Bafta in London for the 2nd European HDTV Summit last week. ""We have to be careful about consumer confusion. There is a massive education process to go through,"" said Mr Binks. The industry already recognised that it would be a challenge to get the right information about it across to those of us who will be watching it. Eventually, that will be everyone. The BBC is currently developing plans to produce all its TV output to meet HDTV standards by 2010.

Preparations for the analogue switch-off are already underway in some areas, and programmes are being filmed with HD cameras. BSkyB plans to ship its first generation set-top boxes, to receive HDTV broadcasts, in time for Christmas. Like its Sky+ boxes, they will also be personal video recorders (PVRs). The company will start broadcasts of HDTV programmes, offering them as ""premium channel packages"", concentrating, to start with, on sports, big events, and films, in early 2006. But the set-top box which receives HDTV broadcasts has to plug into a display - TV set - that can show the images at the much higher resolution that HD demands, if HDTV is to be ""real"". By 2010, 20% of homes in the UK will have some sort of TV set or display that can show HD in its full glory.

But it is all getting rather confusing for people who have only just taken to ""being digital"". As a result, all the key players, those who make flat panel displays, as well as the satellite companies and broadcasters, formed a HD forum in 2004 to make sure they were all talking to each other. Part of the forum has been concerned with issues like industry standards and content protection. But it has also been preoccupied with how to help the paying public know exactly what they are paying for.

From next month, all devices that have the right connectors and resolution required will carry a ""HD-Ready"" sticker. This also means they are equipped to cope with both analogue and HDTV signals, and so comply with the minimum specification set out by the industry. ""The logo is absolutely the way forward,"" said David Mercer, analysts with Strategy Analytics. ""But it is still not appearing on many retail products."" The industry is upbeat that the sticker will help, but it is only a start. ""We can only do so much with the position we are in today with manufacturers,"" said Mr Oudendijk. ""There may well be a number of dissatisfied customers in the next few months."" The European Broadcast Union (EBU) is testing different flavours of HD formats to prepare for even better HDTV further down the line. It is similarly concerned that people get the right information on HDTV formats, as well as which devices will support the formats. ""We believe consumers buying expensive displays need to ensure their investment is worthwhile,"" said Phil Laven, technical director for the EBU. The TV display manufacturers want us to watch HD on screens that are at least 42in (106cm), to get the ""true impact"" of HD, they say, although smaller displays suffice. What may convince people to spend money on HD-ready devices is the falling prices, which continue to tumble across Europe. The prices are dropping an average of 20% every year, according to analysts. LCD prices dropped by 43% in Europe as a whole last year, according to Mr Oudendijk.
","But the set-top box which receives HDTV broadcasts has to plug into a display - TV set - that can show the images at the much higher resolution that HD demands, if HDTV is to be ""real"".Thousands of flat panel screens - LCDs (liquid crystal displays), plasma screens, and DLP rear-projection TV sets - have already been sold as ""HD"", but are in fact not able to display HD.By 2010, 20% of homes in the UK will have some sort of TV set or display that can show HD in its full glory.The TV display manufacturers want us to watch HD on screens that are at least 42in (106cm), to get the ""true impact"" of HD, they say, although smaller displays suffice.But there is real concern that people are not getting the right information about HD on the High Street.It is similarly concerned that people get the right information on HDTV formats, as well as which devices will support the formats.HD essentially makes TV picture quality at least four times better than now.There are 74 different devices that are being sold as HD but are not HD-ready, according to Alexander Oudendijk, senior vice president of marketing for satellite giant Astra.The European Broadcast Union (EBU) is testing different flavours of HD formats to prepare for even better HDTV further down the line.Now that a critical mass of people have embraced digital TV, DVDs, and digital video recorders, the next revolution for TV is being prepared for our sets.This also means they are equipped to cope with both analogue and HDTV signals, and so comply with the minimum specification set out by the industry.""The UK is the largest display market in Europe,"" according to John Binks, director of GfK, which monitors global consumer markets.The BBC is currently developing plans to produce all its TV output to meet HDTV standards by 2010.LCD prices dropped by 43% in Europe as a whole last year, according to Mr Oudendijk.As a result, all the key players, those who make flat panel displays, as well as the satellite companies and broadcasters, formed a HD forum in 2004 to make sure they were all talking to each other.In most corners of TV and technology industries, high-definition (HDTV) is being heralded as the biggest thing to happen to the television since colour."
"Digital UK driven by net and TV

The UK's adoption of digital TV and broadband has helped make it the fourth most digitally-savvy nation in Europe, according a report by Jupiter Research.

But the UK still lags in terms of broadband speeds compared to others. The most digitally sophisticated Europeans, in terms of use of digital goods such as mobiles, TV, net and cameras, are the Scandinavians. About 14 million households in the UK, 60%, have digital TV, according to the communications regulator Ofcom. The least digital of the European nations was Greece, in 17th position, according to the Digital Life Index.

Scandinavian countries Sweden, Denmark and Norway came out top in the report, but there were some differences in technology trends. ""The European Digital Life Index demonstrates that digital lifestyles are common today, but across Europe there is no single digital lifestyle,"" said Nate Elliott, Jupiter analyst. ""Consumers adopt different digital products and services in different countries.""

Although there are differences between different European nations, the gap between them is closing, the report concluded. The trend for gadgets and technologies, such as digital video recorders (DVR), broadband, and video-on-demand will continue across Europe, he added. More than six million UK households now have broadband net. By the middle of 2005, it is estimated that 50% of all UK net users will be on broadband. Cable company NTL is trialling faster ADSL (Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line) broadband technology using ADSL2+ which can give speeds of 18Mbps compared to current speeds which are usually around 1Mbps or 2Mbps. BT is set to trial the technology later in the year. Super-fast broadband will be necessary to the delivery of services such as high-definition TV (HDTV) and video-on-demand, already very popular in France and other European countries.

A separate survey by GMIPoll last week found that, globally, people's appetite for technology and gadgets continues unabated. The poll of 20,000 people in 20 countries found that 59% wanted more technology.

The computer was the ""must-have"" gadget for most people (75%). The TV took second place (67%), while the mobile was ranked in third position with 54%. Digital cameras were the most popular choice of gadget for 2005, said the survey, with nearly 40% choosing this over wireless, home printing and DVR technologies. However, only 25% of Britons said a digital camera would be their top gadget purchase of the year. Almost a quarter, 22%, said they would be buying some sort of wireless device. Forty-four percent said they would be buying something ""other"". This might include digital music players, or gaming devices. The Nintendo DS, Sony's PSP and Gizmondo all hit the shops in 2005, and the first of the next generation of games consoles, Xbox 2, is set to launch later this year. Jupiter Research's index is calculated using 40 different variables across net users, digital TV adoption, wireless and mobile, online activity, and digital devices.
","Jupiter Research's index is calculated using 40 different variables across net users, digital TV adoption, wireless and mobile, online activity, and digital devices.However, only 25% of Britons said a digital camera would be their top gadget purchase of the year.""The European Digital Life Index demonstrates that digital lifestyles are common today, but across Europe there is no single digital lifestyle,"" said Nate Elliott, Jupiter analyst.The least digital of the European nations was Greece, in 17th position, according to the Digital Life Index.About 14 million households in the UK, 60%, have digital TV, according to the communications regulator Ofcom.The UK's adoption of digital TV and broadband has helped make it the fourth most digitally-savvy nation in Europe, according a report by Jupiter Research.The trend for gadgets and technologies, such as digital video recorders (DVR), broadband, and video-on-demand will continue across Europe, he added.Digital cameras were the most popular choice of gadget for 2005, said the survey, with nearly 40% choosing this over wireless, home printing and DVR technologies.The most digitally sophisticated Europeans, in terms of use of digital goods such as mobiles, TV, net and cameras, are the Scandinavians.More than six million UK households now have broadband net.""Consumers adopt different digital products and services in different countries."""
"Bad e-mail habits sustains spam

The 'bad behaviour' of e-mail users is helping to sustain the spam industry, a new study has found.

According to a survey conducted by security firm Mirapoint and market research company the Radicati Group, nearly a third of e-mail users have clicked on links in spam messages. One in ten users have bought products advertised in junk mail. Clicking on a link in a spam message can expose people to viruses and alert spammers to live e-mail accounts.

The fact that one in ten e-mail users are buying things advertised in spam continues to make it an attractive business, especially given that sending out huge amounts of spam costs very little, the report concludes. ""This preliminary data is surprising and somewhat shocking to us,"" said Marcel Nienhuis, market analyst at the Radicati Group. ""It explains why e-mail security threats including spam, viruses and phishing scams continue to proliferate,"" he said, accusing users of ""bad e-mail behaviour"". Spammers are increasingly hooking into whatever happens to be flavour of the month, according to security firm Clearswift. It has recently seen a rise in the number of spam messages offering phoney Sony PSP giveaways. And, in perhaps a nod to the popularity of the American drama series Desperate Housewives, it has also seen a dramatic rise in junk mails purporting to give details of women looking for casual sex. But rather than finding a companion, users who click on such mail will find themselves redirected to porn sites, where they run the risk of downloading spyware on to their PC. Clearswift has seen a 180% rise in sex-related spam over the course of the last month. ""Without casting aspersions, those likely to respond to these kind of adverts will be invariably hoping that 'one thing leads to another' but aside from the fact that these mails are bogus, clicking on any link within a spam mail can lead to a whole host of unwanted problems,"" said Alyn Hockey, Clearswift's director of research.

Sexually explicit terms make up 14% of security firm Sophos' top 50 word that spammers most commonly try to disguise in order to beat anti-spam filters. Spammers will deliberately misspell a word or use digits instead of letters in an attempt to by-pass anti-spam software, said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for security firm Sophos. ""The list of words most commonly hidden by the spammers from anti-spam software reveals that most spam is about the old favourites: money, drugs and sex,"" said Mr Cluley. But anti-spam filters can only be part of the solution to the menace of junk e-mail. ""People must resist their basic instincts to buy from spam mails. Spammers are criminals, plain and simple. If no-one responded to junk e-mail and didn't buy products sold in this way, then spam would be as extinct as the dinosaurs,"" he said.
","""It explains why e-mail security threats including spam, viruses and phishing scams continue to proliferate,"" he said, accusing users of ""bad e-mail behaviour"".According to a survey conducted by security firm Mirapoint and market research company the Radicati Group, nearly a third of e-mail users have clicked on links in spam messages.The fact that one in ten e-mail users are buying things advertised in spam continues to make it an attractive business, especially given that sending out huge amounts of spam costs very little, the report concludes.The 'bad behaviour' of e-mail users is helping to sustain the spam industry, a new study has found.If no-one responded to junk e-mail and didn't buy products sold in this way, then spam would be as extinct as the dinosaurs,"" he said.Clicking on a link in a spam message can expose people to viruses and alert spammers to live e-mail accounts.Clearswift has seen a 180% rise in sex-related spam over the course of the last month.""The list of words most commonly hidden by the spammers from anti-spam software reveals that most spam is about the old favourites: money, drugs and sex,"" said Mr Cluley."
"Sony PSP handheld console hits US

The latest handheld gaming gadget, Sony's PlayStation Portable, goes on sale in the US on Thursday.

The entertainment device, which also stores images, music and video, is intended to compete with Nintendo's DS, released earlier this month in the UK. Gamers have been queuing outside shops across the US to get their hands on the gadget, which costs $250 (about £132). The first million sold will come with the Spider-Man 2 film on UMD, Sony's own disc format for the device. The PSP can be linked up with others for multiplayer gaming, via a wireless connection. Sony has touted the machine as the Walkman of the 21st Century and has sold more than 800,000 units in Japan since its launch there last year.

But it faces stiff competition from the Nintendo DS, which sold more than the GameCube in its first few days on release in Europe. It too allows for multiplayer gaming over the air. Nintendo dominates the handheld market, with more than a 90% share of the market in the US alone. The Gizmondo combined media player, phone and gaming gadget also went on sale in the UK last week. It hopes to take a share of the handheld gaming market too.

""The story of the PSP is it's not a gaming device as much as it is a portable entertainment device,"" said Michael Pachter, analyst at Wedbush Morgan Securities. He told the Reuters news agency that he expected Sony to sell about 10 million PSPs in enough time to rival Apple's iPod. There is no date for the PSP's release in Europe yet. Sony has promised to have a million units ready for its US launch, but there are fears demand may not be met. It also said it expected to ship three million PSPs worldwide by the end of its fiscal year ending 31 March.

The machine's European launch was put back ""a few months"" last week in order to make sure enough of the devices were ready for its US launch, as well as satisfying the Japanese market. The PSP has almost as much processing power in it as the PlayStation 2 console. Hundreds of gamers gathered at US shops, some waiting for more than 36 hours, to be the first to get their hands on the gadget. A spokesman for one US shop said it expected the device to sell out on its first day. The 24 games for the mini console include Ape Academy, Formula One, Wipeout Pure and Fired Up. Movie studios, including Lions Gate Entertainment and Disney, have also announced forthcoming film titles that will be made available on the UMD format.
","A spokesman for one US shop said it expected the device to sell out on its first day.The latest handheld gaming gadget, Sony's PlayStation Portable, goes on sale in the US on Thursday.""The story of the PSP is it's not a gaming device as much as it is a portable entertainment device,"" said Michael Pachter, analyst at Wedbush Morgan Securities.Sony has promised to have a million units ready for its US launch, but there are fears demand may not be met.The first million sold will come with the Spider-Man 2 film on UMD, Sony's own disc format for the device.The machine's European launch was put back ""a few months"" last week in order to make sure enough of the devices were ready for its US launch, as well as satisfying the Japanese market.It hopes to take a share of the handheld gaming market too.Nintendo dominates the handheld market, with more than a 90% share of the market in the US alone.Hundreds of gamers gathered at US shops, some waiting for more than 36 hours, to be the first to get their hands on the gadget."
"'Podcasters' look to net money

Nasa is doing it, 14-year-old boys in bedrooms are doing it, couples are doing it, gadget lovers - male and female - are definitely doing it.

It is podcasting - DIY radio in the form of downloadable MP3 audio files. They can done by anyone who has a microphone, simple software, the net, and something to say. Some liken them to talking ""audioblogs"" because many complement text-based weblogs - diary-like sites where people share their thoughts. They are essentially amateur radio shows on the net, on demand, and the ""movement"" is at very early stages. ""It's about real people saying real things and communicating,"" says Adam Curry, former MTV VJ and the Pied Piper of podcasting. He was one of a community of people who created iPodder, a small computer program, known as an ""aggregator"".

It collects and automatically sends MP3 files to any digital music-playing device that can play WMP formats. Those with digital music players can select which podcasts they like, and subscribe - for free - to that show's ""feed"". When a new podcast is available, it is automatically sent to the device when connected to a computer. ""It is totally going to kill the business model of radio,"" thinks Curry. ""I just did a tour of Madison Avenue where all the big brands and advertising agencies of the world are,"" he says. ""And they are scared to death of the next generation - like my daughter who is 14 - who don't listen to radio. ""They are on MSN, they've got their iPod, their MP3 player, they've got their Xbox - they are not listening to radio. ""So how are they going to reach these audiences? ""It is the distribution that is changing and the barriers are being brought down so everyone can be part of it.""

It is a fledgling movement, but it is gaining momentum now that people have started thinking about how to make a business from it. Ian Fogg, Jupiter Research analyst, thinks there could be potential for business, but it could take an interesting turn if big companies, like Apple and Microsoft, get involved. ""It is a nascent area but quite exciting. It is yet another area that demonstrates the move to a digital lifestyle and digital home is not over,"" he says.

""Podcasting is one of those interesting areas that bridges what you do at home and what you do out and about - a classic hybrid. It is another aspect of the ""time-shifting"" of content - the latest industry buzzword for being able to listen to what you want, when, and wherever you want. Audiences are in the 10s, 100s, and 1,000s rather than millions. More than 4,300 podcasts are currently listed. Curry's Daily Source Code - which he committed to doing daily to inspire the community - has 10s of thousands of listeners.

But Dave Winer is doubtful. He designed the format called RSS (Really Simple Syndication), which gives web users an easy way to keep updated automatically on sites they like. Podcasts rely on his technology because it is the way they are distributed. He is also writer of the longest-running weblog on the net, Scripting News. He thinks its power lies in its democratising potential, not in its ""over-hyped"" business promise.

""We're the sources, the people doing stuff, and podcasting is a way to tell people who care what we're doing. ""No matter how you look at it, commercialising this medium isn't going to make very much money,"" he says. ""Podcasting is going to be a medium of niches, with 'audiences' measured in the single digits, like e-mail or blogs. ""Maybe in a few years, maybe six or seven digits. But it will have to sustain interest beyond the hype balloon."" Curry and associate Ron Bloom's new venture, called PodShow, is to help ordinary people produce, post, distribute and market their podcasts. Because of the way podcasts work, based on RSS, the latest podcasts which people can select mean that they are ready-made targets. ""When you look at podcasting - wow this is a pretty interesting audience. The audience is pre-selected. They have decided to subscribe to your program,"" explains Curry. Advertising, in his eyes, can be tailored to podcasts, to make it more imaginative and unobtrusive. ""How I believe this will work, is to create a network that, in aggregation, will have enough numbers to support a return on investment for the advertisers and for the podcasters. ""I have 50, 60, 70,000 listeners. I could make a couple of bucks off that, but not much. If you are talking a million podcasters, and then you can kind of divide that amongst ourselves, then that is kind of interesting."" Essentially, he says, if you are doing a bass fishing podcast, someone who is selling bait and tackle will probably want to advertise on your show. He is clear the ads will not be the traditional ""in-your-face"" type familiar to commercial radio now. ""We are really going to see these microcosms and commerce will be all over the place.""

It is happening already. Coffee-loving Curry has sold $4,000 worth of coffee machines through a referral link to Amazon from his site.

Others use in-show promotions, like The Dawn and Drew Show. One, Eric Rice, has won sponsorship from Warner Bros. He can now legally play the music of a band Warner Bros wants to push. Some commentators on the net say it has a similar feel to the dotcom days. Others say it is just another element of setting media free from big companies and letting people be creative. One thing is for sure; they are not about to disappear in a hurry. The creative forces behind radio are elated, says Curry. For now, he tunes out the negative comments within the podcasting community. ""I should be knighted for this,"" he adds, with a wry chuckle, ""People are going to be so happy to sit at home, make their podcast, and make a little money.""
","""It is totally going to kill the business model of radio,"" thinks Curry.""Podcasting is going to be a medium of niches, with 'audiences' measured in the single digits, like e-mail or blogs.Because of the way podcasts work, based on RSS, the latest podcasts which people can select mean that they are ready-made targets.""We're the sources, the people doing stuff, and podcasting is a way to tell people who care what we're doing.""I should be knighted for this,"" he adds, with a wry chuckle, ""People are going to be so happy to sit at home, make their podcast, and make a little money.""""Podcasting is one of those interesting areas that bridges what you do at home and what you do out and about - a classic hybrid.""It's about real people saying real things and communicating,"" says Adam Curry, former MTV VJ and the Pied Piper of podcasting.""No matter how you look at it, commercialising this medium isn't going to make very much money,"" he says.Those with digital music players can select which podcasts they like, and subscribe - for free - to that show's ""feed"".The creative forces behind radio are elated, says Curry.Others say it is just another element of setting media free from big companies and letting people be creative.""When you look at podcasting - wow this is a pretty interesting audience.It is a fledgling movement, but it is gaining momentum now that people have started thinking about how to make a business from it.Curry and associate Ron Bloom's new venture, called PodShow, is to help ordinary people produce, post, distribute and market their podcasts.It is podcasting - DIY radio in the form of downloadable MP3 audio files.He was one of a community of people who created iPodder, a small computer program, known as an ""aggregator"".They are essentially amateur radio shows on the net, on demand, and the ""movement"" is at very early stages.""So how are they going to reach these audiences?Advertising, in his eyes, can be tailored to podcasts, to make it more imaginative and unobtrusive.Ian Fogg, Jupiter Research analyst, thinks there could be potential for business, but it could take an interesting turn if big companies, like Apple and Microsoft, get involved.They can done by anyone who has a microphone, simple software, the net, and something to say.Some commentators on the net say it has a similar feel to the dotcom days.It is yet another area that demonstrates the move to a digital lifestyle and digital home is not over,"" he says.One, Eric Rice, has won sponsorship from Warner Bros."
"Local net TV takes off in Austria

An Austrian village is testing technology that could represent the future of television.

The people of Engerwitzdorf are filming, editing and producing their own regional news channel. The channel covers local politics, sports, events and anything that residents want to film and are prepared to upload for others to watch on PCs. The pilot has been so successful that Telekom Austria is now considering setting up other projects elsewhere.

