Friday, 14 September 2007
BT is setting up an initiative to find out why some people resist using the internet.
The project will employ psychologists to closely study a small group of people to reveal what stops them joining the net-using majority.
Early research done for the project suggests that, for some, using the net is as stressful as a bungee jump.
Official statistics on UK net use suggest that 39% of households do not have web access.
Net losses
Dr David Lewis, the lead psychologist employed on the project, said that for many people the biggest barrier to getting online was mental as many of those avoiding the net lived in homes with a dedicated connection.
He said: "More often the barriers are internal, stemming from a fear of the technology."
"It will be interesting to see whether the trial will be enough to build the participants' online confidence, or whether more needs to be done in terms of support and guidance to help them to become tech savvy," he said.
By contrast to novices, many seasoned net users find the experience of going online very relaxing, said Dr Lewis.
The psychologists on the project will take readings of physiological changes reluctant net users undergo when they go online.
BT has chosen four subjects who will be studied closely as they are coached to use the net to find out why they fear using it.
To acquaint them with online life, the four subjects have been given a broadband link, a laptop, webcam and a digital camera. A two-month training plan has also been developed that will introduce them to what they can do on the net.
The participants will also be encouraged to record their experiences on video or in still images and comment on what they discover. Their videos and images will be shown on the "Journey to Inclusion" website documenting the project.
Gavin Patterson, a spokesman for BT said: "The gap between the competent internet user and those who have never been online has never been greater."
BT set to study internet novices
Google calls for web privacy laws
Friday, 14 September 2007
Search site Google has called on governments and business to agree a basic set of global privacy rules.
Without global standards the health of the internet was at risk, the firm's privacy chief Peter Fleischer told a UN agency conference in Strasbourg.
He said that the rise of the net meant vast amounts of personal data was now regularly shipped around the globe.
That information often passed through countries with insufficient or no data protection laws, he said.
"Every time a person uses a credit card their information may cross six or seven national boundaries," Mr Fleischer said before the event.
Hostile past
Three quarters of countries have no privacy rules at all and among those that do, many were largely adopted before the rise of the internet, he said.
Europe, for example, has strict privacy regulations, but these rules were set out in 1995, largely before the rise of the commercial internet, he said.
In contrast, the United States has no country-wide privacy laws, instead leaving them to individual states or even industries to set up.
"The minority of the world's countries that have privacy regimes follow divergent models," a copy of his speech said. "Citizens lose out because they are unsure about what rights they have given the patchwork of competing regimes."
Google has previously come under repeated fire about its own privacy policies.
In June, rights group Privacy International rated the search giant as "hostile" to privacy in a report ranking web firms by how they handle personal data.
A month later, the firm said it would change its policies so that its cookies, tiny files stored on a computer when a user visits a website, would auto-delete two years after a user's last visit to its site. Previously they were set to delete in 2038.
Speaking at the Strasbourg Unesco conference, Mr Fleischer called for countries to adopt principles agreed by some Asia-Pacific nations.
The APEC guidelines have nine principles that aim to protect the individual and safeguard data collection.
They have been accepted by countries ranging from Australia to Vietnam.
"If privacy principles can be agreed in such divergent countries, then we think that is a model for the rest of the world," Mr Fleischer said before the speech.
Chinese web filtering 'erratic'
Wednesday, 12 September 2007
China's firewall that tries to sanitise web browsing is much more porous than previously thought, says a study.
Carried out by US researchers outside China, it found that the firewall often failed to block what the Chinese government finds objectionable.
The firewall was least effective when lots of Chinese web users were online.
Often, said the study, the idea of the firewall was more effective than the technology at discouraging talk about banned subjects.
Term time
The study, carried out by graduate student Earl Barr and colleagues in the computer science department of UC Davis and the University of New Mexico, exploited the workings of the Chinese firewall to investigate its effectiveness.
Unlike many other nations Chinese authorities do not simply block webpages that discuss banned subjects such as the Tiananmen Square massacre.
Instead the technology deployed by the Chinese government scans data flowing across its section of the net for banned words or web addresses.
When the filtering system spots a banned term it sends instructions to the source server and destination PC to stop the flow of data. 
Mr Barr and colleagues manipulated this to see how far inside China's net, messages containing banned terms could reach before the shut down instructions were sent.
The team used words taken from the Chinese version of Wikipedia to load the data streams then despatched into China's network. If a data stream was stopped a technique known as "latent semantic analysis" was used to find related words to see if they too were blocked.
The researchers found that the blocking did not happen at the edge of China's network but often was done when the packets of loaded data had penetrated deep inside.
Blocked were terms related to the Falun Gong movement, Tiananmen Square protest groups, Nazi Germany and democracy.
On about 28% of the paths into China's net tested by the researchers, blocking failed altogether suggesting that web users would browse unencumbered at least some of the time.
Filtering and blocking was "particularly erratic" when lots of China's web users were online, said the researchers.
Despite the failures of the blocking system, the researchers said the idea that web browsing was being overseen often acted as a spur to self-censorship.
The results of the study are due to be presented at the ACM's Computer and Communications Security Conference held in the US in late October.
Citizens offer new take on news
Wednesday, 12 September 2007
A news agenda formulated by citizens would be radically different from that put together by journalists.
That is the conclusion of a US study which compared what made the headlines in the mainstream media with that of three diverse user-driven news sources.
The study - conducted by a wing of the US Pew Research centre - compared stories over seven days.
Its results will make interesting reading for news editors as well as the new breed of citizen journalists.
The report - released by the Project for Excellence in Journalism - took a snapshot of news stories from the last week in June 2007.