""It's growing unbelievably fast,"" said Rudolf Fischer, head of Telekom Austria's fixed line division. The trial of Buntes Fernsehen (Multi-Coloured TV) was started in late 2004 and creates a net-based TV station run by the 8,000 residents of Engerwitzdorf. The hardware and software to turn video footage into edited programmes has been provided by Telekom Austria but this equipment, following training, has been turned over to the villagers. Any video programme created by the villagers is uploaded to a Buntes Fernsehen portal that lets people browse and download what they want to watch. Most people watch the TV on their home PC and a broadband connection is needed to get broadcast quality programmes. In the first four months of the project villagers have created 60 films and put together regular reports on local news items. ""They have adopted it very quickly,"" said Mr Fischer. ""They like the possibility to create their own content and see what's going on in the area."" ""It's kind of the democratisation of local TV,"" he said, ""because none of the bigger broadcasters would ever do anything like this for that region."" The Buntes Fernsehen project has been such a success that Telekom Austria is now considering setting up other schemes in similarly rural areas. Mr Fischer said it was taking the roll-out to other areas slowly because of the work involved in setting up the scheme, getting backers from local government and educating people how to make programmes. The Engerwitzdorf scheme is an outgrowth of Telekom Austria's online TV channel Aon which lets people watch programmes on their PC. Aon streams a couple of live channels, plus sports, news and music programmes on to the net and has a pay-for-download section that lets people watch what they want when they want to watch it. In October a larger TV-on-demand project is due to launch in Vienna that will let people download many programmes from the net.
","The Engerwitzdorf scheme is an outgrowth of Telekom Austria's online TV channel Aon which lets people watch programmes on their PC.Any video programme created by the villagers is uploaded to a Buntes Fernsehen portal that lets people browse and download what they want to watch.Aon streams a couple of live channels, plus sports, news and music programmes on to the net and has a pay-for-download section that lets people watch what they want when they want to watch it.Mr Fischer said it was taking the roll-out to other areas slowly because of the work involved in setting up the scheme, getting backers from local government and educating people how to make programmes.The Buntes Fernsehen project has been such a success that Telekom Austria is now considering setting up other schemes in similarly rural areas.The pilot has been so successful that Telekom Austria is now considering setting up other projects elsewhere.In October a larger TV-on-demand project is due to launch in Vienna that will let people download many programmes from the net.Most people watch the TV on their home PC and a broadband connection is needed to get broadcast quality programmes."
"Rolling out next generation's net

The body that oversees how the net works, grows and evolves says it has coped well with its growth in the last 10 years, but it is just the start.

""In a sense, we have hardly started in reaching the whole population,"" the new chair of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), Brian Carpenter, says. The IETF ensures the smooth running and organisation of the net's architecture. With broadband take-up growing, services like voice and TV will open up interesting challenges for the net. ""I think VoIP (Voice-over Internet Protocol, allowing phone calls to be made over the Net) is very important - it challenges all the old cost models of telecoms,"" says Dr Carpenter. ""Second, it challenges more deeply the business model that you have to be a service provider with a lot of infrastructure. With VoIP, you need very little infrastructure.""

A distinguished IBM engineer, Dr Carpenter spent 20 years at Cern, the European Laboratory for Particle Physics. As the new chair of the IETF, his next big challenge is overseeing IPv6, the next generation standard for information transfer and routing across the web. At Cern, Dr Carpenter helped pioneer advanced net applications during the development of the world wide web, so he is well-placed to take on such a task. The net's growth and evolution depend on standards and protocols, and ensuring the architecture works and talks to other standards is a crucial job of the IETF. The top priority is to ensure that the standards that make the net work, are open and free for anyone to use and work with.

The net is built on a protocol called TCP/IP, which means transmission control protocol, and internet protocol. When computers communicate with the net, a unique IP address is used to send and receive information. The IETF is a large international community of network designers, operators, vendors, and researchers working on the evolution of the net's architecture and the way this information is sent and received. They make sure it all knits together leaving no gaps. ""We've seen some interesting effects over last few years,"" explains Dr Carpenter. ""The net was growing at a fantastic rate at the end of the 90s. Then there was a bit of a glitch in 2000. ""We are now seeing a very clear phase of consolidation and renewed growth.""

That renewed growth is also being buoyed by emerging economies, like China, which are showing fast uptake of broadband net and other technologies. The number of broadband subscribers via DSL (Digital Subscriber Line) doubled in a year to 13 million, according to figures released at the end of 2004. ""The challenges we face are about continuing to produce standards to allow for that growth rate,"" explained Dr Carpenter. ""Given it [the net] was designed for the whole community, it has done well to reach millions. If you want to reach the whole population, you have to make sure it can scale up."" IPv6, the standard that will replace the existing IPv4, will allow for billions more addresses on the net, and it is gradually being worked into network infrastructure across the world. ""The actual number of addresses with IPv4 is limited to four billion IP addresses. ""That clearly is not enough when you have 10 billion people to serve, so there is technical solution, the new version of IP - IPv6. ""It has much larger address space possibilities with no practical limits,"" said Dr Carpenter. Standards are vital to something as complex as the net, and making sure standards are open and can work with across networks is a big task. The difference this next generation standard, IPv6, will make to the average net user is almost invisible. ""Our first goal is that it [IPv6] should make no difference - people should not notice a difference. ""It is like when the London telephone numbers got longer. A lot of the process will be invisible. ""People are usually given an IP address without knowing it."" Technically deployment has started and the standards for are just about settled, said Dr Carpenter.

The one problem with the net that may never disappear completely is security. To Dr Carpenter, the solution comes out of technological and human behaviour. People have to be educated about ""sensible behaviour"" he says, such as ignoring e-mails that claim you have won something.

""I don't think it is going to get worse. People will remain concerned about security and they probably should do - just as you would be concerned walking along a dark street. ""We have to do work to make sure there are better security internet standards. It is a never-ending battle in a sense."" But, he adds: ""Even if security has improved, you still worry a bit. Unfortunately, it is just part of life. We have a duty to do what we can.""
","The difference this next generation standard, IPv6, will make to the average net user is almost invisible.IPv6, the standard that will replace the existing IPv4, will allow for billions more addresses on the net, and it is gradually being worked into network infrastructure across the world.""I think VoIP (Voice-over Internet Protocol, allowing phone calls to be made over the Net) is very important - it challenges all the old cost models of telecoms,"" says Dr Carpenter.Standards are vital to something as complex as the net, and making sure standards are open and can work with across networks is a big task.""The challenges we face are about continuing to produce standards to allow for that growth rate,"" explained Dr Carpenter.Technically deployment has started and the standards for are just about settled, said Dr Carpenter.The top priority is to ensure that the standards that make the net work, are open and free for anyone to use and work with.At Cern, Dr Carpenter helped pioneer advanced net applications during the development of the world wide web, so he is well-placed to take on such a task.""Given it [the net] was designed for the whole community, it has done well to reach millions.With broadband take-up growing, services like voice and TV will open up interesting challenges for the net.The net's growth and evolution depend on standards and protocols, and ensuring the architecture works and talks to other standards is a crucial job of the IETF.As the new chair of the IETF, his next big challenge is overseeing IPv6, the next generation standard for information transfer and routing across the web.""The net was growing at a fantastic rate at the end of the 90s.""In a sense, we have hardly started in reaching the whole population,"" the new chair of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), Brian Carpenter, says.""We have to do work to make sure there are better security internet standards.""It has much larger address space possibilities with no practical limits,"" said Dr Carpenter.When computers communicate with the net, a unique IP address is used to send and receive information.The body that oversees how the net works, grows and evolves says it has coped well with its growth in the last 10 years, but it is just the start.That renewed growth is also being buoyed by emerging economies, like China, which are showing fast uptake of broadband net and other technologies."
"Long life promised for laptop PCs

Scientists are working on ways to ensure laptops can stay powered for an entire working day.

Building batteries from new chemical mixes could boost power significantly, say industry experts. The changes include everything from the way chips for laptops are made, to tricks that reduce the power consumption of displays. Ever since laptops appeared the amount of time they last between recharges has been a frustration for users.

A survey carried out in 2000 by Forrester Research found that the shortness of battery life was the most complained about feature of laptops. ""The focus back then was more on performance and features,"" said Mike Trainor, chief mobile technology evangelist for chip giant Intel.

""For most of the 90s battery life was stuck on two to 2.5 hours."" But now, he said, laptops can last much longer. It was not just a case of improving battery life by squeezing more out of the lithium ion power packs, he explained. Other changes are needed to get to the holy grail of a laptop running for about eight hours before needing a recharge. ""Lithium ion is never going to get there by itself,"" he said. ""The industry has done a great job of wringing all possible energy storage out of that technology that they can."" Some new battery chemistries promise to cram more power into the same space, said Mr Trainor, though work still needed to be done to get them successfully from the lab to manufacturing. He was sceptical that fuel cells would develop quick enough to take over from solid batteries even though they have the potential to produce several times more energy than lithium ion power packs. ""In fuel cells you need to have pumps and separators and evaporation chambers,"" he said. ""It's a mini energy plant that needs to be shrunk and shrunk and shrunk.""

Intel has been working with component makers to test energy consumption on all the parts inside a laptop and find ways to make them less power hungry.

This work has led to the creation of the Mobile PC Extended Battery Life (EBL) Working Group that shares information about building notebooks that are more parsimonious with power. Some of the improvements in power use come simply because components on chips are shrinking, said Mr Trainor. Intel has also changed the way it creates transistors on silicon to reduce the power they need. On a larger scale, said Mr Trainor, improvements in the way that voltage regulators are made can reduce the amount of power lost as heat and make a notebook more energy efficient. Also, said Mr Trainor, research is being done on ways to cut energy consumption on displays - currently the biggest power guzzler on a laptop. Many laptop makers have committed to creating 14 and 15 inch screens that draw only three watts of power. This is far below the power consumption levels of screens in current notebooks. ""If we can get close to eight hours that's a place that people see as extraordinarily valuable that's what the industry has to deliver,"" Mr Trainor said.
","Also, said Mr Trainor, research is being done on ways to cut energy consumption on displays - currently the biggest power guzzler on a laptop.Intel has been working with component makers to test energy consumption on all the parts inside a laptop and find ways to make them less power hungry.On a larger scale, said Mr Trainor, improvements in the way that voltage regulators are made can reduce the amount of power lost as heat and make a notebook more energy efficient.Some new battery chemistries promise to cram more power into the same space, said Mr Trainor, though work still needed to be done to get them successfully from the lab to manufacturing.The changes include everything from the way chips for laptops are made, to tricks that reduce the power consumption of displays.Some of the improvements in power use come simply because components on chips are shrinking, said Mr Trainor.It was not just a case of improving battery life by squeezing more out of the lithium ion power packs, he explained.Intel has also changed the way it creates transistors on silicon to reduce the power they need.He was sceptical that fuel cells would develop quick enough to take over from solid batteries even though they have the potential to produce several times more energy than lithium ion power packs.This work has led to the creation of the Mobile PC Extended Battery Life (EBL) Working Group that shares information about building notebooks that are more parsimonious with power."
"Net fingerprints combat attacks

Eighty large net service firms have switched on software to spot and stop net attacks automatically.

The system creates digital fingerprints of ongoing incidents that are sent to every network affected. Firms involved in the smart sensing system believe it will help trace attacks back to their source. Data gathered will be passed to police to help build up intelligence about who is behind worm outbreaks and denial of service attacks.

Firms signing up for the sensing system include MCI, BT, Deutsche Telekom, Energis, NTT, Bell Canada and many others. The creation of the fingerprinting system has been brokered by US firm Arbor Networks and signatures of attacks will be passed to anyone suffering under the weight of an attack. Increasingly computer criminals are using swarms of remotely controlled computers to carry out denial of service attacks on websites, launch worms and relay spam around the net. ""We have seen attacks involving five and ten gigabytes of traffic,"" said Rob Pollard, sales director for Arbor Networks which is behind the fingerprinting system. ""Attacks of that size cause collateral damage as they cross the internet before they get to their destination,"" he said. Once an attack is spotted and its signature defined the information will be passed back down the chain of networks affected to help every unwitting player tackle the problem.

Mr Pollard said Arbor was not charging for the service and it would pass on fingerprint data to every network affected. ""What we want to do is help net service firms communicate with each other and then push the attacks further and further back around the world to their source,"" said Mr Pollard. Arbor Network's technology works by building up a detailed history of traffic on a network. It spots which computers or groups of users regularly talk to each other and what types of traffic passes between machines or workgroups. Any anomaly to this usual pattern is spotted and flagged to network administrators who can take action if the traffic is due to a net-based attack of some kind. This type of close analysis has become very useful as net attacks are increasingly launched using several hundred or thousand different machines. Anyone looking at the traffic on a machine by machine basis would be unlikely to spot that they were all part of a concerted attack. ""Attacks are getting more diffuse and more sophisticated,"" said Malcolm Seagrave, security expert at Energis. ""In the last 12 months it started getting noticeable that criminals were taking to it and we've seen massive growth."" He said that although informal systems exist to pass on information about attacks, often commercial confidentiality got in the way of sharing enough information to properly combat attacks.
","""What we want to do is help net service firms communicate with each other and then push the attacks further and further back around the world to their source,"" said Mr Pollard.""We have seen attacks involving five and ten gigabytes of traffic,"" said Rob Pollard, sales director for Arbor Networks which is behind the fingerprinting system.The creation of the fingerprinting system has been brokered by US firm Arbor Networks and signatures of attacks will be passed to anyone suffering under the weight of an attack.Mr Pollard said Arbor was not charging for the service and it would pass on fingerprint data to every network affected.Once an attack is spotted and its signature defined the information will be passed back down the chain of networks affected to help every unwitting player tackle the problem.Firms involved in the smart sensing system believe it will help trace attacks back to their source.Eighty large net service firms have switched on software to spot and stop net attacks automatically.Increasingly computer criminals are using swarms of remotely controlled computers to carry out denial of service attacks on websites, launch worms and relay spam around the net."
"Microsoft plans 'safer ID' system

Microsoft is planning to make Windows and Internet Explorer more secure by including software to give people more control over personal information.

""Info cards"" will help people manage personal details on their PCs to make online services safer, said Microsoft. Microsoft's two previous programs, Passport and Hailstorm, aimed to protect users but were criticised. ID fraud is one of the UK's fastest-growing crimes, with criminals netting an estimated £1.3bn last year. A quarter of UK adults has either had their ID stolen, via hi-tech or other means, or knows someone who has, a recent report by Which? magazine found.

Microsoft is developing a new version of Internet Explorer browser and its operating system, Windows, which has been code-named Longhorn. Michael Stephenson, director in Microsoft's Windows Server division, would not confirm however whether the new info cards ID system will be built into the current Windows XP version or Longhorn.

""We're trying to make the end-user experience as simple as possible,"" Mr Stephenson said. The system would differ from its previous attempts to make online transactions more secure, said Microsoft. While Passport and Hailstorm stored user information centrally on the net, the latest system will store data on a user's PC. ""It's going to put control of digital IDs into the hands of an end-user, the end-user will be in full control,"" said Mr Stephenson.

Hailstorm was criticised by privacy campaigners for putting too much sensitive information into the hands of a single company. Passport provides a single log-in for more than one website and stores basic personal information. But its popularity suffered after security scares. Up to 200 million Passport accounts were left vulnerable to online theft and malicious hackers after a flaw in the system was exploited in 2003. Online auction site, eBay, stopped supporting it in January 2005. Although the flaw was fixed, Microsoft has come under regular criticism for the number of security loopholes in Internet Explorer. Last year, it released a major security update for Windows, Service Pack 2, to combat some of the security concerns. Longhorn is due to be released commercially in late 2006, but an updated version of Internet Explorer is due for release later this year.
","Microsoft is planning to make Windows and Internet Explorer more secure by including software to give people more control over personal information.Microsoft is developing a new version of Internet Explorer browser and its operating system, Windows, which has been code-named Longhorn.The system would differ from its previous attempts to make online transactions more secure, said Microsoft.Although the flaw was fixed, Microsoft has come under regular criticism for the number of security loopholes in Internet Explorer.""Info cards"" will help people manage personal details on their PCs to make online services safer, said Microsoft.Michael Stephenson, director in Microsoft's Windows Server division, would not confirm however whether the new info cards ID system will be built into the current Windows XP version or Longhorn.While Passport and Hailstorm stored user information centrally on the net, the latest system will store data on a user's PC.Last year, it released a major security update for Windows, Service Pack 2, to combat some of the security concerns."
"Court mulls file-sharing future

Judges at the US Supreme Court have been hearing evidence for and against file-sharing networks.

The court will decide whether producers of file-sharing software can ultimately be held responsible for copyright infringement. They questioned if opening the way for the entertainment industry to sue file-sharers could deter innovation. They also said that file-trading firms had some responsibility for inducing people to piracy.

The lawsuit, brought by 28 of the world's largest entertainment firms, has raged for several years. Legal experts agree that if the Supreme Court finds in favour of the music and movie industry they would be able to sue file-trading firms into bankruptcy. But if the judge rules that Grokster and Morpheus - the file-sharers at the centre of the case - are merely providers of technology that can have legitimate as well as illegitimate uses, then the music and movie industry would be forced to abandon its pursuit of file-sharing providers. Instead, they would have to pursue individuals who use peer-to-peer networks to get their hands on free music and movies. The hi-tech and entertainment industries have been divided on the issue. Intel filed a document with the Supreme Court earlier this month in defence of Grokster and others, despite misgivings about some aspects of the file-sharing community. It summed up the attitude of many tech firms in its submission which states that its products ""are essentially tools, that like any other tools, capable of being used by consumers and businesses for unlawful purposes"".

Asking firms to second-guess the uses that its technologies would be put to, and to build in ways of preventing illegitimate use, would stifle innovation, it said. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil rights watchdog, is also defending StreamCast Networks, the company behind the Morpheus file-sharing software. The case raises a question of critical importance at the border between copyright and innovation, it said. It cites, as do many, the landmark ruling in 1984 which found that Sony should not be held responsible for the fact that its Betamax video recorder could be used for piracy. Defenders remain optimistic that the judges will rule in favour of the peer-to-peer networks, upholding the precedent set by the Sony Betamax case. A small band of supporters were outside the court as the lawyers entered, wearing ""Save Betamax"" t-shirts. ""The Betamax principles stand as the Magna Carta for the technology industry and are responsible for the explosion in innovation that has occurred in the US over the past 20 years,"" said Gary Shapiro, chief executive of the Consumer Electronics Association. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer said that inventions from printing to Apple's iPod could be used to illegally duplicate copyrighted materials but had, on balance, been beneficial to society. He said that while file-trading software can be used to illegally trade movies and music, conceptually the technology had ""some really excellent uses"".

Based on Tuesday's hearing it seems unlikely that the Betamax ruling will be overturned but file-sharing firms might still be held responsible for encouraging or inducing piracy. Grokster's lawyer argued that the company should be judged by its current behaviour rather than what it did when it first set up. But this argument was dismissed as ""ridiculous"" by Justice David Souter. CEA boss Mr Shapiro thinks the case is the most important that the Supreme Court will hear this year. ""It's about preserving America's proud history of technological innovation and protecting the ability of consumers to access and utilise technology,"" he said. The case has already been heard by two lower courts and both found in favour of the peer-to-peer networks. They ruled that despite being used to distribute millions of illegal songs, file-sharing could also be used to cheaply distribute software, government documents and promotional copies of music.
","Legal experts agree that if the Supreme Court finds in favour of the music and movie industry they would be able to sue file-trading firms into bankruptcy.Judges at the US Supreme Court have been hearing evidence for and against file-sharing networks.""The Betamax principles stand as the Magna Carta for the technology industry and are responsible for the explosion in innovation that has occurred in the US over the past 20 years,"" said Gary Shapiro, chief executive of the Consumer Electronics Association.But if the judge rules that Grokster and Morpheus - the file-sharers at the centre of the case - are merely providers of technology that can have legitimate as well as illegitimate uses, then the music and movie industry would be forced to abandon its pursuit of file-sharing providers.He said that while file-trading software can be used to illegally trade movies and music, conceptually the technology had ""some really excellent uses"".Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer said that inventions from printing to Apple's iPod could be used to illegally duplicate copyrighted materials but had, on balance, been beneficial to society.Asking firms to second-guess the uses that its technologies would be put to, and to build in ways of preventing illegitimate use, would stifle innovation, it said.The case has already been heard by two lower courts and both found in favour of the peer-to-peer networks.The court will decide whether producers of file-sharing software can ultimately be held responsible for copyright infringement.Based on Tuesday's hearing it seems unlikely that the Betamax ruling will be overturned but file-sharing firms might still be held responsible for encouraging or inducing piracy.They ruled that despite being used to distribute millions of illegal songs, file-sharing could also be used to cheaply distribute software, government documents and promotional copies of music."
"France starts digital terrestrial

France has become the last big European country to launch a digital terrestrial TV (DTT) service.

Initially, more than a third of the population will be able to receive 14 free-to-air channels. Despite the long wait for a French DTT roll-out, the new platform's backers hope to emulate the success of its UK free-to-air counterpart, Freeview. Recent figures from the UK's regulator Ofcom showed Freeview was more popular than the Sky digital satellite service. In the three months to September 2004, almost five times as many people signed up to the UK's free-to-air DTT service compared with Sky. Almost 60% of UK households have gone digital on at least one television set through cable, satellite or Freeview.

The French DTT platform is known as TNT, which stands for TV numerique terrestre or digital terrestrial television. But it is being branded as Television Numerique pour Tous, or ""digital television for all"". TNT is a joint venture between public broadcaster France Televisions and a handful of cable and satellite operators. Digital terrestrial TV will launch as a free-to-air platform to start with, adding pay-TV channels later. Thirty-five contenders have bid for an additional eight frequencies on top of the 14 already allocated. ""A couple of years ago, DTT had a bad image,"" said Olivier Gerolami, chief operating officer of TNT.

""But everyone's impressed with DTT in the UK, Italy and Germany, and they realise it is a very good idea. ""France is the poorest market in Europe in terms of free-to-air national channels, so it has the potential to be one of the biggest DTT markets,"" Mr Gerolami added in remarks quoted by the US entertainment industry paper Variety. TNT aims to reach 35% of France's population at launch, from 17 transmission sites. The transmission area will initially include Paris, Lille, Lyon and Toulouse. Eventually there will be 115 sites reaching over 80% of homes. Digital terrestrial set-top boxes are available from as little as 70 euros (£50). A recent survey by Mediametrie found that 70% of people interviewed were aware of DTT, and 25% were planning to buy a digital receiver. Consumer electronics companies such as Nokia, Sagem, Sony and Thomson are gearing up for production. The Conseil Superieur de l'Audiovisuel (CSA), the French broadcasting regulator, said: ""Following the recent success of Freeview in the UK, some manufacturers are optimistic about sales prospects"". Media analysts believe that initially the majority of viewers will buy inexpensive set-top boxes that are unable to support interactive services. The CSA said the current aim of reaching 85% of the population by 2007 was achievable, but the future of the remaining TV viewers required action by the public sector. For the most part, they are people living in mountainous or border areas, which will remain beyond the reach of digital terrestrial TV for years.

Up to 15 pay-TV channels will launch on DTT between September 2005 and March 2006. Leading pay-TV operators Canal Plus and TPS have submitted bids to market bouquets of channels. Free-to-air services will be broadcast in MPEG-2 format. But pay-TV operators will be allowed to broadcast in MPEG-4 - a much better compression technology - which will potentially allow for high-definition (HD) subscription services in the future. TNT expects between 700,000 and one million DTT set-top boxes to be sold in 2005. ""It is difficult to tell how quickly it will take off,"" said Mr Gerolami, ""but we're optimistic that it will revolutionise television in France."" Other analysts were less optimistic, predicting consumers would now be less likely to sign up for pay-TV subscriptions. ""We think free DTT could put brakes on the underlying growth of pay-TV in France,"" said Henri de Bodinat, vice-president of the Arthur D. Little consultancy.
","The French DTT platform is known as TNT, which stands for TV numerique terrestre or digital terrestrial television.France has become the last big European country to launch a digital terrestrial TV (DTT) service.Digital terrestrial TV will launch as a free-to-air platform to start with, adding pay-TV channels later.Up to 15 pay-TV channels will launch on DTT between September 2005 and March 2006.TNT expects between 700,000 and one million DTT set-top boxes to be sold in 2005.Almost 60% of UK households have gone digital on at least one television set through cable, satellite or Freeview.In the three months to September 2004, almost five times as many people signed up to the UK's free-to-air DTT service compared with Sky.A recent survey by Mediametrie found that 70% of people interviewed were aware of DTT, and 25% were planning to buy a digital receiver.Digital terrestrial set-top boxes are available from as little as 70 euros (£50).Recent figures from the UK's regulator Ofcom showed Freeview was more popular than the Sky digital satellite service.""France is the poorest market in Europe in terms of free-to-air national channels, so it has the potential to be one of the biggest DTT markets,"" Mr Gerolami added in remarks quoted by the US entertainment industry paper Variety.""We think free DTT could put brakes on the underlying growth of pay-TV in France,"" said Henri de Bodinat, vice-president of the Arthur D. Little consultancy.Despite the long wait for a French DTT roll-out, the new platform's backers hope to emulate the success of its UK free-to-air counterpart, Freeview."
"Text message record smashed again

UK mobile owners continue to break records with their text messaging, with latest figures showing that 26 billion texts were sent in total in 2004.

The figures collected by the Mobile Data Association (MDA) showed that 2.4 billion were fired off in December alone, the highest monthly total ever. That was 26% more than in December 2003. The records even surpassed the MDA's own predictions, it said. Every day 78 million messages are sent and there are no signs of a slow down. Before December's bumper text record, the previous highest monthly total was in October 2004, when 2.3 billion were sent. Text messaging is set to smash more records in 2005 too, said the MDA, with forecasts suggesting a total of 30 billion for the year.

Even though mobiles are becoming increasingly sophisticated with much more multimedia applications, texting is still one of the most useful functions of mobiles. People are using SMS to do much more too. Booking cinema tickets, text voting, and news or sports text alerts are growing popular. Mobile owners have also given the chance to donate to the Disasters Emergency Committee's (DEC) Asian Tsunami fund by texting ""Donate"" to a simple short code number. Looking further ahead in the year, the MDA's chairman Mike Short, has predicted that more people will go online through their mobiles, estimating 15 billion WAP page impressions. Handsets with GPRS capability - an ""always on"" net connection - will rise to 75%, while 3G mobile ownership growing to five million by the end of 2005. These third generation mobiles offer a high-speed connection which means more data like video can be received on the phone. Globally, mobile phone sales passed 167 million in the third quarter of 2004, according to a recent report from analysts Gartner. That was 26% more than the previous year. It is predicted that there would be two billion handsets in use worldwide by the end of 2005.
","Before December's bumper text record, the previous highest monthly total was in October 2004, when 2.3 billion were sent.UK mobile owners continue to break records with their text messaging, with latest figures showing that 26 billion texts were sent in total in 2004.Text messaging is set to smash more records in 2005 too, said the MDA, with forecasts suggesting a total of 30 billion for the year.The figures collected by the Mobile Data Association (MDA) showed that 2.4 billion were fired off in December alone, the highest monthly total ever.Looking further ahead in the year, the MDA's chairman Mike Short, has predicted that more people will go online through their mobiles, estimating 15 billion WAP page impressions.That was 26% more than the previous year.Handsets with GPRS capability - an ""always on"" net connection - will rise to 75%, while 3G mobile ownership growing to five million by the end of 2005."
"Software watching while you work

Software that can not only monitor every keystroke and action performed at a PC but also be used as legally binding evidence of wrong-doing has been unveiled.

Worries about cyber-crime and sabotage have prompted many employers to consider monitoring employees. The developers behind the system claim it is a break-through in the way data is monitored and stored. But privacy advocates are concerned by the invasive nature of such software.

The system is a joint venture between security firm 3ami and storage specialists BridgeHead Software. They have joined forces to create a system which can monitor computer activity, store it and retrieve disputed files within minutes. More and more firms are finding themselves in deep water as a result of data misuse. Sabotage and data theft are most commonly committed from within an organisation according to the National Hi-Tech Crime Unit (NHTCU) A survey conducted on its behalf by NOP found evidence that more than 80% of medium and large companies have been victims of some form of cyber-crime. BridgeHead Software has come up with techniques to prove, to a legal standard, that any stored file on a PC has not been tampered with. Ironically the impetus for developing the system came as a result of the Freedom of Information Act, which requires companies to store all data for a certain amount of time.

The storage system has been incorporated into an application developed by security firm 3ami which allows every action on a computer to be logged. Potentially it could help employers to follow the trail of stolen files and pinpoint whether they had been emailed to a third party, copied, printed, deleted or saved to CD, floppy disk, memory stick or flash card. Other activities the system can monitor include the downloading of pornography, the use of racist or bullying language or the copying of applications for personal use. Increasingly organisations that handle sensitive data, such as governments, are using biometric log-ins such as fingerprinting to provide conclusive proof of who was using a particular machine at any given time. Privacy advocates are concerned that monitoring at work is not only damaging to employee's privacy but also to the relationship between employers and their staff. ""That is not the case,"" said Tim Ellsmore, managing director of 3ami. ""It is not about replacing dialogue but there are issues that you can talk through but you still need proof,"" he said. ""People need to recognise that you are using a PC as a representative of a company and that employers have a legal requirement to store data,"" he added.
","The storage system has been incorporated into an application developed by security firm 3ami which allows every action on a computer to be logged.""People need to recognise that you are using a PC as a representative of a company and that employers have a legal requirement to store data,"" he added.The system is a joint venture between security firm 3ami and storage specialists BridgeHead Software.Ironically the impetus for developing the system came as a result of the Freedom of Information Act, which requires companies to store all data for a certain amount of time.BridgeHead Software has come up with techniques to prove, to a legal standard, that any stored file on a PC has not been tampered with.They have joined forces to create a system which can monitor computer activity, store it and retrieve disputed files within minutes.The developers behind the system claim it is a break-through in the way data is monitored and stored.Software that can not only monitor every keystroke and action performed at a PC but also be used as legally binding evidence of wrong-doing has been unveiled."
"Commodore finds new lease of life

The once-famous Commodore computer brand could be resurrected after being bought by a US-based digital music distributor.

New owner Yeahronimo Media Ventures has not ruled out the possibility of a new breed of Commodore computers. It also plans to develop a ""worldwide entertainment concept"" with the brand, although details are not yet known. The groundbreaking Commodore 64 computer elicits fond memories for those who owned one back in the 1980s.

In the chronology of home computing, Commodore was one of the pioneers.

The Commodore 64, launched in 1982, was one of the first affordable home PCs. It was followed a few years later by the Amiga. The Commodore 64 sold more than any other single computer system, even to this day. The brand languished somewhat in the 1990s. Commodore International filed for bankruptcy in 1994 and was sold to Dutch firm Tulip Computers. In the late 1980s the firm was a great rival to Atari, which produced its own range of home computers and is now a brand of video games, formerly known as Infogrames.

Tulip Computers sold several products under the Commodore name, including portable USB storage devices and digital music players. It had planned to relaunch the brand, following an upsurge of nostalgia for 1980s-era games. Commodore 64 enthusiasts have written emulators for Windows PC, Apple Mac and even PDAs so that the original Commodore games can be still run. The sale of Commodore is expected to be complete in three weeks in a deal worth over £17m.
","In the chronology of home computing, Commodore was one of the pioneers.The Commodore 64, launched in 1982, was one of the first affordable home PCs.Commodore International filed for bankruptcy in 1994 and was sold to Dutch firm Tulip Computers.The once-famous Commodore computer brand could be resurrected after being bought by a US-based digital music distributor.The Commodore 64 sold more than any other single computer system, even to this day.In the late 1980s the firm was a great rival to Atari, which produced its own range of home computers and is now a brand of video games, formerly known as Infogrames."
"Cabs collect mountain of mobiles

Gadgets are cheaper, smaller and more common than ever. But that just means we are more likely to lose them.

In London alone over the past six months more than 63,000 mobile phones have been left in the back of black cabs, according to a survey. That works out at about three phones per cab. Over the same period almost 5,000 laptops and 5,800 PDAs such as Palms and Pocket PCs were left in licensed cabs. Even the great and good are not immune to losing their beloved gadgets. Jemima Khan reportedly left her iPod, phone and purse in a cab and asked for them to be returned to her friend who turned out to be Hugh Grant. As the popularity of portable gadgets has grown, and we trust more of our lives to them, we seem to be forgetting them in ever larger numbers. The numbers of lost laptops has leapt by 71% in the last three years.

This has left Londoners, or those travelling by cab in the capital, as the world's best at losing laptops, according to the research by the Licensed Taxi Drivers Association and Pointsec, a mobile-data backup firm. More than twice as many laptops were left in the back of black cabs in London as in any of the nine other cities (Helsinki, Oslo, Munich, Paris, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Chicago and Sydney) where the research into lost and found gadgets was carried out. By contrast Danes were most adept at losing mobile phones being seven times more likely to leave it behind in a cab than travellers in Germans, Norwegians and Swedes. Top of the range phones can carry enormous amounts of data - enough to hold hundreds of pictures or thousands of contact details. Given that few people back up the data on their PC it is a fair bet that even fewer do so with the phone they carry around. You could be losing a fair chunk of your life in the back of that cab not least because many people collect numbers on their phone that they do not have anywhere else.

Equally, phones let you navigate through contacts by name so many people have completely forgotten their friends' numbers and could not reconstruct them if they had to. This growing habit of losing gadgets explains the rise of firms such as Retrofone which lets people buy a cheap old-fashioned phone to replace the tiny, shiny expensive one they have just lost. Briton's growing love of phones has also led to the creation of the Mobile Equipment National Database that lets you register the unique ID number of your phone so it can be returned to you in the event of it being lost or stolen. According to statistics 50% of all muggings and snatch theft offences involve mobiles. Millions of gadgets are now logged in the database and organisations such as Transport For London regularly consult it when trying to re-unite folk with their phones and other gadgets. For the drivers, finding a mobile in the back of their cab is one of the more pleasant things many have found. The survey of what else has been left behind included a harp, a dog, a hamster and a baby.
","You could be losing a fair chunk of your life in the back of that cab not least because many people collect numbers on their phone that they do not have anywhere else.In London alone over the past six months more than 63,000 mobile phones have been left in the back of black cabs, according to a survey.Briton's growing love of phones has also led to the creation of the Mobile Equipment National Database that lets you register the unique ID number of your phone so it can be returned to you in the event of it being lost or stolen.That works out at about three phones per cab.By contrast Danes were most adept at losing mobile phones being seven times more likely to leave it behind in a cab than travellers in Germans, Norwegians and Swedes.More than twice as many laptops were left in the back of black cabs in London as in any of the nine other cities (Helsinki, Oslo, Munich, Paris, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Chicago and Sydney) where the research into lost and found gadgets was carried out.This growing habit of losing gadgets explains the rise of firms such as Retrofone which lets people buy a cheap old-fashioned phone to replace the tiny, shiny expensive one they have just lost.This has left Londoners, or those travelling by cab in the capital, as the world's best at losing laptops, according to the research by the Licensed Taxi Drivers Association and Pointsec, a mobile-data backup firm.Given that few people back up the data on their PC it is a fair bet that even fewer do so with the phone they carry around."
"T-Mobile bets on 'pocket office'

T-Mobile has launched its latest ""pocket office"" third-generation (3G) device which also has built-in wi-fi - high-speed wireless net access.

Unlike other devices where the user has to check which high-speed network is available to transfer data, the device selects the fastest one itself. The MDA IV, released in the summer, is an upgrade to the company's existing smartphone, the 2.5G/wi-fi MDA III. It reflects the push by mobile firms for devices that are like mini laptops. The device has a display that can be swivelled and angled so it can be used like a small computer, or as a conventional clamshell phone. The Microsoft Mobile phone, with two cameras and a Qwerty keyboard, reflects the design of similar all-in-one models released this year, such as Motorola's MPx. ""One in five European workers are already mobile - meaning they spend significant time travelling and out of the office,"" Rene Obermann, T-Mobile's chief executive, told a press conference at the 3GSM trade show in Cannes. He added: ""What they need is their office when they are out of the office."" T-Mobile said it was seeing increasing take up for what it calls ""Office in a Pocket"" devices, with 100,000 MDAs sold in Europe already.

In response to demand, T-Mobile also said it would be adding the latest phone-shaped Blackberry to its mobile range. Reflecting the growing need to be connected outside the office, it announced it would introduce a flat-fee £20 ($38) a month wi-fi tariff for people in the UK using its wi-fi hotspots. It said it would nearly double the number of its hotspots - places where wi-fi access is available - globally from 12,300 to 20,000.

It also announced it was installing high-speed wi-fi on certain train services, such as the UK's London to Brighton service, to provide commuters a fast net connection too. The service, which has been developed with Southern trains, Nomad Digital (who provide the technology), begins with a free trial on 16 trains on the route from early March to the end of April. A full service is set to follow in the summer. Wi-fi access points will be connected to a Wimax wireless network - faster than wi-fi - running alongside the train tracks. Brian McBride, managing director of T-Mobile in the UK, said: ""We see a growing trend for business users needing to access e-mail securely on the move.

""We are able to offer this by maintaining a constant data session for the entire journey."" He said this was something other similar in-train wi-fi services, such as that offered on GNER trains, did not offer yet. Mr Obermann added that the mobile industry in general was still growing, with many more opportunities for more services which would bear fruit for mobile companies in future. Thousands of mobile industry experts are gathered in Cannes, France, for the 3GSM which runs from 14 to 17 February.
","T-Mobile has launched its latest ""pocket office"" third-generation (3G) device which also has built-in wi-fi - high-speed wireless net access.Mr Obermann added that the mobile industry in general was still growing, with many more opportunities for more services which would bear fruit for mobile companies in future.Reflecting the growing need to be connected outside the office, it announced it would introduce a flat-fee £20 ($38) a month wi-fi tariff for people in the UK using its wi-fi hotspots.It also announced it was installing high-speed wi-fi on certain train services, such as the UK's London to Brighton service, to provide commuters a fast net connection too.In response to demand, T-Mobile also said it would be adding the latest phone-shaped Blackberry to its mobile range.He said this was something other similar in-train wi-fi services, such as that offered on GNER trains, did not offer yet.It said it would nearly double the number of its hotspots - places where wi-fi access is available - globally from 12,300 to 20,000.Wi-fi access points will be connected to a Wimax wireless network - faster than wi-fi - running alongside the train tracks.Unlike other devices where the user has to check which high-speed network is available to transfer data, the device selects the fastest one itself."
"California sets fines for spyware

The makers of computer programs that secretly spy on what people do with their home PCs could face hefty fines in California.

From 1 January, a new law is being introduced to protect computer users from software known as spyware. The legislation, which was approved by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, is designed to safeguard people from hackers and help protect their personal information. Spyware is considered by computer experts to be one of the biggest nuisance and security threats facing PC users in the coming year. The software buries itself in computers and can collect a wide range of information. At its worst, it has the ability to hijack personal data, like passwords, login details and credit card numbers. The programs are so sophisticated they change frequently and become impossible to eradicate.

One form of spyware called adware has the ability to collect information on a computer user's web-surfing. It can result in people being bombarded with pop-up ads that are hard to close. In Washington, Congress has been debating four anti-spyware bills, but California is a step ahead. The state's Consumer Protection Against Spyware Act bans the installation of software that takes control of another computer. It also requires companies and websites to disclose whether their systems will install spyware. Consumers are able to seek up to $1,000 in damages if they think they have fallen victim to the intrusive software. The new law marks a continuing trend in California towards tougher privacy rights. A recent survey by Earthlink and Webroot found that 90% of PCs are infested with the surreptitious software and that, on average, each one is harbouring 28 separate spyware programs. Currently users wanting protection from spyware have turned to free programs such as Spybot and Ad-Aware.
","From 1 January, a new law is being introduced to protect computer users from software known as spyware.One form of spyware called adware has the ability to collect information on a computer user's web-surfing.The state's Consumer Protection Against Spyware Act bans the installation of software that takes control of another computer.The software buries itself in computers and can collect a wide range of information.The makers of computer programs that secretly spy on what people do with their home PCs could face hefty fines in California.Spyware is considered by computer experts to be one of the biggest nuisance and security threats facing PC users in the coming year.Currently users wanting protection from spyware have turned to free programs such as Spybot and Ad-Aware."
"Mobile TV tipped as one to watch

Scandinavians and Koreans, two of the most adventurous groups of mobile users, are betting on mobile TV.

Anders Igels, chief executive of Nordic operator Teliasonera, tipped it as the next big thing in mobile in a speech at the 3GSM World Congress, a mobile trade fair, in Cannes this week. Nokia, the Finnish handset maker, is planning a party in Singapore this spring to launch its TV to mobile activities in the region. Consultancy Strategy Analytics of Boston estimates that mobile broadcast networks will have acquired around 51 million users worldwide by 2009, producing around $6.6bn (£3.5bn) in revenue.

SK Telecom of South Korea, which is launching a TV to mobile service (via satellite) in May plans to charge a flat fee of $12 a month for its 12 channels of video and 12 channels of audio. It will be able to offer an additional two pay TV channels using conditional access technology. Mr Shin-Bae Kim, chief executive of SK Telecom, also at 3GSM, said: ""We have plans to integrate TV with mobile internet services.

""This will enable viewers to access the mobile internet to get more information on adverts they see on TV."" There will be 12 handsets available for the launch of the Korean service. LG Electronics of South Korea was demonstrating one at 3GSM that could display video at 30 frames a second. Footage shown on the handset was clear and watchable. A speech on mobile TV by Angel Gambino of the BBC also drew a large crowd, suggesting that even those mobile operators and equipment vendors which are not particularly active in mobile TV yet are starting to look into it.

But all is not simple and straightforward in the mobile TV arena. There is a battle for supremacy between two competing standards: DVB-H for Digital Video Broadcasting for Handsets and DMB for Digital Multimedia Broadcasting. Dr Chan Yeob Yeun, vice president and research fellow in charge of mobile TV at LG Electronics, said: ""DMB offers twice the number of frames a minute as DVB-H and does not drain mobile batteries as quickly."" The Japanese, Koreans and Ericsson of Sweden are backing DMB.

Samsung of South Korea has a DMB phone too that will be one of those offered to users of the TU Media satellite mobile TV service to be launched in Korea in May. Nokia, by contrast, is backing DVB-H, and is involved in mobile TV trials that use its art-deco style media phone, which has a larger than usual screen for TV or visual radio (a way of accompanying a radio programme with related text and pictures). Mobile operators O2 and Vodafone are among the operators trialling mobile TV. But even if the standards battle is resolved, there is the thorny issue of broadcasting rights. Ms Gambino says the BBC now negotiates mobile rights when it is negotiating content.

For those not convinced mobile users will want to watch TV on their handsets, Digital Audio Broadcasting may provide a good compromise and better sound quality than conventional radio. Developments in this area are continuing. At a DAB conference in Cannes, several makers of DAB chips for mobiles announced smaller, lower- cost chips which consume less power. Among the chip companies present were Frontier Silicon and Radioscape. The jury is still out on whether TV and digital radio on mobiles will make much money for anyone. But with many new services going live soon, it won't be long before the industry finds out.
","A speech on mobile TV by Angel Gambino of the BBC also drew a large crowd, suggesting that even those mobile operators and equipment vendors which are not particularly active in mobile TV yet are starting to look into it.Mobile operators O2 and Vodafone are among the operators trialling mobile TV.Scandinavians and Koreans, two of the most adventurous groups of mobile users, are betting on mobile TV.But all is not simple and straightforward in the mobile TV arena.Samsung of South Korea has a DMB phone too that will be one of those offered to users of the TU Media satellite mobile TV service to be launched in Korea in May.Dr Chan Yeob Yeun, vice president and research fellow in charge of mobile TV at LG Electronics, said: ""DMB offers twice the number of frames a minute as DVB-H and does not drain mobile batteries as quickly.""SK Telecom of South Korea, which is launching a TV to mobile service (via satellite) in May plans to charge a flat fee of $12 a month for its 12 channels of video and 12 channels of audio.Nokia, the Finnish handset maker, is planning a party in Singapore this spring to launch its TV to mobile activities in the region.The jury is still out on whether TV and digital radio on mobiles will make much money for anyone.For those not convinced mobile users will want to watch TV on their handsets, Digital Audio Broadcasting may provide a good compromise and better sound quality than conventional radio.""This will enable viewers to access the mobile internet to get more information on adverts they see on TV."""
"Apple laptop is 'greatest gadget'

The Apple Powerbook 100 has been chosen as the greatest gadget of all time, by US magazine Mobile PC.

The 1991 laptop was chosen because it was one of the first ""lightweight"" portable computers and helped define the layout of all future notebook PCs. The magazine has compiled an all-time top 100 list of gadgets, which includes the Sony Walkman at number three and the 1956 Zenith remote control at two. Gadgets needed moving parts and/or electronics to warrant inclusion. The magazine staff compiled the list and specified that gadgets also needed to be a ""self-contained apparatus that can be used on its own, not a subset of another device"".

""In general we included only items that were potentially mobile,"" said the magazine.

""In the end, we tried to get to the heart of what really makes a gadget a gadget,"" it concluded. The oldest ""gadget"" in the top 100 is the abacus, which the magazine dates at 190 A.D., and put in 60th place. Other pre-electronic gadgets in the top 100 include the sextant from 1731 (59th position), the marine chronometer from 1761 (42nd position) and the Kodak Brownie camera from 1900 (28th position). The Tivo personal video recorder is the newest device to make the top 10, which also includes the first flash mp3 player (Diamond Multimedia), as well as the first ""successful"" digital camera (Casio QV-10) and mobile phone (Motorola Startac). The most popular gadget of the moment, the Apple iPod, is at number 12 in the list while the first Sony transistor radio is at number 13.

Sony's third entry in the top 20 is the CDP-101 CD player from 1983. ""Who can forget the crystalline, hiss-free blast of Madonna's Like A Virgin emanating from their first CD player?"" asked the magazine. Karl Elsener's knife, the Swiss Army Knife from 1891, is at number 20 in the list. Gadgets which could be said to feature surprisingly low down in the list include the original telephone (23rd), the Nintendo GameBoy (25th), and the Pulsar quartz digital watch (36th). The list also contains plenty of oddities: the Pez sweet dispenser (98th), 1990s toy Tamagotchi (86th) and the bizarre Ronco inside the shell egg scrambler (84th).

Almost everyone has a mobile phone, how many people own a Powerbook? or an iPod? The findings of this magazine are not very convincing.

What about the magnetic compass? We still use it 1,000 years after it was invented.

I am amazed by the obsession with individual gadgets rather than genre. For example the Sony walkman was the first truly portable way of listening to your own music on the move whereas Minidisc, Flash MP3, portable CD players etc. are really just improvements in technology.

My favourite 'true' gadgets are probably my portable MiniDisc player and the little battery powered whizzy thing I use to froth up my coffee!

Calm down it's only in their opinion, and any list that includes the Taser in the top 100 gadgets has to be suspect....

Swiss army knife and no question about it. How many of the other items are still relatively unchanged from the original idea and still as useful/popular? You don't need a laptop or even a pocket calculator to work that one out!

This list merely illustrates interesting cultural divides between the American authors and the overwhelmingly British responses. Brits see no further than mobile phones and the over thirties Sinclair; whilst the Americans focus on Apple, TV remotes and TiVO (which probably is rather obscure in Europe).

What about the Soda Stream. This gadget changed my pre-teen life. Lap tops may enable you to ""think different, but you cant use them to ""get busy with the fizzy""

How about Astro Wars, one of the pioneers for computer games, i remember spending many an hour playing this and it still works today! However tried it the other day and it was rubbish, still a great gadget of its time.

Why worry about mobile phones. Soon they will be subsumed into the PDA's / laptops etc.

What about the Marine Chronometer? Completely revolutionised navigation for boats and was in use for centuries. For it's time, a technological marvel!

Sony Net Minidisc! It paved the way for more mp3 player to explode onto the market. I always used my NetMD, and could not go anywhere without it.

A laptop computer is not a gadget! It's a working tool!

The Sinclair Executive was the world's first pocket calculator. I think this should be there as well.

How about the clockwork radio? Or GPS? Or a pocket calculator? All these things are useful to real people, not just PC magazine editors.

Are the people who created this list insane ? Surely the most important gadget of the modern age is the mobile phone? It has revolutionised communication, which is more than can be said for a niche market laptop. From outside the modern age, the marine chronometer is the single most important gadget, without which modern transportation systems would not have evolved so quickly.

Has everyone forgot about the Breville pie maker??

An interesting list. Of the electronic gadgets, thousands of journalists in the early 1980s blessed the original noteboook pc - the Tandy 100. The size of A4 paper and light, three weeks on a set of batteries, an excellent keyboard, a modem. A pity Tandy did not make it DOS compatible.

What's an Apple Powerbook 100 ? It's out of date - not much of a ""gadget"". Surely it has to be something simple / timeless - the tin opener, Swiss Army Knife, safety razor blade, wristwatch or the thing for taking stones out of horses hooves ?

It has to be the mobile phone. No other single device has had such an effect on our way of living in such a short space of time.

The ball point pen has got to be one of the most used and common gadgets ever. Also many might be grateful for the pocket calculator which was a great improvement over the slide rule.

The Casio pocket calculator that played a simple game and made tinny noises was also a hot gadget in 1980. A true gadget, it could be carried around and shown off.

All top 10 are electronic toys, so the list is probably a better reflection of the current high-tech obsession than anything else. I say this as the Swiss Army Knife only made No 20.

Sinclair QL a machine far ahead of its time. The first home machine with a true multi-takings OS. Shame the marketing was so bad!!!

Apple.. a triumph of fashion over... well everything else.

Utter rubbish. Yes, the Apple laptop and Sony Walkman are classic gadgets. But to call the sextant and the marine chronometer 'gadgets' and rank them as less important than a TV remote control reveals a quite shocking lack of historical perspective. The former literally helped change the world by vastly improving navigation at see. The latter is the seed around which the couch potato culture has developed. No competition.

I'd also put Apple's Newton and the first Palm Pilot there as the front runners for portable computing, and possibly the Toshiba Libretto for the same reason. I only wish that Vulcan Inc's Flipstart wasn't just vapourware otherwise it would be at the top.

How did a laptop ever manage to beat off the challenge of the wristwatch or the telephone (mobile or otherwise)? What about radios and TVs?

The swiss army knife. By far the most useful gadget. I got mine 12 years ago. Still wearing and using it a lot! It stood the test of time.

Psion Organiser series 3, should be up there. Had a usable qwerty keyboard, removable storage, good set of apps and programmable. Case design was good (batteries in the hinge - a first, I think). Great product innovation.

The first mobile PC was voted best gadget by readers of...err... mobile PC?! Why do you keep putting these obviously biased lists on your site? It's obviously the mobile phone or remote control, and readers of a less partisan publication would tell you that.

The Motorola Startac should be Number One. Why? There will be mobile phones long after notebook computers and other gadgets are either gone or integrated in communications devices.

The Psion series 3c! The first most practical way to carry all your info around...

I too would back the Sinclair Spectrum - without this little beauty I would never have moved into the world of IT and earn the living that I do now.

I'd have put the mobile phone high up the list. Probably a Nokia model.

Sinclair Spectrum - 16k. It plugged into the tv. Games were rubbish but it gave me a taste for programming and that's what I do for a living now.

I wish more modern notebooks -- even Apple's newest offerings -- were more like the PB100. Particularly disheartening is the demise of the trackball, which has given way to the largely useless ""trackpad"" which every notebook on the market today uses. They're invariably inaccurate, uncomfortable, and cumbersome to use.

Congratulations to Apple, a deserved win!
","The Apple Powerbook 100 has been chosen as the greatest gadget of all time, by US magazine Mobile PC.The most popular gadget of the moment, the Apple iPod, is at number 12 in the list while the first Sony transistor radio is at number 13.However tried it the other day and it was rubbish, still a great gadget of its time.The first mobile PC was voted best gadget by readers of...err... mobile PC?!Calm down it's only in their opinion, and any list that includes the Taser in the top 100 gadgets has to be suspect....  Swiss army knife and no question about it.Surely the most important gadget of the modern age is the mobile phone?A laptop computer is not a gadget!The magazine has compiled an all-time top 100 list of gadgets, which includes the Sony Walkman at number three and the 1956 Zenith remote control at two.It has to be the mobile phone.Almost everyone has a mobile phone, how many people own a Powerbook?The Tivo personal video recorder is the newest device to make the top 10, which also includes the first flash mp3 player (Diamond Multimedia), as well as the first ""successful"" digital camera (Casio QV-10) and mobile phone (Motorola Startac).""In the end, we tried to get to the heart of what really makes a gadget a gadget,"" it concluded.The Sinclair Executive was the world's first pocket calculator.There will be mobile phones long after notebook computers and other gadgets are either gone or integrated in communications devices.The magazine staff compiled the list and specified that gadgets also needed to be a ""self-contained apparatus that can be used on its own, not a subset of another device"".The oldest ""gadget"" in the top 100 is the abacus, which the magazine dates at 190 A.D., and put in 60th place.The Casio pocket calculator that played a simple game and made tinny noises was also a hot gadget in 1980.I'd have put the mobile phone high up the list.The 1991 laptop was chosen because it was one of the first ""lightweight"" portable computers and helped define the layout of all future notebook PCs.The ball point pen has got to be one of the most used and common gadgets ever.By far the most useful gadget.Brits see no further than mobile phones and the over thirties Sinclair; whilst the Americans focus on Apple, TV remotes and TiVO (which probably is rather obscure in Europe).My favourite 'true' gadgets are probably my portable MiniDisc player and the little battery powered whizzy thing I use to froth up my coffee!It's out of date - not much of a ""gadget"".For example the Sony walkman was the first truly portable way of listening to your own music on the move whereas Minidisc, Flash MP3, portable CD players etc.We still use it 1,000 years after it was invented.Also many might be grateful for the pocket calculator which was a great improvement over the slide rule.A true gadget, it could be carried around and shown off.Case design was good (batteries in the hinge - a first, I think).Karl Elsener's knife, the Swiss Army Knife from 1891, is at number 20 in the list.From outside the modern age, the marine chronometer is the single most important gadget, without which modern transportation systems would not have evolved so quickly.Yes, the Apple laptop and Sony Walkman are classic gadgets.This gadget changed my pre-teen life.Other pre-electronic gadgets in the top 100 include the sextant from 1731 (59th position), the marine chronometer from 1761 (42nd position) and the Kodak Brownie camera from 1900 (28th position).It's obviously the mobile phone or remote control, and readers of a less partisan publication would tell you that.""In general we included only items that were potentially mobile,"" said the magazine.No other single device has had such an effect on our way of living in such a short space of time.I am amazed by the obsession with individual gadgets rather than genre.It has revolutionised communication, which is more than can be said for a niche market laptop.An interesting list.You don't need a laptop or even a pocket calculator to work that one out!All top 10 are electronic toys, so the list is probably a better reflection of the current high-tech obsession than anything else.Lap tops may enable you to ""think different, but you cant use them to ""get busy with the fizzy""  How about Astro Wars, one of the pioneers for computer games, i remember spending many an hour playing this and it still works today!Gadgets which could be said to feature surprisingly low down in the list include the original telephone (23rd), the Nintendo GameBoy (25th), and the Pulsar quartz digital watch (36th).How did a laptop ever manage to beat off the challenge of the wristwatch or the telephone (mobile or otherwise)?"
"Sun offers processing by the hour

Sun Microsystems has launched a pay-as-you-go service which will allow customers requiring huge computing power to rent it by the hour.

Sun Grid costs users $1 (53p) for an hour's worth of processing and storage power on systems maintained by Sun. So-called grid computing is the latest buzz phrase in a company which believes that computing capacity is as important a commodity as hardware and software. Sun likened grid computing to the development of electricity.

The system could mature in the same way utilities such as electricity and water have developed, said Sun's chief operating officer Jonathan Schwartz. ""Why build your own grid when you can use ours for a buck an hour?"" he asked in a webcast launching Sun's quarterly Network Computing event in California. The company will have to persuade data centre managers to adopt a new model but it said it already had interest from customers in the oil, gas and financial services industries.

Some of them want to book computing capacity of more than 5,000 processors each, Sun said. Mr Schwartz ran a demonstration of the service, showing how data could be processed in a protein folding experiment. Hundreds of servers were used simultaneously, working on the problem for a few seconds each.

Although it only took a few seconds, the experiment cost $12 (£6.30) because it had used up 12 hours' worth of computing power. The Sun Grid relies on Solaris, the operating system owned by Sun. Initially it will house the grid in existing premises and will use idle servers to test software before shipping it to customers. It has not said how much the system will cost to develop but it already has a rival in IBM, which argues that its capacity on-demand service is cheaper than that offered by Sun.
","Sun likened grid computing to the development of electricity.Sun Grid costs users $1 (53p) for an hour's worth of processing and storage power on systems maintained by Sun.The Sun Grid relies on Solaris, the operating system owned by Sun.Some of them want to book computing capacity of more than 5,000 processors each, Sun said.Sun Microsystems has launched a pay-as-you-go service which will allow customers requiring huge computing power to rent it by the hour.So-called grid computing is the latest buzz phrase in a company which believes that computing capacity is as important a commodity as hardware and software."
"Kenyan school turns to handhelds

At the Mbita Point primary school in western Kenya students click away at a handheld computer with a stylus.

They are doing exercises in their school textbooks which have been digitised. It is a pilot project run by EduVision, which is looking at ways to use low cost computer systems to get up-to-date information to students who are currently stuck with ancient textbooks. Matthew Herren from EduVision told the BBC programme Go Digital how the non-governmental organisation uses a combination of satellite radio and handheld computers called E-slates. ""The E-slates connect via a wireless connection to a base station in the school. This in turn is connected to a satellite radio receiver. The data is transmitted alongside audio signals."" The base station processes the information from the satellite transmission and turns it into a form that can be read by the handheld E-slates. ""It downloads from the satellite and every day processes the stream, sorts through content for the material destined for the users connected to it. It also stores this on its hard disc.""

The system is cheaper than installing and maintaining an internet connection and conventional computer network. But Mr Herren says there are both pros and cons to the project. ""It's very simple to set up, just a satellite antenna on the roof of the school, but it's also a one-way connection, so getting feedback or specific requests from end users is difficult.""

The project is still at the pilot stage and EduVision staff are on the ground to attend to teething problems with the Linux-based system. ""The content is divided into visual information, textual information and questions. Users can scroll through these sections independently of each other."" EduVision is planning to include audio and video files as the system develops and add more content. Mr Herren says this would vastly increase the opportunities available to the students. He is currently in negotiations to take advantage of a project being organised by search site Google to digitise some of the world's largest university libraries. ""All books in the public domain, something like 15 million, could be put on the base stations as we manufacture them. Then every rural school in Africa would have access to the same libraries as the students in Oxford and Harvard"" Currently the project is operating in an area where there is mains electricity. But Mr Herren says EduVision already has plans to extend it to more remote regions. ""We plan to put a solar panel at the school with the base station, have the E-slates charge during the day when the children are in school, then they can take them home at night and continue working."" Maciej Sundra, who designed the user interface for the E-slates, says the project's ultimate goal is levelling access to knowledge around the world. ""Why in this age when most people do most research using the internet are students still using textbooks? The fact that we are doing this in a rural developing country is very exciting - as they need it most.""
","The base station processes the information from the satellite transmission and turns it into a form that can be read by the handheld E-slates.""The E-slates connect via a wireless connection to a base station in the school.It is a pilot project run by EduVision, which is looking at ways to use low cost computer systems to get up-to-date information to students who are currently stuck with ancient textbooks.""We plan to put a solar panel at the school with the base station, have the E-slates charge during the day when the children are in school, then they can take them home at night and continue working.""Then every rural school in Africa would have access to the same libraries as the students in Oxford and Harvard"" Currently the project is operating in an area where there is mains electricity.Matthew Herren from EduVision told the BBC programme Go Digital how the non-governmental organisation uses a combination of satellite radio and handheld computers called E-slates.But Mr Herren says there are both pros and cons to the project.""It's very simple to set up, just a satellite antenna on the roof of the school, but it's also a one-way connection, so getting feedback or specific requests from end users is difficult.""But Mr Herren says EduVision already has plans to extend it to more remote regions.At the Mbita Point primary school in western Kenya students click away at a handheld computer with a stylus.EduVision is planning to include audio and video files as the system develops and add more content."
"Tough rules for ringtone sellers

Firms that flout rules on how ringtones and other mobile extras are sold could be cut off from all UK phone networks.

The rules allow offenders to be cut off if they do not let consumers know exactly what they get for their money and how to turn off the services. The first month under the new rules has seen at least ten firms suspended while they clean up the way they work. The rules have been brought in to ensure that the problems plaguing net users do not spread to mobile phones.

In the last couple of years ringtones, wallpapers, screensavers and lots of other extras for phones have become hugely popular. But fierce competition is making it difficult for firms to get their wares in front of consumers, said Jeremy Flynn, head of third party services at Vodafone.

""If you are not on the operator's portal you are going to have quite heavy marketing costs because it's a problem of how people discover your services,"" he said. To combat this many ringtone and other mobile content sellers started using a new tactic to squeeze more cash out of customers. This tactic involved signing people up for a subscription to give them, for instance, several ringtones per week or month instead of the single track they thought they were getting. Mr Flynn said that the move to using subscriptions happened over the space of a few weeks at the end of 2004. Websites such as grumbletext.co.uk started getting reports from customers who were racking up large bills for phone content they did not know they had signed up for. ""What made us uncomfortable was that these services were not being marketed transparently,"" said Mr Flynn. ""People did not know they were being offered a subscription service."" ""We saw potential for substantial consumer harm here,"" he added.

The swift adoption of subscription services led to the creation of a new code of conduct for firms that want to sell content for mobile phones. The drafting of the new rules was led by the Mobile Entertainment Forum and the UK's phone firms. ""Everyone is required to conform to this code of conduct,"" said Andrew Bud, regulatory head of the MEF and executive chairman of messaging firm MBlox.

""It's all about transparency,"" he said. ""Consumers have to be told what they have got themselves into and how to get out of it."" ""The consumer has a right to be protected,"" he said. Christian Harris, partnership manager of mobile content firm Zed, said the new system was essential if consumers were to trust companies that sell ringtones and other downloads. ""The groundrules must be applied across the whole industry and if that's done effectively we will see the cowboys driven out,"" he said. The new rules came in to force on 15 January and the first month under the new regime has seen many firms cautioned for not honouring them. Some have been told to revamp websites so customers know what they get for their money and what they are signing up for, said Mr Flynn. Also, said Mr Flynn, Vodafone has briefly cut off between eight and ten content sellers flouting the rules. ""We have quite draconian contracts with firms,"" he said. ""We do not have to say why. We can just cut them off."" Under the rules consumers must be able to switch off the services by using a universal ""stop"" command sent via text message. He said the system had been designed to limit how much a consumer will pay if they inadvertently signed up for a service. ""The mobile is so personal that people really resent the abuse of what is effectively part of their personality,"" said Mr Flynn.
","Christian Harris, partnership manager of mobile content firm Zed, said the new system was essential if consumers were to trust companies that sell ringtones and other downloads.Some have been told to revamp websites so customers know what they get for their money and what they are signing up for, said Mr Flynn.Also, said Mr Flynn, Vodafone has briefly cut off between eight and ten content sellers flouting the rules.""The consumer has a right to be protected,"" he said.""The mobile is so personal that people really resent the abuse of what is effectively part of their personality,"" said Mr Flynn.""What made us uncomfortable was that these services were not being marketed transparently,"" said Mr Flynn.""It's all about transparency,"" he said.Mr Flynn said that the move to using subscriptions happened over the space of a few weeks at the end of 2004.But fierce competition is making it difficult for firms to get their wares in front of consumers, said Jeremy Flynn, head of third party services at Vodafone.He said the system had been designed to limit how much a consumer will pay if they inadvertently signed up for a service.The swift adoption of subscription services led to the creation of a new code of conduct for firms that want to sell content for mobile phones.Firms that flout rules on how ringtones and other mobile extras are sold could be cut off from all UK phone networks.The rules allow offenders to be cut off if they do not let consumers know exactly what they get for their money and how to turn off the services."
"Mobile music challenges 'iPod age'

Nokia and Microsoft have agreed a deal to work on delivery of music to handsets, while Sony Ericsson has unveiled its phone Walkman and Motorola is working on an iTunes phone.

Can mobile phones replace the MP3 player in your pocket? The music download market has been growing steadily since record firms embraced digital distribution. Ease of use, relative low price and increased access to broadband has helped drive the phenomenal growth of MP3 players.

Full-length music downloads on mobile phones have not taken off so quickly - held back by technical challenges as well as issues over music availability. But the mobile music industry is confident that the days of dedicated MP3 players are numbered.

Gilles Babinet, chief executive of mobile music firm Musiwave, said: ""Music downloads on mobiles have the potential to be the biggest-ever medium for music.""

Musiwave provides downloading infrastructure for the mobile phone market and Mr Babinet said the industry was enjoying ""definite momentum."" But there are hurdles to overcome. Mobile phones offer limited storage for music - certainly nothing to rival Apple's 60GB iPod. But the first mobile phones with hard disk players will be on the market soon and the current generation of mobiles using flash technology can store up to one gigabyte of music - enough for 250 songs. ""We are working in the hard disk area and we will be bringing out exciting devices,"" Jonas Guest, vice president for entertainment at Nokia, told the BBC News website. But will mobiles become mere storage devices? ""One of the problems we could have is that mobiles are used just for storage and playback while PCs are used for downloading,"" said Mr Babinet

""We don't want people to cast aside their PCs - we want mobile users to hook up into the existing ecosystems,"" explained Mr Guest. ""You must enable people to transfer music from a PC to a handset and vice versa.""

One of the key elements of the Nokia and Microsoft deal is the agreed ability to transfer songs between a handset and a PC. Microsoft will adopt open standards allowing music to cross boundaries for the first time. Songs can be downloaded on PC or mobile and transferred between the platforms. ""The line between online and wireless is going to blur,"" predicted Ted Cohen, senior vice president of digital development and distribution at EMI. He said: ""The market is more regional in its maturity. In Asia it is beyond belief. ""The majority of our digital revenues in Asia comes from mobiles. In North America it is fixed line while there is equilibrium in Europe.""

EMI currently offers its entire 200,000 download catalogue for use by both by PCs and mobile phones. Mr Cohen said: ""It's going to be just as important to connect through 3G or wireless as it is through your PC. ""We want music to be a continuum."" The seamless experience of mobiles and PC downloads is approaching, he predicted. Mr Babinet said the mobile phone had a number of advantages over PCs which would see it become the focus for music downloading in the future. ""Getting music from your PC onto a device is not an easy experience. You have to switch the PC on, load the operating system, load the program, buy the music, download the music, and then transfer the music. ""All of these steps can be done in one step on a mobile phone."" He said the mobile phone's billing system would make it easier for teenagers to embrace downloads, because pre-paid cards were already accepted by the age group.

""Certainly, we have a problem with battery, memory and bandwidth. But it's not about the current status. It's about the potential. ""You will have all of your music on your mobile."" All three men said that the social interaction of mobile music would drive the market. Mr Cohen said: ""I can send you the song and it is either billed to me or I send it to you and if you listen to it and want to keep, it is billed to you. ""It's a social phenomenon."" Mr Babinet said: ""Today you use radio and TV to discover music. Tomorrow you will discover and consume music via one device - the mobile.""
","""You will have all of your music on your mobile.""Gilles Babinet, chief executive of mobile music firm Musiwave, said: ""Music downloads on mobiles have the potential to be the biggest-ever medium for music.""All three men said that the social interaction of mobile music would drive the market.But the first mobile phones with hard disk players will be on the market soon and the current generation of mobiles using flash technology can store up to one gigabyte of music - enough for 250 songs.Mr Babinet said the mobile phone had a number of advantages over PCs which would see it become the focus for music downloading in the future.Full-length music downloads on mobile phones have not taken off so quickly - held back by technical challenges as well as issues over music availability.Tomorrow you will discover and consume music via one device - the mobile.""Mobile phones offer limited storage for music - certainly nothing to rival Apple's 60GB iPod.You have to switch the PC on, load the operating system, load the program, buy the music, download the music, and then transfer the music.But the mobile music industry is confident that the days of dedicated MP3 players are numbered.""One of the problems we could have is that mobiles are used just for storage and playback while PCs are used for downloading,"" said Mr Babinet  ""We don't want people to cast aside their PCs - we want mobile users to hook up into the existing ecosystems,"" explained Mr Guest.Mr Babinet said: ""Today you use radio and TV to discover music.Musiwave provides downloading infrastructure for the mobile phone market and Mr Babinet said the industry was enjoying ""definite momentum.""""We want music to be a continuum.""Can mobile phones replace the MP3 player in your pocket?The seamless experience of mobiles and PC downloads is approaching, he predicted.""You must enable people to transfer music from a PC to a handset and vice versa."""
"China 'ripe' for media explosion

Asia is set to drive global media growth to 2008 and beyond, with China and India filling the two top spots, analysts have predicted.

Japan, South Korea and Singapore will also be strong players, but China's demographics give it the edge, a media conference in London heard. The world's most populous country - population 1.3bn - now has about 200 million middle-class consumers. Forty per cent fall in the key 16 to 35-year-old demographic. As a result, it is attracting huge foreign investment in media and communications, analysts told the Financial Times New Media and Broadcasting Conference last week. Interest in China among international media groups has surged in recent months after Beijing issued rules allowing foreign investment in joint-venture television, radio and film production companies. News Corporation, Viacom and Sony Pictures are among the big names involved in joint ventures with Chinese players.

More than 700 million Chinese listen to 1,000 radio stations, while 200 TV stations broadcast 2,900 channels. China Central Television (CCTV), the state broadcaster, claims an audience of more than a billion people. Of the country's 360 million households, 100 million receive cable TV programmes. The rest could be a potential audience for satellite broadcasting which China plans to launch in 2006. The State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT), which regulates broadcasting, plans to move all programmes to digital by 2015. The continuing roll-out of new digital channels has boosted demand for quality content, creating significant opportunities for both Chinese and foreign content providers.

But according to recent reports from China, the authorities have tightened controls over foreign investment in TV production joint ventures. It has limited most foreign companies to only one joint venture and banned the involvement of any found to be ""unfriendly"", according to reports. The SARFT said: ""There is a very strong ideological component to production of broadcast television programmes."" It added: ""China must understand the political tendencies and background of overseas partners and prevent joint ventures or cooperation from bringing harmful foreign thinking or culture into our production sector."" According to the Financial Times' China correspondent, the new rules highlight the political sensitivities that surround foreign involvement in China's media sector. This is despite Beijing's decision to open the state-dominated sector to international investment.

As well as traditional broadcasting, Chinese and foreign entrepreneurs alike see fortunes waiting to be made in new media, like mobile services and online gaming. Mobile games already account for 15% of revenues from China's 340 million mobile users.

Online gaming sales are predicted to top a billion US dollars next year, according to the UK-based journal Screen Digest. The video market is also seen as a big opportunity, although piracy levels are still very high despite an anti-piracy drive during the past year. In the cinema industry the deployment of digital screens is being accelerated. This is not just to modernise venues but also to curb piracy and regulate distribution. Li Ruigang, president of the commercial broadcaster Shanghai Media Group, told the conference that China's new media market ""is already experiencing explosive growth"". It was particularly strong in charged broadband services and mobile value-added services. Leading China-watcher, and founder of the CGA consultancy Jeanne-Marie Gescher, agreed that the time was ripe for foreign media groups to tap China's huge media market potential. ""China's media are now driven by investors who do not care how people consume media - they just want people to consume more of it,"" Mrs Gescher concluded.
","According to the Financial Times' China correspondent, the new rules highlight the political sensitivities that surround foreign involvement in China's media sector.Interest in China among international media groups has surged in recent months after Beijing issued rules allowing foreign investment in joint-venture television, radio and film production companies.As a result, it is attracting huge foreign investment in media and communications, analysts told the Financial Times New Media and Broadcasting Conference last week.But according to recent reports from China, the authorities have tightened controls over foreign investment in TV production joint ventures.Leading China-watcher, and founder of the CGA consultancy Jeanne-Marie Gescher, agreed that the time was ripe for foreign media groups to tap China's huge media market potential.Japan, South Korea and Singapore will also be strong players, but China's demographics give it the edge, a media conference in London heard.Li Ruigang, president of the commercial broadcaster Shanghai Media Group, told the conference that China's new media market ""is already experiencing explosive growth"".As well as traditional broadcasting, Chinese and foreign entrepreneurs alike see fortunes waiting to be made in new media, like mobile services and online gaming.It added: ""China must understand the political tendencies and background of overseas partners and prevent joint ventures or cooperation from bringing harmful foreign thinking or culture into our production sector.""It has limited most foreign companies to only one joint venture and banned the involvement of any found to be ""unfriendly"", according to reports.The continuing roll-out of new digital channels has boosted demand for quality content, creating significant opportunities for both Chinese and foreign content providers.""China's media are now driven by investors who do not care how people consume media - they just want people to consume more of it,"" Mrs Gescher concluded."
"Beckham virus spotted on the net

Virus writers are trading on interest in David Beckham to distribute their malicious wares.

Messages are circulating widely that purport to have evidence of the England captain in a compromising position. But anyone visiting the website mentioned in the message will not see pictures of Mr Beckham but will have their computer infected by a virus. The pernicious program opens a backdoor on a computer so it can be controlled remotely by malicious hackers.

The appearance of the Beckham Windows trojan is just another example in a long line of viruses that trade on interest in celebrities in an attempt to fuel their spread. Tennis player Anna Kournikova, popstars Britney Spears and Avril Lavigne as well as Arnold Schwarzenegger have all been used in the past to try to con people into opening infected files. The huge amount of interest in Mr Beckham and his private life and the large number of messages posted to discussion groups on the net might mean that the malicious program catches a lot of people out. ""The public's appetite for salacious gossip about the private life of the Beckhams might lead some into an unpleasant computer infection,"" said Graham Cluley from anti-virus firm Sophos. Simply opening the message will not infect a user's PC. But anyone visiting the website it mentions who then downloads and opens the fake image file stored on that site will be infected. The program that installs itself is called the Hackarmy trojan and it tries to recruit PCs into so-called 'bot networks that are often used to distribute spam mail messages or to launch attacks across the web. Computers running Microsoft Windows 95, 98, 2000, NT and XP are vulnerable to this trojan. Many anti-virus programs have been able to detect this trojan since it first appeared early this year and have regularly been updated to catch new variants.
",But anyone visiting the website mentioned in the message will not see pictures of Mr Beckham but will have their computer infected by a virus.The huge amount of interest in Mr Beckham and his private life and the large number of messages posted to discussion groups on the net might mean that the malicious program catches a lot of people out.The appearance of the Beckham Windows trojan is just another example in a long line of viruses that trade on interest in celebrities in an attempt to fuel their spread.Virus writers are trading on interest in David Beckham to distribute their malicious wares.The program that installs itself is called the Hackarmy trojan and it tries to recruit PCs into so-called 'bot networks that are often used to distribute spam mail messages or to launch attacks across the web.The pernicious program opens a backdoor on a computer so it can be controlled remotely by malicious hackers.
"Video phones act as dating tools

Technologies, from e-mail, to net chatrooms, instant messaging and mobiles, have proved to be a big pull with those looking for love.

The lure once was that you could hide behind the technology, but now video phones are in on the act to add vision. Hundreds have submitted a mobile video profile to win a place at the world's first video mobile dating event. The top 100 meet their match on 30 November at London's Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA). The event, organised by the 3G network, 3, could catch on as the trend for unusual dating events, like speed dating, continues. ""It's the beginning of the end of the blind date as we know it,"" said Graeme Oxby, 3's marketing director. The response has been so promising that 3 says it is planning to launch a proper commercial dating service soon. Hundreds of hopefuls submitted their profiles, and special booths were set up in a major London department store for two weeks where expert tips were given on how to visually improve their chances. The 100 most popular contestants voted by the public will gather at the ICA in separate rooms and ""meet"" by phone.

Dating services and other more adult match-making services are proving to be a strong stream of revenue worth millions for mobile companies. Whether it does actually provide an interesting match for video phone technologies remains to be seen. Flic Everett, journalist and dating expert for Company magazine and the Daily Express, thinks technology has been liberating for some nervous soul-mate seekers. There are currently about 1.3 million video phones in use in the UK and three times more single people in Britain than there were 30 years ago, With more people buying video mobiles, 3G dating could be the basis for a successful and safe way to meet people.

""One of the problems with video phones is people don't really know what to video. It is a weird technology. We have not quite worked out what it is for. This gives it a focus and a useful one,"" she told BBC News. ""I would never have thought online dating would take off the way it did,"" she said. ""Lots of people find it easier to be honest writing e-mail or text than face-to-face. Lots people are quite shy and they feel vulnerable."" ""When you are writing, it comes directly onto the page so they tend to be more honest."" But the barrier that comes with SMS chat and online match-making is that the person behind the profile may not be who they really are. Scare stories have put people off as a result, according to Ms Everett. Many physical clues, body language, odd twitches, are obviously missing with SMS and online dating services. Still images do not necessarily provide all those necessary cues. ""It could really take off because you do get the whole package. With a static e-mail picture, you don't know who the person is behind it is."" So checking out a potential date by video phone also gives singletons a different kind of barrier, an extra layer of protection; a case of WLTS before WLTM. ""If you are trapped in real-life blind date context, you can't get away and you feel embarrassed. ""With a video meeting, you really have the barrier of the phone so if you don't like them you don't have to suffer the embarrassment.""

There is a more serious side to this new use of technology though. With money being made through more adult-themes content and services which let people meet and chat, the revenue streams for mobile carriers will grow with 3G, thinks Paolo Pescatore mobile industry specialist for analysts IDC. ""Wireless is a medium that is being exploited with a number of features and services. One is chatting and the dating element is key there,"" he said. ""The foundation has been set by SMS and companies are using media like MMS and video to grow the market further."" But carriers need to be wary and ensure that if they do launch such 3G dating services, they ensure mechanism are in place to monitor and be aware who is registers and accesses these services on regular basis, he cautioned. In July, Vodafone introduced a content control system to protect children from such adult content. The move was as a result of a code of practice agreed by the UK's six largest mobile phone operators in January. The system means Vodafone users need to prove they are over 18 before firewalls are lifted on explicit websites or chat rooms dealing with adult themes. The impetus was the growing number of people with handsets that could access the net, and the growth of 3G technologies.
","""One of the problems with video phones is people don't really know what to video.There are currently about 1.3 million video phones in use in the UK and three times more single people in Britain than there were 30 years ago, With more people buying video mobiles, 3G dating could be the basis for a successful and safe way to meet people.The lure once was that you could hide behind the technology, but now video phones are in on the act to add vision.Hundreds have submitted a mobile video profile to win a place at the world's first video mobile dating event.Whether it does actually provide an interesting match for video phone technologies remains to be seen.""With a video meeting, you really have the barrier of the phone so if you don't like them you don't have to suffer the embarrassment.""With money being made through more adult-themes content and services which let people meet and chat, the revenue streams for mobile carriers will grow with 3G, thinks Paolo Pescatore mobile industry specialist for analysts IDC.The event, organised by the 3G network, 3, could catch on as the trend for unusual dating events, like speed dating, continues.The impetus was the growing number of people with handsets that could access the net, and the growth of 3G technologies.Dating services and other more adult match-making services are proving to be a strong stream of revenue worth millions for mobile companies.Lots people are quite shy and they feel vulnerable.""One is chatting and the dating element is key there,"" he said.But the barrier that comes with SMS chat and online match-making is that the person behind the profile may not be who they really are.Flic Everett, journalist and dating expert for Company magazine and the Daily Express, thinks technology has been liberating for some nervous soul-mate seekers.""The foundation has been set by SMS and companies are using media like MMS and video to grow the market further.""So checking out a potential date by video phone also gives singletons a different kind of barrier, an extra layer of protection; a case of WLTS before WLTM."
"Progress on new internet domains

By early 2005 the net could have two new domain names.

The .post and .travel net domains have been given preliminary approval by the net's administrative body. The names are just two of a total of 10 proposed domains that are being considered by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, Icann. The other proposed names include a domain for pornography, Asia, mobile phones, an anti-spam domain and one for the Catalan language and culture.

The .post domain is backed by the Universal Postal Union that wants to use it as the online marker for every type of postal service and to help co-ordinate the e-commerce efforts of national post offices.

The .travel domain would be used by hotels, travel firms, airlines, tourism offices and would help such organisations distinguish themselves online. It is backed by a New York-based trade group called The Travel Partnership. Icann said its early decision on the two domains was in response to the detailed technical and commercial information the organisations behind the names had submitted. Despite this initial approval, Icann cautioned that there was no guarantee that the domains would actually go into service. At the same time Icann is considering proposals for another eight domains. One that may not win approval is a proposal to set up a .xxx domain for pornographic websites. A similar proposal has been made many times in the past. But Icann has been reluctant to approve it because of the difficulty of making pornographers sign up and use it. In 2000 Icann approved seven other new domains that have had varying degrees of success. Three of the new so-called top level domains were for specific industries or organisations such as .museum and .aero. Others such as .info and .biz were intended to be more generic. In total there are in excess of 200 domain names and the majority of these are for nations. But domains that end in the .com suffix are by far the most numerous.
","By early 2005 the net could have two new domain names.The names are just two of a total of 10 proposed domains that are being considered by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, Icann.In 2000 Icann approved seven other new domains that have had varying degrees of success.The other proposed names include a domain for pornography, Asia, mobile phones, an anti-spam domain and one for the Catalan language and culture.Icann said its early decision on the two domains was in response to the detailed technical and commercial information the organisations behind the names had submitted.Despite this initial approval, Icann cautioned that there was no guarantee that the domains would actually go into service.In total there are in excess of 200 domain names and the majority of these are for nations.The .post and .travel net domains have been given preliminary approval by the net's administrative body."
"Camera phones are 'must-haves'

Four times more mobiles with cameras in them will be sold in Europe by the end of 2004 than last year, says a report from analysts Gartner.

Globally, the number sold will reach 159 million, an increase of 104%. The report predicts that nearly 70% of all mobile phones sold will have a built-in camera by 2008. Improving imaging technology in mobiles is making them an increasingly ""must-have"" buy. In Europe, cameras on mobiles can take 1.3 megapixel images. But in Japan and Asia Pacific, where camera phone technology is much more advanced, mobiles have already been released which can take 3.2 megapixel images. Japan still dominates mobile phone technology, and the uptake there is huge. By 2008, according to Gartner, 95% of all mobiles sold there will have cameras on them.

Camera phones had some teething problems when they were first launched as people struggled with poor quality images and uses for them, as well as the complexity and expense of sending them via MMS (Multimedia Messaging Services). This has changed in the last 18 months. Handset makers have concentrated on trying to make phones easier to use. Realising that people like to use their camera phones in different ways, they have introduced more design features, like rotating screens and viewfinders, removable memory cards and easier controls to send picture messages.

Mobile companies have introduced more ways for people to share photos with other people. These have included giving people easier ways to publish them on websites, or mobile blogs - moblogs. But the report suggests that until image quality increases more, people will not be interested in printing out pictures at kiosks. Image sensor technology inside cameras phones is improving. The Gartner report suggests that by mid-2005, it is likely that the image resolution of most camera phones will be more than two megapixels. Consumer digital cameras images range from two to four megapixels in quality, and up to six megapixels on a high-end camera. But a lot of work is being done to make camera phones more like digital cameras. Some handsets already feature limited zoom capability, and manufacturers are looking into technological improvements that will let people take more photos in poorly-lit conditions, like nightclubs. Other developments include wide-angle modes, basic editing features, and better sensors and processors for recording film clips.

Images from camera phones have even made it into the art world. An exhibition next month in aid of the charity Mencap, will feature snaps taken from the camera phones of top artists.

The exhibition, Fonetography, will feature images taken by photographers David Bailey, Rankin and Nan Goldin, and artists Sir Peter Blake, Tracey Emin and Jack Vettriano. But some uses for them have worried many organisations. Intel, Samsung, the UK's Foreign Office and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories in the US, have decided to ban camera phones from their buildings for fear of sensitive information being snapped and leaked. Many schools, fitness centres and local councils have also banned them over fears about privacy and misuse. Italy's information commissioner has also voiced concern and has issued guidelines on where and how the phones can be used. But camera phone fears have not dampened the manufacturers' profits. According to recent figures, Sony Ericsson's profits tripled in the third-quarter because of new camera phones. Over 60% of mobiles sold during the three months through to September featured integrated cameras, it said.
","The report predicts that nearly 70% of all mobile phones sold will have a built-in camera by 2008.Image sensor technology inside cameras phones is improving.By 2008, according to Gartner, 95% of all mobiles sold there will have cameras on them.But in Japan and Asia Pacific, where camera phone technology is much more advanced, mobiles have already been released which can take 3.2 megapixel images.The Gartner report suggests that by mid-2005, it is likely that the image resolution of most camera phones will be more than two megapixels.But camera phone fears have not dampened the manufacturers' profits.In Europe, cameras on mobiles can take 1.3 megapixel images.Four times more mobiles with cameras in them will be sold in Europe by the end of 2004 than last year, says a report from analysts Gartner.Images from camera phones have even made it into the art world.But a lot of work is being done to make camera phones more like digital cameras.Camera phones had some teething problems when they were first launched as people struggled with poor quality images and uses for them, as well as the complexity and expense of sending them via MMS (Multimedia Messaging Services).Consumer digital cameras images range from two to four megapixels in quality, and up to six megapixels on a high-end camera.Realising that people like to use their camera phones in different ways, they have introduced more design features, like rotating screens and viewfinders, removable memory cards and easier controls to send picture messages."
"Mobile multimedia slow to catch on

There is no doubt that mobile phones sporting cameras and colour screens are hugely popular.

Consumers swapping old phones for slinkier, dinkier versions are thought to be responsible for a 26% increase in the number of phones sold during the third quarter of 2004, according to analysts Gartner More than 167 million handsets were sold globally between July and September 2004, a period that, according to Gartner analyst Carolina Milanesi is ""seldom strong"". But although consumers have mobiles that can take and send snaps, sounds and video clips few, so far, are taking the chance to do so.

In fact, the numbers of people not taking and sending pictures, audio and video is growing. Figures gathered by Continental Research shows that 36% of British camera phone users have never sent a multimedia message (MMS), up from 7% in 2003. This is despite the fact that, during the same period, the numbers of camera phones in the UK more than doubled to 7.5 million. Getting mobile phone users to send multimedia messages is really important for operators keen to squeeze more cash out of their customers and offset the cost of subsidising the handsets people are buying. The problem they face, said Shailendra Jain, head of MMS firm Adamind, is educating people in how to send the multimedia messages using their funky handsets.

""Also,"" he said, ""they have to simplify the interface so its not rocket science in terms of someone understanding it."" Research bears out the suspicion that people are not sending multimedia messages because they do not know how to. According to Continental Research, 29% of the people it questioned said they were technophobes that tended to shy away from innovation. Only 11% regarded themselves as technically savvy enough to send a picture or video message. The fact that multimedia services are not interoperable across networks and phones only adds to people's reluctance to start sending them, said Mr Jain. ""They ask themselves: 'If I'm streaming video from one handset to another will it work?'"" he said. ""There's a lot of user apprehension about that.""

There are other deeper technical reasons why multimedia messages are not being pushed as strongly as they might. Andrew Bud, executive chairman of messaging firm Mblox, said mobile phone operators cap the number of messages that can be circulating at any one time for fear of overwhelming the system. ""The rate we can send MMS into the mobile network is fairly constant,"" he said. The reason for this is that there are finite capacities for data traffic on the second generation networks that currently have the most users.

No-one wants to take the risk of swamping these relatively narrow channels so the number of MMS messages is capped, said Mr Bud. This has led to operators finding other technologies, particularly one known as Wap-push, to get multimedia to their customers. But when networks do find a good way to get multimedia to their customers, the results can be dramatic. Israeli technology firm Celltick has found a way to broadcast data across phone networks in a way that does not overwhelm existing bandwidth. One of the first firms to use the Celltick service is Hutch India, the largest mobile firm in the country. The broadcast system gets multimedia to customers via a rolling menu far faster than would be possible with other systems. While not multimedia messaging, such a system gets people used to seeing their phones as a device that can handle all different types of content. As a result 40% of the subscribers to the Hutch Alive, which uses Celltick's broadcast technology, regularly click for more pictures, sounds and images from the operator. ""Operators really need to start utilising this tool to reach their customers,"" said Yaron Toren, spokesman for Celltick. Until then, multimedia will be a message that is not getting through.
","Getting mobile phone users to send multimedia messages is really important for operators keen to squeeze more cash out of their customers and offset the cost of subsidising the handsets people are buying.The problem they face, said Shailendra Jain, head of MMS firm Adamind, is educating people in how to send the multimedia messages using their funky handsets.Andrew Bud, executive chairman of messaging firm Mblox, said mobile phone operators cap the number of messages that can be circulating at any one time for fear of overwhelming the system.The fact that multimedia services are not interoperable across networks and phones only adds to people's reluctance to start sending them, said Mr Jain.Figures gathered by Continental Research shows that 36% of British camera phone users have never sent a multimedia message (MMS), up from 7% in 2003.Until then, multimedia will be a message that is not getting through.Research bears out the suspicion that people are not sending multimedia messages because they do not know how to.""The rate we can send MMS into the mobile network is fairly constant,"" he said.While not multimedia messaging, such a system gets people used to seeing their phones as a device that can handle all different types of content.he said.But when networks do find a good way to get multimedia to their customers, the results can be dramatic.No-one wants to take the risk of swamping these relatively narrow channels so the number of MMS messages is capped, said Mr Bud."
"Anti-spam laws bite spammer hard

The net's self-declared spam king is seeking bankruptcy protection.

Scott Richter, the man behind OptInRealBig.com and billions of junk mail messages, said lawsuits had forced the company into Chapter 11. OptInRealBig was fighting several legal battles, most notably against Microsoft, which is pushing for millions of dollars in damages. The company said filing for Chapter 11 would help it try to resolve its legal problems but still keep trading.

Listed as the third biggest spammer in the world by junk mail watchdog Spamhaus, OptInRealBig was sued in December 2003 for sending mail messages that violated anti-spam laws. The lawsuit was brought by Microsoft and New York attorney general Eliot Spitzer who alleged that Mr Richter and his accomplices sent billions of spam messages through 514 compromised net addresses in 35 countries. According to Microsoft the messages were sent via net addresses owned by the Kuwait Ministries of Communication and Finance, several Korean schools, the Seoul Municipal Boramae Hospital, and the Virginia Community College System. Mr Richter settled the attorney general case in July 2004 but the legal fight with Microsoft is continuing. Microsoft is seeking millions in dollars in damages from OptInRealBig under anti-spam laws that impose penalties for every violation. In a statement announcing the desire to seek bankruptcy protection the company said it: ""could not continue to contend with legal maneuvers (sic) by a number of companies across the country, including Microsoft, and still run a viable business."" In its Chapter 11 filing OptInRealBig claimed it had assets of less than $10m (£5.29m) but debts of more than $50m which included the $46m that Microsoft is seeking via its lawsuit. ""The litigation has been a relentless distraction with which to contend,"" said Steven Richter, legal counsel for OptInRealBig. ""But, make no mistake, we do expect to prevail."" For its part OptInRealBig describes itself as a premier internet marketing company and said the move to seek Chapter 11 was necessary to let it keep trading while sorting out its legal battles.
","OptInRealBig was fighting several legal battles, most notably against Microsoft, which is pushing for millions of dollars in damages.For its part OptInRealBig describes itself as a premier internet marketing company and said the move to seek Chapter 11 was necessary to let it keep trading while sorting out its legal battles.In its Chapter 11 filing OptInRealBig claimed it had assets of less than $10m (£5.29m) but debts of more than $50m which included the $46m that Microsoft is seeking via its lawsuit.In a statement announcing the desire to seek bankruptcy protection the company said it: ""could not continue to contend with legal maneuvers (sic) by a number of companies across the country, including Microsoft, and still run a viable business.""The lawsuit was brought by Microsoft and New York attorney general Eliot Spitzer who alleged that Mr Richter and his accomplices sent billions of spam messages through 514 compromised net addresses in 35 countries.""The litigation has been a relentless distraction with which to contend,"" said Steven Richter, legal counsel for OptInRealBig."
"Peer-to-peer nets 'here to stay'

Peer-to-peer (P2P) networks are here to stay, and are on the verge of being exploited by commercial media firms, says a panel of industry experts.

Once several high-profile legal cases against file-sharers are resolved this year, firms will be very keen to try and make money from P2P technology. The expert panel probed the future of P2P at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas earlier in January. The first convictions for P2P piracy were handed out in the US in January. William Trowbridge and Michael Chicoine pleaded guilty to charges that they infringed copyright by illegally sharing music, movies and software. Since the first successful file-sharing network Napster was forced to close down, the entertainment industry has been nervous and critical of P2P technology, blaming it for falling sales and piracy. But that is going to change very soon, according to the panel.

The music and film industries have started some big legal cases against owners of legitimate P2P networks - which are not illegal in themselves - and of individuals accused of distributing pirated content over networks. But they have slowly realised that P2P is a good way to distribute content, said Travis Kalanick, founder and chairman of P2P network Red Swoosh, and soon they are all going to want a slice of it. They are just waiting to come up with ""business models"" that work for them, which includes digital rights management and copy-protection standards.

But, until the legal actions are resolved, experimentation with P2P cannot not happen, said Michael Weiss, president of StreamCast Networks. Remembering the furore around VCRs when they first came out, Mr Weiss said: ""Old media always tries to stop new media. ""When they can't stop it, they try to control it. Then they figure out how to make money and they always make a lot of money."" Once the courts decided that the VCR in itself was not an illegal technology, the film studios turned it into an extremely lucrative business. In August 2004, the San Francisco-based US Court of Appeals ruled in favour of Grokster and StreamCast, two file-sharing networks. The court said they were essentially in the same position that Sony was in the 1980s VCR battle, and said that the networks themselves could not be deemed as illegal.

P2P networks usually do not rely on dedicated servers for the transfer of files. Instead it uses direct connections between computers - or clients. There are now many different types of P2P systems than work in different ways. P2P nets can be used to share any kind of file, like photos, free software, licensed music and any other digital content. The BBC has already decided to embrace the technology. It aims to offer most of its own programmes for download this year and it will use P2P technology to distribute them. The files would be locked seven days after a programme aired making rights management easier to control. But the technology is still demonised and misunderstood by many. The global entertainment industry says more than 2.6 billion copyrighted music files are downloaded every month, and about half a million films are downloaded a day. Legal music download services, like Apple iTunes, Napster, have rushed into the music marketplace to try and lure file-sharers away from free content. Sales of legally-downloaded songs grew tenfold in 2004, with 200 million tracks bought online in the US and Europe in 12 months, the IFPI reported this week. But such download services are very different from P2P networks, not least because of the financial aspect.

There are several money-spinning models that could turn P2P into a golden egg for commercial entertainment companies. Paid-for-pass-along, in which firms receive money each time a file is shared, along with various DRM solutions and advertiser-based options are all being considered. ""We see there are going to be different models for commoditising P2P,"" said Marc Morgenstern, vice president of anti-piracy firm Overpeer.

""Consumers are hungry for it and we will discover new models together,"" agreed Mr Morgenstern. But many net users will continue to ignore the entertainment industry's potential controlling grip on content and P2P technology by continuing to use it for their own creations. Unsigned bands, for example, use P2P networks to distribute their music effectively, which also draws the attention of record companies looking for new artists to sign. ""Increasingly, what you are seeing on P2P is consumer-created content,"" said Derek Broes, from Microsoft. ""They will probably play an increasing role in helping P2P spread,"" he said. Looking into P2P's future, file sharing is just the beginning for P2P networks, as far as Mr Broes is concerned. ""Once some of these issues are resolved, you are going to see aggressive movement to protect content, but also in ways that are unimaginable now,"" he said. ""File-sharing is the tip of the iceberg.""
","But they have slowly realised that P2P is a good way to distribute content, said Travis Kalanick, founder and chairman of P2P network Red Swoosh, and soon they are all going to want a slice of it.Once several high-profile legal cases against file-sharers are resolved this year, firms will be very keen to try and make money from P2P technology.The music and film industries have started some big legal cases against owners of legitimate P2P networks - which are not illegal in themselves - and of individuals accused of distributing pirated content over networks.Since the first successful file-sharing network Napster was forced to close down, the entertainment industry has been nervous and critical of P2P technology, blaming it for falling sales and piracy.It aims to offer most of its own programmes for download this year and it will use P2P technology to distribute them.""We see there are going to be different models for commoditising P2P,"" said Marc Morgenstern, vice president of anti-piracy firm Overpeer.But, until the legal actions are resolved, experimentation with P2P cannot not happen, said Michael Weiss, president of StreamCast Networks.""Increasingly, what you are seeing on P2P is consumer-created content,"" said Derek Broes, from Microsoft.P2P nets can be used to share any kind of file, like photos, free software, licensed music and any other digital content.The first convictions for P2P piracy were handed out in the US in January.But many net users will continue to ignore the entertainment industry's potential controlling grip on content and P2P technology by continuing to use it for their own creations.Looking into P2P's future, file sharing is just the beginning for P2P networks, as far as Mr Broes is concerned.But such download services are very different from P2P networks, not least because of the financial aspect.""They will probably play an increasing role in helping P2P spread,"" he said.Peer-to-peer (P2P) networks are here to stay, and are on the verge of being exploited by commercial media firms, says a panel of industry experts.Unsigned bands, for example, use P2P networks to distribute their music effectively, which also draws the attention of record companies looking for new artists to sign."
"Broadband fuels online expression

Fast web access is encouraging more people to express themselves online, research suggests.

A quarter of broadband users in Britain regularly upload content and have personal sites, according to a report by UK think-tank Demos. It said that having an always-on, fast connection is changing the way people use the internet. More than five million households in the UK have broadband and that number is growing fast.

The Demos report looked at the impact of broadband on people's net habits. It found that more than half of those with broadband logged on to the web before breakfast. One in five even admitted to getting up in the middle of the night to browse the web.

More significantly, argues the report, broadband is encouraging people to take a more active role online. It found that one in five post something on the net everyday, ranging from comments or opinions on sites to uploading photographs. ""Broadband is putting the 'me' in media as it shifts power from institutions and into the hands of the individual,"" said John Craig, co-author of the Demos report. ""From self-diagnosis to online education, broadband creates social innovation that moves the debate beyond simple questions of access and speed."" The Demos report, entitled Broadband Britain: The End Of Asymmetry?, was commissioned by net provider AOL. ""Broadband is moving the perception of the internet as a piece of technology to an integral part of home life in the UK,"" said Karen Thomson, Chief Executive of AOL UK, ""with many people spending time on their computers as automatically as they might switch on the television or radio."" According to analysts Nielsen//NetRatings, more than 50% of the 22.8 million UK net users regularly accessing the web from home each month are logging on at high speed They spend twice as long online than people on dial-up connections, viewing an average of 1,444 pages per month. The popularity of fast net access is growing, partly fuelled by fierce competition over prices and services.
","More than five million households in the UK have broadband and that number is growing fast.The Demos report looked at the impact of broadband on people's net habits.More significantly, argues the report, broadband is encouraging people to take a more active role online.The Demos report, entitled Broadband Britain: The End Of Asymmetry?, was commissioned by net provider AOL.A quarter of broadband users in Britain regularly upload content and have personal sites, according to a report by UK think-tank Demos.Fast web access is encouraging more people to express themselves online, research suggests."
"Savvy searchers fail to spot ads

Internet search engine users are an odd mix of naive and sophisticated, suggests a report into search habits.

The report by the US Pew Research Center reveals that 87% of searchers usually find what they were looking for when using a search engine. It also shows that few can spot the difference between paid-for results and organic ones. The report reveals that 84% of net users say they regularly use Google, Ask Jeeves, MSN and Yahoo when online.

Almost 50% of those questioned said they would trust search engines much less, if they knew information about who paid for results was being hidden. According to figures gathered by the Pew researchers the average users spends about 43 minutes per month carrying out 34 separate searches and looks at 1.9 webpages for each hunt. A significant chunk of net users, 36%, carry out a search at least weekly and 29% of those asked only look every few weeks. For 44% of those questioned, the information they are looking for is critical to what they are doing and is information they simply have to find.

Search engine users also tend to be very loyal and once they have found a site they feel they can trust tend to stick with it. According to Pew Research 44% of searchers use just a single search engine, 48% use two or three and a small number, 7%, consult more than three sites. Tony Macklin, spokesman for Ask Jeeves, said the results reflected its own research which showed that people use different search engines because the way the sites gather information means they can provide different results for the same query. Despite this liking for search sites half of those questioned said they could get the same information via other routes. A small number, 17%, said they wouldn't really miss search engines if they did not exist. The remaining 33% said they could not live without search sites. More than two-thirds of those questioned, 68%, said they thought that the results they were presented with were a fair and unbiased selection of the information on a topic that can be found on the net. Alongside the growing sophistication of net users is a lack of awareness about paid-for results that many search engines provide alongside lists of websites found by indexing the web. Of those asked, 62% were unaware that someone has paid for some of the results they see when they carry out a search. Only 18% of all searchers say they can tell which results are paid for and which are not. Said the Pew report: ""This finding is ironic, since nearly half of all users say they would stop using search engines if they thought engines were not being clear about how they presented paid results."" Commenting Mr Macklin said sponsored results must be clearly marked and though they might help with some queries user testing showed that people need to be able to spot the difference.
","Almost 50% of those questioned said they would trust search engines much less, if they knew information about who paid for results was being hidden.Said the Pew report: ""This finding is ironic, since nearly half of all users say they would stop using search engines if they thought engines were not being clear about how they presented paid results.""Tony Macklin, spokesman for Ask Jeeves, said the results reflected its own research which showed that people use different search engines because the way the sites gather information means they can provide different results for the same query.Internet search engine users are an odd mix of naive and sophisticated, suggests a report into search habits.The report by the US Pew Research Center reveals that 87% of searchers usually find what they were looking for when using a search engine.A small number, 17%, said they wouldn't really miss search engines if they did not exist.Alongside the growing sophistication of net users is a lack of awareness about paid-for results that many search engines provide alongside lists of websites found by indexing the web.Despite this liking for search sites half of those questioned said they could get the same information via other routes."
"TV's future down the phone line

Internet TV has been talked about since the start of the web as we know it now.

But any early attempts to do it - the UK's Home Choice started in 1992 - were thwarted by the lack of a fast network. Now that broadband networks are bedding down, and it is becoming essential for millions, the big telcos are keen to start shooting video down the line. In the face of competition from cable companies offering net voice calls, they are keen to be the top IPTV dogs. Software giant Microsoft thinks IPTV - Internet Protocol TV - is the future of television, and it sits neatly with its vision of the ""connected entertainment experience"". ""Telcos have been wanting to do video for a long time,"" Ed Graczyk, director of marketing for Microsoft IPTV, told the BBC News website. ""The challenge has been the broadband network, and the state of technology up until not so long ago did not add up to a feasible solution. ""Compression technology was not efficient enough, the net was not good enough. A lot of stars have aligned in the last 18 months to make it a reality.""

Last year, he said, was all about deal making and partnering up; shaping the ""IPTV ecosystem"". This year, those deals will start to play out and more services will come online. ""2006 is where it starts ramping up and expanding to other geographies - over time as broadband becomes more prevalent in South America, and other parts of Asia, it will expand,"" he added. What telcos really want to do is to send the ""triple-play"" of video, voice, and data down one single line, be it cable or DSL (Digital Subscriber Line). Some are talking about ""quadruple play"", too, with mobile services added into the mix. It is an emerging new breed of competition for satellite and cable broadcasters and operators. According to technology analysts, TDG Research, there will be 20 million subscribers to IPTV services in under six years.

Key to the appeal of sending TV programmes down the same line as the web data, whenever a viewer wants it, is that it uses the same technology as the internet. It means there is not just a one-way relationship between the viewer and the ""broadcaster"". This allows for more DVD-like interactivity, limitless storage and broadcast space, bespoke channel ""playlists"", and thousands of hours of programmes or films at a viewer's fingertips. It potentially lets operators target programmes to smaller, niche or localised audiences, sending films to Bollywood fans for instance, as well as individual devices.

Operators could also send high-definition programmes straight to the viewer, bypassing the need for a special broadcast receiver. Perhaps most compelling - yet some might say insignificant - is instantaneous channel flicking. Currently, there is a delay when you try to do this on satellite, cable or Freeview. With IPTV, the speed is 15 milliseconds. ""That gets rounds of applause,"" according to Mr Graczyk. Microsoft is one of the companies that started thinking about IPTV some time ago. ""We believe this will be the way all TV is delivered in the future - but that is several years away,"" said Mr Graczyk. ""As with music, TV has moved to digital formats. ""The things software can do to integrate media into devices means a whole new generation of connected entertainment experiences that cross devices from the TV, to the mobile, to the gaming console and so on."" The company intends its Microsoft's IPTV Edition software, an end-to-end management and delivery platform, to let telcos to do exactly that, seamlessly. It has netted seven major telcos as customers, representing a potential audience of 25 million existing broadband subscribers. Its deal with US telco SBC was the largest TV software deal to date, said Mr Graczyk.

IPTV is about more than telcos, though. There are several web-based offerings that aim to put control in the hands of the consumer by exploiting the net's power. Jeremy Allaire, chief of Brightcove, told the BBC News website that it would be a flavour of IPTV that was about harnessing the web as a ""channel"".

""It is not just niches, but about exploiting content not usually viewed,"" he said. ""We are focussed on the owners of video content who have rights to digitally distribute content, and who often see unencumbered distribution. ""For them to do it through cable and so on is price-prohibitive,"" he said. This type of IPTV service might also be a distribution channel for more established publishers who have unique types of content that they cannot offer through cable and satellite operators - history channel archives, for instance. What is a clear sign that IPTV has a future is that Microsoft is not the only player in the field. There are a lot of other ""middleware"" players providing similar management services as Microsoft, like Myrio and C-Cor. But it will up to the viewer to decide if it really is to be successful.
","Last year, he said, was all about deal making and partnering up; shaping the ""IPTV ecosystem"".This type of IPTV service might also be a distribution channel for more established publishers who have unique types of content that they cannot offer through cable and satellite operators - history channel archives, for instance.Its deal with US telco SBC was the largest TV software deal to date, said Mr Graczyk.What is a clear sign that IPTV has a future is that Microsoft is not the only player in the field.Microsoft is one of the companies that started thinking about IPTV some time ago.""Telcos have been wanting to do video for a long time,"" Ed Graczyk, director of marketing for Microsoft IPTV, told the BBC News website.Software giant Microsoft thinks IPTV - Internet Protocol TV - is the future of television, and it sits neatly with its vision of the ""connected entertainment experience"".Key to the appeal of sending TV programmes down the same line as the web data, whenever a viewer wants it, is that it uses the same technology as the internet.In the face of competition from cable companies offering net voice calls, they are keen to be the top IPTV dogs.""We believe this will be the way all TV is delivered in the future - but that is several years away,"" said Mr Graczyk.According to technology analysts, TDG Research, there will be 20 million subscribers to IPTV services in under six years.IPTV is about more than telcos, though.Jeremy Allaire, chief of Brightcove, told the BBC News website that it would be a flavour of IPTV that was about harnessing the web as a ""channel"".What telcos really want to do is to send the ""triple-play"" of video, voice, and data down one single line, be it cable or DSL (Digital Subscriber Line).With IPTV, the speed is 15 milliseconds.Internet TV has been talked about since the start of the web as we know it now.The company intends its Microsoft's IPTV Edition software, an end-to-end management and delivery platform, to let telcos to do exactly that, seamlessly."
"Cebit fever takes over Hanover

Thousands of products and tens of thousands of visitors make Cebit the place to be for technology lovers.

""Welcome to CeBit 2005"" was the message from the pilot as we landed, the message on flyers at the airport, and the message on just about every billboard in town. CeBit fever has taken over Hanover. Hotels have been booked out for months; local people are letting out rooms in their homes to the hoards of exhibitors, visitors, and journalists. CeBit itself is huge, the exhibition site could almost be classified as a town in its own right.

There are restaurants, shops, and a bus service between the halls - of which there are 27. There are more than 6,000 companies here, showing their latest products. The list of them that I was given when I came in is the size and weight of a phone book. One of the mains themes this year is the digital home, and one of the key buzzwords is convergence.

The ""entertainment PC"" is being billed as the replacement for DVD players, stereos, telephones and computers - offering a one-box solution, wirelessly connected throughout a house. To show them off, one display has been modelled as a prototype ""digital lifestyle home"" by German magazine Computer Reseller News. ""We wanted to show how this fits into a living room or workplace, to give people a feeling how it would work in their homes,"" said Claudia Neulling from the magazine. The house has webcams for security in each room, which can be called up on the high definition TV, connected to the PC in the living room.

That PC provides home entertainment, movies or music. It can also be linked to the car parked outside, which is kitted out with a processor of its own, along with a DVD player and cordless headphones for the kids in the back. ""Convergence for me is about how technology, the transfer of data, can do things that make it easier and more convenient for me as a consumer,"" said Mark Brailey, director of corporate marketing for Intel. ""The real challenge is to show people it's easier than they think, and fun.""

He firmly believes that entertainment PCs are the future, but says they have to get past people's fears of frequent crashes and incompatibilities. That is something Microsoft is trying to do too - its stand has computers running Windows XP Media Centre edition 2005 for people to try out. Mobile phones do not escape the convergence theme. Samsung is showing off its SGH-i300, a handset with a three gigabyte hard drive, that can be used to watch compressed video or as an MP3 player. And if you would rather watch live TV than a downloaded movie NEC is showing a phone, on sale in China, which can show analogue TV on its colour screen.

""I think the most probable application is at somewhere like the train station - if you want to check the status of the soccer game for example"" said Koji Umemoto, manager of mobile terminals marketing for NEC. He admitted that the signal quality is not very good if you are on the move, and they do not have plans to launch it in Europe at the moment. Nokia was happy to demonstrate its 6230i, an upgrade to the very popular 6230.

It now has a 1.3 megapixel camera, and a music player that can handle multiple formats, rather than just MP3s. It is also compatible with Nokia's new Visual Radio technology. The handset can receive FM broadcasts, and the user can interact with compatible broadcasts using a GPRS connection, to take part in competitions or get extra information such as the name of the song playing. Most companies are reluctant to show prototypes, preferring to display products that are already on sale, or just about to hit the market.

Portable media player firm Creative showed off a new wireless technology, based on magnetic inductance rather than radio - a system some hearing aids use. ""The benefits over conventional Bluetooth are the lack of interference, and longer battery life,"" said Riccardo de Rinaldini, Creative's European marketing manager. The firm has a prototype headset linked up to a Zen Micro player. The transmitter on the player creates a private, magnetic ""bubble"" around the user, which is picked up by the headset. The range is only about one metre so it is only suitable for personal use. A single AAA battery is said to last up to 30 hours. Creative expects it to hit the market in its final form later this year. Even clothing is likely to be part of the convergence trend. Adidas has a trainer which, according to Susanne Risse from the company, can ""sense, understand, and adapt to your running style"". It has a battery, processor, and motor embedded in the sole. Buttons on the side allow you to set the amount of cushioning you would like by adjusting the tension on a cable running through the heel. The processor then monitors the surface you are running on, and adjusts the tension accordingly. It is being billed as ""the world's first intelligent shoe"".
","To show them off, one display has been modelled as a prototype ""digital lifestyle home"" by German magazine Computer Reseller News.The firm has a prototype headset linked up to a Zen Micro player.It now has a 1.3 megapixel camera, and a music player that can handle multiple formats, rather than just MP3s.It has a battery, processor, and motor embedded in the sole.CeBit fever has taken over Hanover.One of the mains themes this year is the digital home, and one of the key buzzwords is convergence.The house has webcams for security in each room, which can be called up on the high definition TV, connected to the PC in the living room.And if you would rather watch live TV than a downloaded movie NEC is showing a phone, on sale in China, which can show analogue TV on its colour screen.Portable media player firm Creative showed off a new wireless technology, based on magnetic inductance rather than radio - a system some hearing aids use.""We wanted to show how this fits into a living room or workplace, to give people a feeling how it would work in their homes,"" said Claudia Neulling from the magazine.That is something Microsoft is trying to do too - its stand has computers running Windows XP Media Centre edition 2005 for people to try out.""Convergence for me is about how technology, the transfer of data, can do things that make it easier and more convenient for me as a consumer,"" said Mark Brailey, director of corporate marketing for Intel.Adidas has a trainer which, according to Susanne Risse from the company, can ""sense, understand, and adapt to your running style"".Most companies are reluctant to show prototypes, preferring to display products that are already on sale, or just about to hit the market.That PC provides home entertainment, movies or music.Mobile phones do not escape the convergence theme.The ""entertainment PC"" is being billed as the replacement for DVD players, stereos, telephones and computers - offering a one-box solution, wirelessly connected throughout a house."
"New consoles promise big problems

Making games for future consoles will require more graphic artists and more money, an industry conference has been told.

Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo will debut their new consoles at the annual E3 games Expo in Los Angeles in May. These so-called ""next generation"" machines will be faster than current consoles, and capable of displaying much higher-quality visuals. For gamers, this should make for better, more immersive games. In a pre-recorded video slot during Microsoft's keynote address at the Game Developers Conference, held last week in San Francisco, famed director James Cameron revealed he is making a game in tandem with his next film - believed to be Battle Angel Alita. The game's visual quality would be ""like a lucid dream,"" said Mr Cameron. But numerous speakers warned that creating such graphics will require more artists, and so next generation console games will be much more expensive to develop. The first new console, Microsoft's Xbox 2, is not expected to reach the shops until the end of 2005. Games typically take at least 18 months to create, however, so developers are grappling with the hardware today.

According to Robert Walsh, head of Brisbane-based game developer Krome Studios, next generation games will cost between $10-25m to make, with teams averaging 80 staff in size taking two years to complete a title. Such sums mean it will be difficult for anyone to start a new game studio, said Mr Walsh. ""If you're a start-up, I doubt that a publisher is going to walk in and give you a cheque for $10m, however good you are,"" he said. Mr Walsh suggested that new studios should make games for mobile phones and handheld consoles like the Sony PSP and the Nintendo DS, since they are cheaper and easier to create than console games.

One developer bucking the trend towards big art teams is Will Wright, the creator of the best-selling The Sims games. The founder of California's Maxis studio surprised the conference with a world exclusive preview of his next game, Spore. Spore will allow players to experiment with the evolution of digital creatures. Starting with an amoeba-sized organism, the player will guide the physical development of their creature by selecting how its limbs, jaws and other body parts evolve.

Eventually the creature will become capable of establishing cities, trading and fighting, and even building space ships. Advanced players will visit the home planets of creatures created by other Spore players. These worlds will be automatically swapped across the Internet. Mr Wright said that enabling players to devise and share their creatures would make them care more about the game. ""I don't want to put the player in the role of Luke Skywalker or Frodo Baggins - I want them to be George Lucas or Dr Seuss,"" explained Mr Wright. Few games have hinted at the scope of Spore, but Mr Wright explained that he has nevertheless kept his development team small by hiring expert programmers. Instead of employing lots of artists to create 3D models of the digital creatures, Spore generates and displays the creatures according to rules devised by the programmers. ""The thing I am coming away with [from the conference] is that next generation content is going to be really expensive, and creating it will drive the smaller players out of the market,"" said Mr Wright. ""I'd like to offer an alternative to that.""

New development tools will be another important aid in making next generation games, and dozens of companies demonstrated their latest products at the conference.

Oxford-based Natural Motion launched Endorphin v2.0, which enables artists to direct a 3D 'virtual actor'. The actor is realistically modelled according to the laws of physics. Endorphin simulates how the actor falls down stairs, for instance, or crumples up after a gunshot. Artists can blend together these visual sequences, and include the results in their games. The process is much quicker than having an artist animate each movement by hand, and so lessens the need for larger art teams. Another British company aiming to reduce the workload of artists is Manchester start-up Genemation. Its latest tool, GenCrowd, enables artists to create unique, photo-realistic human faces for games involving lots of people. GenCrowd works by blending together elements of an in-built supply of stock faces of differing ages and ethnicities. The software can create up to 2,000 new heads an hour.

One area not yet dominated by graphical blockbusters is mobile phone games. Even the latest phones are not as powerful as the consoles of a decade ago, so smaller teams of half a dozen people can still create complete games for the devices.

The Game Developers Conference included a special two-day summit dedicated to creating mobile games. A niche attraction for a few dozen conference attendees when it began five years ago, GDC's Mobile summit this year drew several hundred delegates. Mobile games are a fast-growing sector because newer phones have better graphics and sound, and are thus more suitable for playing games. Furthermore, the adoption of mobile phones continues to spread across the world. It's predicted that by 2006 two billion people will own a mobile phone. The growing importance of mobile gaming was reflected by a keynote given by John Batter, general manager at EA Mobile. EA Mobile is a division of Electronic Arts, the biggest games publisher. Until recently Electronic Arts had been dismissive of games for phones. ""The last time you checked, EA wasn't in this business,"" Mr Batter admitted. But he said EA now planned on dominating the market by releasing mobile versions of its most popular franchises. EA plans to release up to 20 mobile games over the next 12 months. The first will be a version of its Need for Speed racing game, created by EA Mobile's 30-person development team. Mr Batter predicted that by 2006, mobile phones would be capable of running games of comparable quality to those on Sony's upcoming PSP handheld console.

Owain Bennallack is the editor of Develop magazine.
","Mr Walsh suggested that new studios should make games for mobile phones and handheld consoles like the Sony PSP and the Nintendo DS, since they are cheaper and easier to create than console games.EA plans to release up to 20 mobile games over the next 12 months.Mr Batter predicted that by 2006, mobile phones would be capable of running games of comparable quality to those on Sony's upcoming PSP handheld console.Mr Wright said that enabling players to devise and share their creatures would make them care more about the game.The Game Developers Conference included a special two-day summit dedicated to creating mobile games.Mobile games are a fast-growing sector because newer phones have better graphics and sound, and are thus more suitable for playing games.EA Mobile is a division of Electronic Arts, the biggest games publisher.According to Robert Walsh, head of Brisbane-based game developer Krome Studios, next generation games will cost between $10-25m to make, with teams averaging 80 staff in size taking two years to complete a title.But numerous speakers warned that creating such graphics will require more artists, and so next generation console games will be much more expensive to develop.Even the latest phones are not as powerful as the consoles of a decade ago, so smaller teams of half a dozen people can still create complete games for the devices.Making games for future consoles will require more graphic artists and more money, an industry conference has been told.Such sums mean it will be difficult for anyone to start a new game studio, said Mr Walsh.Its latest tool, GenCrowd, enables artists to create unique, photo-realistic human faces for games involving lots of people.The founder of California's Maxis studio surprised the conference with a world exclusive preview of his next game, Spore.Few games have hinted at the scope of Spore, but Mr Wright explained that he has nevertheless kept his development team small by hiring expert programmers.New development tools will be another important aid in making next generation games, and dozens of companies demonstrated their latest products at the conference.""The thing I am coming away with [from the conference] is that next generation content is going to be really expensive, and creating it will drive the smaller players out of the market,"" said Mr Wright.The first will be a version of its Need for Speed racing game, created by EA Mobile's 30-person development team.In a pre-recorded video slot during Microsoft's keynote address at the Game Developers Conference, held last week in San Francisco, famed director James Cameron revealed he is making a game in tandem with his next film - believed to be Battle Angel Alita.The game's visual quality would be ""like a lucid dream,"" said Mr Cameron.One area not yet dominated by graphical blockbusters is mobile phone games."
"BT program to beat dialler scams

BT is introducing two initiatives to help beat rogue dialler scams, which can cost dial-up net users thousands.

From May, dial-up net users will be able to download free software to stop computers using numbers not on a user's ""pre-approved list"". Inadvertently downloaded by surfers, rogue diallers are programs which hijack modems and dial up a premium rate number when users log on. Thousands of UK dial-up users are believed to have been hit by the scam. Some people have faced phone bills of up to £2,000. BT's Modem Protection program will check numbers that are dialled by a computer and will block them if they have not been pre-approved, such as national and net service provider numbers. Icstis, the UK's premium rate services watchdog, said it had been looking for companies to take the lead in initiatives. ""The initiatives are very welcome,"" a spokesperson from Icstis told the BBC News website. ""We are very pleased to see they are putting into place new measures to protect consumers.""

The second initiative BT announced is an early warning system which will alert BT customers if there is unusual activity on their phone bills. If a bill rises substantially above its usual daily average, or if a call is made to a suspect number, a text or voice alert will be sent to the user's landline phone. As part of the clamp-down on rogue diallers, companies must now satisfy stringent conditions, including clear terms and conditions, information about how to delete diallers and responsibility for customer refunds. Any firm running a dialler without permission can now be closed down by Icstis. The watchdog brought in the action last October following a decision to license all companies which wanted to operate legitimate premium rate dialler services.

There are legitimate companies who offer services such as adult content, sports results and music downloads by charging a premium rate rather than by credit card BT said it had ploughed an enormous amount of effort into protecting people from the problem. It has already barred more than 1,000 premium rate numbers and has tried to raise public awareness about the scams. ""We now want to ensure there are even stronger safeguards for our customers, who we would urge to make use of these new options to protect themselves,"" said Gavin Patterson, group managing director for consumer the arm of BT. Both schemes have been undergoing trials in Ireland, and will be made available to 20 million BT customers from May.
","BT is introducing two initiatives to help beat rogue dialler scams, which can cost dial-up net users thousands.Inadvertently downloaded by surfers, rogue diallers are programs which hijack modems and dial up a premium rate number when users log on.Icstis, the UK's premium rate services watchdog, said it had been looking for companies to take the lead in initiatives.There are legitimate companies who offer services such as adult content, sports results and music downloads by charging a premium rate rather than by credit card BT said it had ploughed an enormous amount of effort into protecting people from the problem.The second initiative BT announced is an early warning system which will alert BT customers if there is unusual activity on their phone bills.From May, dial-up net users will be able to download free software to stop computers using numbers not on a user's ""pre-approved list"".The watchdog brought in the action last October following a decision to license all companies which wanted to operate legitimate premium rate dialler services.It has already barred more than 1,000 premium rate numbers and has tried to raise public awareness about the scams."
"Spam e-mails tempt net shoppers

Computer users across the world continue to ignore security warnings about spam e-mails and are being lured into buying goods, a report suggests.

More than a quarter have bought software through spam e-mails and 24% have bought clothes or jewellery. As well as profiting from selling goods or services and driving advertising traffic, organised crime rings can use spam to glean personal information. The Business Software Alliance (BSA) warned that people should ""stay alert"". ""Many online consumers don't consider the true motives of spammers,"" said Mike Newton, a spokesperson for the BSA which commissioned the survey.

""By selling software that appears to be legitimate in genuine looking packaging or through sophisticated websites, spammers are hiding spyware without consumers' knowledge. ""Once the software is installed on PCs and networks, information that is given over the internet can be obtained and abused.""

The results also showed that the proportion of people reading - or admitting to reading - and taking advantage of adult entertainment spam e-mails is low, at one in 10. The research, which covered 6,000 people in six countries and their attitudes towards junk e-mails, revealed that Brazilians were the most likely to read spam. A third of them read unsolicited junk e-mail and 66% buy goods or services after receiving spam.

The French were the second most likely to buy something (48%), with 44% of Britons taking advantage of products and services. This was despite 38% of people in all countries being worried about their net security because of the amount of spam they get. More than a third of respondents said they were concerned that spam e-mails contained viruses or programs that attempted to collect personal information. ""Both industry and the media have helped to raise awareness of the issues that surround illegitimate e-mail, helping to reduce the potential financial damage and nuisance from phishing attacks and spoof websites,"" said William Plante, director of corporate security and fraud protection at security firm Symantec. ""At the same time, consumers need to continue exercising caution and protect themselves from harm with a mixture of spam filters, spyware detection software and sound judgement.""
","A third of them read unsolicited junk e-mail and 66% buy goods or services after receiving spam.More than a quarter have bought software through spam e-mails and 24% have bought clothes or jewellery.More than a third of respondents said they were concerned that spam e-mails contained viruses or programs that attempted to collect personal information.The results also showed that the proportion of people reading - or admitting to reading - and taking advantage of adult entertainment spam e-mails is low, at one in 10.This was despite 38% of people in all countries being worried about their net security because of the amount of spam they get.The research, which covered 6,000 people in six countries and their attitudes towards junk e-mails, revealed that Brazilians were the most likely to read spam."
"Be careful how you code

A new European directive could put software writers at risk of legal action, warns former programmer and technology analyst Bill Thompson.

If it gets its way, the Dutch government will conclude its presidency of the European Union by pushing through a controversial measure that has been rejected by the European Parliament, lacks majority support from national governments and will leave millions of European citizens in legal limbo and facing the possibility of court cases against them. If the new law was about border controls, defence or even the new constitution, then our TV screens would be full of experts agonising over the impact on our daily lives. Sadly for those who will be directly affected, the controversy concerns the patenting of computer programs, a topic that may excite the bloggers, campaigning groups and technical press but does not obsess Middle Britain. After all, how much fuss can you generate about the Directive on the Patentability of Computer-Implemented Inventions, and the way it amends Article 52 of the 1973 European Patent Convention? Yet if the new directive is nodded through at the next meeting of one of the EU's ministerial councils, as seems likely, it will allow programs to be patented in Europe just as they are in the US. Many observers of the computing scene, including myself, think the results will be disastrous for small companies, innovative programmers and the free and open source software movement. It will let large companies patent all sorts of ideas and give legal force to those who want to limit their competitors' use of really obvious ideas.

In the US you cannot build a system that stores customer credit card details so that they can pay without having to re-enter them unless Amazon lets you, because they hold the patent on ""one-click"" online purchase. It is a small invention, but Amazon made it to the patent office first and now owns it.

We are relatively free from this sort of thing over here, but perhaps not for long. The new proposals go back to 2002, although argument about patentability of software and computer-implemented inventions has been going on since at least the mid-1980s. They have come to a head now after a year in which proposals were made, endorsed by the Council of Ministers, radically modified by the European Parliament and then re-presented in their original form. Some national governments seem to be aware of the problems. Poland has rejected the proposal and Germany's main political parties have opposed it, but there is not enough opposition to guarantee their rejection. Early in December the British government held a consultation meeting with those who had commented on the proposals. Science Minister Lord Sainsbury went along to listen and outline the UK position, but according to those present, it was embarrassing to see how little the minister and his officials actually understood the issues concerned.

The draft Directive is being put through the council as what is called an ""A"" item and can only be approved or rejected. No discussion or amendment is allowed. So why should we be worried? First, there is the abuse of the democratic process involved in disregarding the views of the parliament and abandoning all of their carefully argued amendments. This goes to the heart of the European project, and even those who do not care about software or patents should be worried. If coders are treated like this today, who is to say that it will not be you tomorrow?

More directly, once software patents are granted then any programmer will have to worry that the code they are writing is infringing someone else's patent. This is not about stealing software, as code is already protected by copyright. Patents are not copyright, but something much stronger. A patent gives the owner the right to stop anyone else using their invention, even if the other person invented it separately. I have never, to my shame, managed to read Lord Byron's Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. If it was pointed out that one of my articles contained a substantial chunk of the poem then I could defend myself in court by claiming that I had simply made it up and it was coincidence. The same does not hold for a patent. If I sit down this afternoon and write a brilliant graphics compression routine and it happens to be the same as the LZW algorithm used in GIF files, then I am in trouble under patent law, at least in the US. Coincidence is no defence. The proposed directive is supported by many of the major software companies, but this is hardly surprising since most of them are US-based and they have already had to cope with a legal environment that allows patents. They have legal departments and, more crucially, patents of their own which they can trade or cross-license with other patent holders.

Even this system breaks down, of course, as Microsoft found out last year when they initially lost a case brought by Eolas which claimed that Internet Explorer (and other browsers) infringed an Eolas patent. That one was eventually thrown out, but only after months of uncertainty and millions of dollars. But small companies, and the free and open software movement do not have any patents to trade. Much of the really useful software we use every day, programs like the Apache web server, the GNU/Linux operating system and the fearsomely popular Firefox browser, is developed outside company structures by people who do not have legal departments to check for patent infringements. The damage to software will not happen overnight, of course. If the directive goes through it has to be written into national laws and then there will be a steady stream of legal actions against small companies and open source products. Eventually someone will decide to attack Linux directly, probably with some secret funding from one or two large players. The new directive will limit innovation by forcing programmers to spend time checking for patent infringements or simply avoiding working in potentially competitive areas. And it will damage Europe's computer industry. We can only hope that the Council of Ministers has the integrity and strength to reject this bad law.

Bill Thompson is a regular commentator on the BBC World Service programme Go Digital.
","This goes to the heart of the European project, and even those who do not care about software or patents should be worried.But small companies, and the free and open software movement do not have any patents to trade.More directly, once software patents are granted then any programmer will have to worry that the code they are writing is infringing someone else's patent.They have legal departments and, more crucially, patents of their own which they can trade or cross-license with other patent holders.A new European directive could put software writers at risk of legal action, warns former programmer and technology analyst Bill Thompson.The same does not hold for a patent.After all, how much fuss can you generate about the Directive on the Patentability of Computer-Implemented Inventions, and the way it amends Article 52 of the 1973 European Patent Convention?If the directive goes through it has to be written into national laws and then there will be a steady stream of legal actions against small companies and open source products.It is a small invention, but Amazon made it to the patent office first and now owns it.Much of the really useful software we use every day, programs like the Apache web server, the GNU/Linux operating system and the fearsomely popular Firefox browser, is developed outside company structures by people who do not have legal departments to check for patent infringements.The new proposals go back to 2002, although argument about patentability of software and computer-implemented inventions has been going on since at least the mid-1980s.If it gets its way, the Dutch government will conclude its presidency of the European Union by pushing through a controversial measure that has been rejected by the European Parliament, lacks majority support from national governments and will leave millions of European citizens in legal limbo and facing the possibility of court cases against them.The new directive will limit innovation by forcing programmers to spend time checking for patent infringements or simply avoiding working in potentially competitive areas.It will let large companies patent all sorts of ideas and give legal force to those who want to limit their competitors' use of really obvious ideas.The proposed directive is supported by many of the major software companies, but this is hardly surprising since most of them are US-based and they have already had to cope with a legal environment that allows patents.Many observers of the computing scene, including myself, think the results will be disastrous for small companies, innovative programmers and the free and open source software movement.If it was pointed out that one of my articles contained a substantial chunk of the poem then I could defend myself in court by claiming that I had simply made it up and it was coincidence.A patent gives the owner the right to stop anyone else using their invention, even if the other person invented it separately."
"US cyber security chief resigns

The man making sure US computer networks are safe and secure has resigned after only a year in his post.

Amit Yoran was director of the National Cyber Security Division within the US Department of Homeland Security created following the 9/11 attacks. The division was tasked with improving US defences against malicious hackers, viruses and other net-based threats. Reports suggest he left because his division was not given enough clout within the larger organisation.

Mr Yoran took up his post in September 2003 and his first task was to get the Cyber Security Division up and running. The organisation had a staff of about 60 people and a budget of about $80m (£44.54m). The division was charged with thinking up and carrying out action to make US networks more impervious to attack and disruption by the viruses, worms and hack attacks that have become commonplace.

In the last 12 months Mr Yoran oversaw the creation of a cyber alert system that sends out warnings about big hitting viruses and net attacks as they occur. The warnings also contained information about how firms and organisations could protect themselves against these attacks. The Cyber Security Division also audited US government networks to discover exactly what was sitting on which network. The next step was to be the creation of a scanning system to identify vulnerabilities that made federal networks and machines susceptible to attack by malicious hackers and virus writers. Mr Yoran's division was also doing work to identify the networks and machines that had been broken into by cyber criminals. Despite this success Mr Yoran left his post abruptly at the end of last week, reportedly only giving one day's notice to bosses at the Department of Homeland Security. ""Amit Yoran has been a valuable contributor on cyber security issues over the past year, and we appreciate his efforts in starting the department's cybersecurity program,"" said a Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman. Some reports have suggested that Mr Yoran felt frustrated by the lack of prominence given to work to protect against net-based threats in the wider homeland organisation. An attempt by US politicians to pass a law to promote Mr Yoran and raise the profile of his department's work is now mired in Congress.
","Amit Yoran was director of the National Cyber Security Division within the US Department of Homeland Security created following the 9/11 attacks.The Cyber Security Division also audited US government networks to discover exactly what was sitting on which network.Mr Yoran took up his post in September 2003 and his first task was to get the Cyber Security Division up and running.Mr Yoran's division was also doing work to identify the networks and machines that had been broken into by cyber criminals.The division was tasked with improving US defences against malicious hackers, viruses and other net-based threats.Reports suggest he left because his division was not given enough clout within the larger organisation.Some reports have suggested that Mr Yoran felt frustrated by the lack of prominence given to work to protect against net-based threats in the wider homeland organisation."
"Losing yourself in online gaming

Online role playing games are time-consuming, but enthralling flights from reality. But are some people taking their fantasy lives too seriously?

When video game World of Warcraft hit the shops in Europe last week fans wrote in to the BBC website to express their delight - and to offer a warning. ""An addiction to a game like this is far more costly in time than any substance could impair - keep track of time,"" wrote Travis Anderson, in Texas. Some of the comments were humorous: ""This game is so good I'm not going to get it, there's no way I could limit the hours I'd spend playing it,"" wrote Charles MacIntyre, from England.

But some struck a more worrying tone about the Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG): ""'You need to get out more' could be the motto of any MMORPG. Shame they are getting more popular, as you know this problem is just going to mushroom,"" wrote Stuart Stanton-Davies, in Huddersfield. Scare-mongering articles about ""addictive video games"" have existed since the days the first game of Pong stopped everyone from working at the Atari offices.

Gaming is like any other pastime - it can quickly become an unhealthy obsession, whether it is spending too much time in the gym, in front of the television, or reading poetry.

Unfortunately, gaming and addiction is a far too easy association to make. However, stories about gamers spending 10 to 15 hours a day in front of some video games are becoming more frequent. And the impact that is having on their families is quite distressing for some.

Massively multiplayer online role playing games - MMORPGs - allow thousands of gamers to share a common experience of sharing fantasy or science fiction worlds. The scope of these games - like Warcraft, EverQuest, Ultima among others - is epic, and exploration and adventure is almost infinite. Part of the ""problem"" is grinding - by which gamers have to perform long-winded, mindless tasks, to bring up their levels and gain access to more adventure. Such open-endedness brings with it a desire to keep playing; not for no reason is EverQuest (EQ) nicknamed EverCrack. E Hayot, writing in the culture blogzine Print Culture, said recently: ""I used to play the online role-playing game EverQuest a lot. ""By 'a lot', I mean probably 15 to 20 hours a week on average, and on weeks where I didn't have to work, as many as 30 or 40 hours.""

He says that in the world of online gaming such behaviour ""wasn't that unusual; lots of people I knew in the game played EQ that much"". ""You lie; you don't go into work because you ""had stuff to do at home""; you cancel or refuse invitations to dinner, you spend much less time watching TV (a good thing, presumably),"" he wrote, explaining how EverQuest took over his time. He quit the game, he says, because he realised life was more fun than EverQuest.

Let us be clear - such obsession is rare. But the huge growth in online gaming means a growth in the numbers of people who take their passion for a hobby too far. Almost 400,000 people bought a copy of World of Warcraft in the first two days on sale earlier this month. Only a fraction will descend into obsessives. The thoughts of families and friends of gamers who have been affected by EverQuest can be found on one blog EverQuest Daily Grind. Jane, who runs the website, compiles a chronicle of heart-rending stories. ""I am actually convinced at this point that there are more than 'some' people who spend more times in MMOPRGs than in reality,"" she said. One unnamed correspondent - all are anonymous - wrote: ""On the rare nights when my husband does come to bed at the same time as I do, I find that I am so used to sleeping by myself that it is difficult to get to sleep with another body laying next to me.

""I can't talk to him while he is playing. There is absolutely no point as he doesn't hear me or is so distracted that I get a 'ummm... ya' a few minutes after I ask him a question.""

""Gaming widows"" has become a comedic term for women who have been shut out by male gamers. But for some it is not in the least funny. Another correspondent wrote: ""I believe that he is addicted to the online gaming, and that is the cause of his depression and restlessness."" And some of them are even sadder: ""Today our son was five days old. ""The sad truth is my husband spent 11 hours today playing his Warcraft game. He did not interact with our sweet tiny baby because there were important quests waiting online."" Video game fans often complain that their hobby is misunderstood or marginalised. But as gaming becomes ever more mainstream, and games ever more immersive, there will be no hiding place for social problems.



I wish 30-40 hours a week was unusual but I think it probably isn't. An 11 hour stretch isn't that surprising - I've known people to play 15+ hours at a stretch. I know of people who are spending their week's holiday from work playing Warcraft. I know of people who would play Ever[Crack] in shifts...waking at 3am to take over from their friends and resume waiting for an item they 'needed' to appear. I understand that the key sign of an addiction is if you alter your life around it rather than fit it into your life. By all standards many of us are addicts. So is the solution to force ourselves to stop playing..or do we just need to make real life a bit more interesting?

Sadly with all the talk of people becoming obsessed with gaming, I find myself longing to have the time to join them. I have been in a long term relationship for over 4 years - since that began, games have become more and more complex. And more and more so I find I have less and less time to play them, with and marriage and work being the main drag on my time.

I think the line between playing a game a lot and a gaming addiction is really quite distinct. I play games a lot, definately over 20 hours a week, but I don't go missing work or other commitments in order to play games.

I have, about a year ago, deleted every game on my computer. RPGs are the worst - the real world fades and all your worries sorround a new magic staff or mighty sword. Unlike books, or perhaps even TV, you gain absolutely nothing. When you stop playing you're at the same point as when you started; all the achievements of your 10 hour session are irretrievably locked in the game and, since you've gained nothing in the real world, you may as well pile on more achievement in the fake one.

Despite having little monetary value, the ""rewards"" and encouragement offered by these MMORPGs is enough to hook games for hours daily. If only business could learn to leverage that very simply human need for easily measurable progress and recognition. Perhaps the unhealthily obsessed simply need more recognition for their achievements in reality?

My advice to gaming widows is ""if you can't beat 'em, join 'em"". That is, try playing it yourself. If he wants to play as well, well at least you'll be together somewhere...

I was an addict and it cost me my relationship. I still play now, but without the guilt , hehe, How long have i played in one sitting? From morning till the early hours of the next day, the birds were singing out side and i had to hobble to the bath room cos my bladder was so full i was in pain, i would hardly eat, perhaps some toast, smoke endlessly and drink. Now, thankfully the fascination has worn off and I have a girlfriend but still no job. For the most part online gaming give me an adiction to illusory achievement, and as there is no end in sight you keep going for the mirage of the ultimate.

Obsessive behaviour is, of course, always cause for concern, but it always bothers me when articles about gaming talk in terms of ""reality"". Obviously, somebody who spends thirty hours a week playing EverQuest has a problem. This problem, however, has nothing to do with a dysfunctional sense of reality. An obsessive EQ player does not consider the game to be ""real"" any more than - for example - an obsessive automotive tinkerer considers their car to be human. If MMORPGs have a unique danger, in terms of encouraging obsessive behaviour, it is not that they create an absorbing virtual world, but rather that they can be easily accessed 24/7. The problem here does not lie with the nature of gaming, but with the nature of modern 24 hour culture.

The problem with these so called MMORPGS is that you can never really complete them, there's always another quest to do. A few of my friends have only had about 10 hours sleep since it was released friday...

Championship Manager consumed my life for years. One particular session started at about 2pm on a Sunday, paused for a brief sleep at 5am on the Monday and after visit to University for classes restarted at about midday for another 10 hour session. The people who tend to hark on about about the problems of ""hardcore gaming"" seem to be those who have rarely allowed themselves to become immersed in a game. I would expect their perspective to change if they were to do that.

I used to be an EverQuest addict while I was in college. It came to the point where the gaming world felt more real than the real one. I failed alot of my courses and was able to barely graduate. I was lucky that I came to my senses when I did, others were less fortunate and dropped out of college. Now that I am holding a job, I avoid online RPGS like the plague.

When I was made redundant I told my partner I had a new job for three months whilst every day I played EverQuest from 7:30am till 5:pm. When She came home I pretended I had just got in as well, hence justifying playing it all evening. I have since quit playing MMORPG and have a good job.

When I got to the point where I was eating my dinner in front of the PC I realised things were getting silly so I'm trying not to spend so much time on there. It's not easy. I feel as if I've got a real addiction going on here.

For me the problem is that I love to complete a goal. Once it is completed that is it, I am finished, time to move on. I become obsessed to complete the goal, so from that standpoint it is an addiction. In a game where you will never complete an ""ultimate"" goal, well it would be like falling into a black pit. It is easier to escape into a controlled fantasy world than face reality at times - in other words the goal offered in the PC game are ""easier"" and more fun than the real world. Pretty scary implications if you think about it.

I can't buy World of Warcraft as it would destroy my marrage, I just know it!!

I played Star Wars Galaxies for about a year and can attest to the addictiveness of these games. They are all engineered in such a way that early on in the game you progress quickly, but this progress becomes exponentially slower, requiring more and more time to reach the next level. I'm sad to say that at the peak of my addiction I was spending entire weekends in front of my monitor, slowly building up my character, stopping only for food and toilet breaks. Thankfully I made a clean break, and actually managed to sell my Jedi account for £800 - which is my only sanity check in an otherwise completely unproductive time vacuum.

Seven years ago, I began playing Ultima Online. This game dominated 2 years of my life. They were 2 wonderful years and I still have vivid memories of the experiences and friends I had. Online gaming can be a world of escapism where you can be yourself without fear of the thoughts of others. Something that cannot always be achieved in the day to day running of a normal life. Whilst I would warn against people giving to much of there life to these games, I believe they are a better way to spend your time than say watching TV.

Gaming is addictive and should be made a recognised addiction. When I was single I used to play upto eight hours a night after work every night for about a year, building up my stats, completing evermore quests and battling ogres. But somehow I found time to get out, even met someone and got married! Has my life changed? Hell no! I still cast spells and battle till the early hours of the morning. On with the fun!

Online gaming should be enjoyed just as much as you would enjoy watching television, or going to the cinema or the pub with your mates.

Many people use recreational drugs on an occasional basis and are able to lead succesfull lives with families, relationships and good careers. A minority allow drugs to take over and destroy their lives and become addicted. According to this article the same is true of MMORPGs. The message to the government is clear, either legalise drugs, or outlaw online gaming!!

Sounds like there are some sad stories here - and I can believe them all. I play alot of Warcraft myself, and know full well how addictive it is. I am resolute that it will not take over my life. It certainly gets in the way though. I think that some people simply do not know how to draw this line, or lack the willpower to stop themselves stepping over it.

I think I'm obsessed with gaming in general, I spend far too much time playing games like Everquest 2 and Football Manager rather than going out and interacting with real people and when I do try to, I'm always thinking in the back if my mind that I'd rather be in front of the computer winning the league with Cambridge United.

I am obsessed with online role playing games. It's not so much quests but it has the adrenaline of a real life situation - goals to achieve etc. I spend about five hours per day online playing it and I rarely get more than four to five hours sleep before getting up for work the next morning...

As many of the players spend their time in MMORPGs rather than in front of the TV I fail to see how it will affect players social lives negatively. Furthermore these types of games contain a huge social aspect, whereas other games and some other pursuits (such as being a couch potato) the players could be indulging in are solitary by nature.

These games are like most things -- too much of anything is a bad thing, but as long as you can walk away from the computer to do other things too, they can be great fun.

Living in Korea at the moment, they have lots PC Bangs (Internet Cafes). Nearly most of South Koreans are addicted to online games, and one Korean died because of the lack of food and water he had through playing online games.

I play xbox live every day. I find my self lying and rescheduling everything around my gaming fix. The longest I played was a 24 hour straight session. I know I play for to long but it's an obsession that I can't control. Can you reccomend a counsellor - this is not a wind up... but something I'm increasingly concerned with...

Me and my mate play online for an hour or two a day, we're both aware of how much time can disappear by sitting in front of a TV, trying to 'frag' some individual. It's getting the balance between getting home and relasing the stress of a day by an hour or so gaming, and enjoying 'real' life...

I bought the US version of World of Warcraft when it came out. The longest period I played was 23 hrs straight. I gave up the game after a month because it was so addictive, but have subsequently just bought the European version (couldn't help myself). In future, I'm going to regulate my time far more strictly. Great game!

Having played MMORPG games for some years I agree that these type of games can be life sucking. But my concern is for the younger generation of gamers that play for hours on end in an adult enviroment. Most MMORPG games you need a credit card to play but I dont think parents know just what they are letting there children into.

Unless there is undeniable medical proof that staring at a computer screens for hours at a time can damage a person¿s health, you can expect this not to decline but to get worse.

These people are pathetic. They need to get off their machines and notice that our world is being swiftly overcome by issues and troubles that make the trifling worries of and ""online universe"" absolutely meaningless.

24hours, when i was a kid at school and i was on half term, Ultima Online was the game, ahhhh them was the days ! LOL
","He says that in the world of online gaming such behaviour ""wasn't that unusual; lots of people I knew in the game played EQ that much"".I think I'm obsessed with gaming in general, I spend far too much time playing games like Everquest 2 and Football Manager rather than going out and interacting with real people and when I do try to, I'm always thinking in the back if my mind that I'd rather be in front of the computer winning the league with Cambridge United.I think the line between playing a game a lot and a gaming addiction is really quite distinct.He quit the game, he says, because he realised life was more fun than EverQuest.Having played MMORPG games for some years I agree that these type of games can be life sucking.I spend about five hours per day online playing it and I rarely get more than four to five hours sleep before getting up for work the next morning...  As many of the players spend their time in MMORPGs rather than in front of the TV I fail to see how it will affect players social lives negatively.This game dominated 2 years of my life.24hours, when i was a kid at school and i was on half term, Ultima Online was the game, ahhhh them was the days !""The sad truth is my husband spent 11 hours today playing his Warcraft game.Online role playing games are time-consuming, but enthralling flights from reality.Some of the comments were humorous: ""This game is so good I'm not going to get it, there's no way I could limit the hours I'd spend playing it,"" wrote Charles MacIntyre, from England.I play games a lot, definately over 20 hours a week, but I don't go missing work or other commitments in order to play games.When you stop playing you're at the same point as when you started; all the achievements of your 10 hour session are irretrievably locked in the game and, since you've gained nothing in the real world, you may as well pile on more achievement in the fake one.However, stories about gamers spending 10 to 15 hours a day in front of some video games are becoming more frequent.The people who tend to hark on about about the problems of ""hardcore gaming"" seem to be those who have rarely allowed themselves to become immersed in a game.But some struck a more worrying tone about the Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG): ""'You need to get out more' could be the motto of any MMORPG.It is easier to escape into a controlled fantasy world than face reality at times - in other words the goal offered in the PC game are ""easier"" and more fun than the real world.It's getting the balance between getting home and relasing the stress of a day by an hour or so gaming, and enjoying 'real' life...""An addiction to a game like this is far more costly in time than any substance could impair - keep track of time,"" wrote Travis Anderson, in Texas.Whilst I would warn against people giving to much of there life to these games, I believe they are a better way to spend your time than say watching TV.Great game!Can you reccomend a counsellor - this is not a wind up... but something I'm increasingly concerned with...  Me and my mate play online for an hour or two a day, we're both aware of how much time can disappear by sitting in front of a TV, trying to 'frag' some individual.I am obsessed with online role playing games.Massively multiplayer online role playing games - MMORPGs - allow thousands of gamers to share a common experience of sharing fantasy or science fiction worlds.Obviously, somebody who spends thirty hours a week playing EverQuest has a problem.Sadly with all the talk of people becoming obsessed with gaming, I find myself longing to have the time to join them.Most MMORPG games you need a credit card to play but I dont think parents know just what they are letting there children into.E Hayot, writing in the culture blogzine Print Culture, said recently: ""I used to play the online role-playing game EverQuest a lot.I have been in a long term relationship for over 4 years - since that began, games have become more and more complex.The longest I played was a 24 hour straight session.I know of people who are spending their week's holiday from work playing Warcraft.It came to the point where the gaming world felt more real than the real one.Online gaming can be a world of escapism where you can be yourself without fear of the thoughts of others.In a game where you will never complete an ""ultimate"" goal, well it would be like falling into a black pit.A few of my friends have only had about 10 hours sleep since it was released friday...  Championship Manager consumed my life for years.When I got to the point where I was eating my dinner in front of the PC I realised things were getting silly so I'm trying not to spend so much time on there.I have, about a year ago, deleted every game on my computer.Seven years ago, I began playing Ultima Online.When video game World of Warcraft hit the shops in Europe last week fans wrote in to the BBC website to express their delight - and to offer a warning.I gave up the game after a month because it was so addictive, but have subsequently just bought the European version (couldn't help myself).An 11 hour stretch isn't that surprising - I've known people to play 15+ hours at a stretch.I wish 30-40 hours a week was unusual but I think it probably isn't.Gaming is like any other pastime - it can quickly become an unhealthy obsession, whether it is spending too much time in the gym, in front of the television, or reading poetry.Online gaming should be enjoyed just as much as you would enjoy watching television, or going to the cinema or the pub with your mates.But the huge growth in online gaming means a growth in the numbers of people who take their passion for a hobby too far.The scope of these games - like Warcraft, EverQuest, Ultima among others - is epic, and exploration and adventure is almost infinite.When I was single I used to play upto eight hours a night after work every night for about a year, building up my stats, completing evermore quests and battling ogres.Nearly most of South Koreans are addicted to online games, and one Korean died because of the lack of food and water he had through playing online games.""You lie; you don't go into work because you ""had stuff to do at home""; you cancel or refuse invitations to dinner, you spend much less time watching TV (a good thing, presumably),"" he wrote, explaining how EverQuest took over his time.Furthermore these types of games contain a huge social aspect, whereas other games and some other pursuits (such as being a couch potato) the players could be indulging in are solitary by nature.Another correspondent wrote: ""I believe that he is addicted to the online gaming, and that is the cause of his depression and restlessness.""From morning till the early hours of the next day, the birds were singing out side and i had to hobble to the bath room cos my bladder was so full i was in pain, i would hardly eat, perhaps some toast, smoke endlessly and drink.Despite having little monetary value, the ""rewards"" and encouragement offered by these MMORPGs is enough to hook games for hours daily.The problem here does not lie with the nature of gaming, but with the nature of modern 24 hour culture.Unfortunately, gaming and addiction is a far too easy association to make.""I am actually convinced at this point that there are more than 'some' people who spend more times in MMOPRGs than in reality,"" she said.Scare-mongering articles about ""addictive video games"" have existed since the days the first game of Pong stopped everyone from working at the Atari offices.When I was made redundant I told my partner I had a new job for three months whilst every day I played EverQuest from 7:30am till 5:pm.And more and more so I find I have less and less time to play them, with and marriage and work being the main drag on my time.They are all engineered in such a way that early on in the game you progress quickly, but this progress becomes exponentially slower, requiring more and more time to reach the next level."