Raw information
It compared the stories making the headline in 48 mainstream news sources, including TV, radio and online, to that of three user-driven news sites - Reddit, Digg and Del.icio.us.
It found that the interests of users was markedly different to that of traditional editors.
Seven out of ten of the stories selected by the user-driven sites came from blogs or non-news websites with only 5% of stories overlapping with the ten most widely-covered stories in the mainstream media.
"Users gravitated towards more eclectic stories. There was a sense that users sifting through a lot of raw information; rumour, gossip, propaganda and the news were all throw into the mix," said Tom Rosenstiel, one of the authors of the report.
In a week dominated by stories about Iraq and the debate about immigration, users were more interested in the release of the iPhone and the news that Nintendo had surpassed Sony in net worth.
This technology bias was partly down to the fact that it was early adopters of technology that lead the way when it came to "playing with the potential of the internet to empower users", said Mr Rosenstiel.
Citizen editors
In all, 40% of the most popular stories on Digg and Del.icio.us, were devoted to technology with the second most popular category being lifestyle stories.
One of the biggest differences noted by the researchers was the emphasis put on a single story. While the mainstream media tended to revisit the same story from a different angle each day, users were happier dipping in to a variety of topics.
"It was more hit and miss with a sense that they wanted to know a little about a lot of things," said Mr Rosenstiel.
News editors need not hang up their notebooks and pens quite yet though. The report found that traditional news outlets such as the BBC still accounted for a quarter of the content on the user news sites. Interestingly, original content accounted for just 1%.
"That suggests that people are re-aggregating the news in the style of citizen editors rather than journalists," said Mr Rosenstiel.
"These sites offer people a different take on the news but it doesn't mean that traditional journalism has become irrelevant. They are forming more of secondary conversation about the news," he said.
Mobile system promises free calls
Tuesday, 11 September 2007
A new way of making calls directly between phones, for free, is being trialled by a Swedish company.
It is hoping to dramatically improve communications in the developing world.
Swedish company TerraNet has developed the idea using peer-to-peer technology that enables users to speak on its handsets without the need for a mobile phone base station.
The technology is designed for remote areas of the countryside or desert where base stations are unfeasible.
Projects backed by TerraNet recently launched in Tanzania and Ecuador.
TerraNet founder Anders Carlius told the BBC World Service's Digital Planet programme that the idea for TerraNet came when he was on safari in Tanzania in 2002, and found that poor connectivity meant he could not ring friends riding in another jeep only a few metres away.
"I started thinking, 'couldn't we get phone-to-phone without needing any other equipment, and actually have real voice communication, like a telephone call, between units?'" he said.
Digital identity
The TerraNet technology works using handsets adapted to work as peers that can route data or calls for other phones in the network.
The handsets also serve as nodes between other handsets, extending the reach of the entire system. Each handset has an effective range of about one kilometre.
This collaborative routing of calls means there is no cost to talk between handsets.
When a TerraNet phone is switched on, it begins to look for other phones within range. If it finds them, it starts to connect and extend the radio network. 
When a number is dialled a handset checks to see if the person being called is within range. If they are, the call goes through.
While individually the phones only have a maximum range of 1km, any phone in between two others can forward calls, allowing the distance to double. This principle applied many times creates a mini network.
However, Mr Carlius admitted that this has created big problems with having enough available frequencies.
The system can also be used to make calls to other TerraNet mesh networks via a net-connected PC fitted with an inexpensive USB dongle.
"If you look at places like Africa, South America, India, China, we're really for the first time giving people a digital identity," he added.
"People are able to talk to other people using a phone number.
"With our stuff, we are giving the low-end man or woman the chance to talk locally for free." 
And TerraNet phones currently only work with a special handset - although Mr Carlius said he hopes that it will eventually be a feature available on all phones, like Bluetooth.
He said that were this to happen, it could potentially spell the end for the current Global System for Mobile (GSM) communications model. About 70% of all mobile phones use this technology.
Mr Carlius said large mobile firms did not like the idea of using a peer-to-peer model to make calls.
"One of the biggest things against us is that the big operators and technology providers are really pushing against us, saying this technology doesn't work and it doesn't have a business model," he said.
"This is fine - just join us in Lund and see how the technology works, and ask our customers how our business model works."
Mr Carlius said that mobile phone manufacturer Ericsson had invested around £3m in TerraNet, and this indicated that the business model for the network is sound.
Facebook 'costs businesses dear'
Tuesday, 11 September 2007
Workers who spend time on sites such as Facebook could be costing firms over £130m a day, a study has calculated.
According to employment law firm Peninsula, 233 million hours are lost every month as a result of employees "wasting time" on social networking.
The study - based on a survey of 3,500 UK companies - concluded that businesses need to take firm action on the use of social networks at work.
Some firms have already banned employees from accessing Facebook.
Lunch-break option
Mike Huss, director of employment law at Peninsula called on all firms to block access to sites such as Facebook.
He asked: "Why should employers allow their workers to waste two hours a day on Facebook when they are being paid to do a job?"
He said that loss of productivity was proving a "major headache" for firms.
"The figures that we have calculated are minimums and it's a problem that I foresee will escalate," he said.
While some firms have embraced Facebook as a motivational tool, others have cracked down.
Last month, Kent County Council (KCC) banned workers from using Facebook in an effort to crack down on "time-wasting".
The TUC said last months that all-out bans were not the answer and that firms should draw up guidelines instead.
The organisation said employers were entitled to stop people using the sites during the working day but that staff should be able to use their time during lunch breaks to contact friends on sites such as Facebook, MySpace and Bebo.
Mr Huss is not convinced such an approach will work in the long-term.
"If a company can police the system, and only allow limited access during lunch breaks then that is fine. However I think it would be easier and less expensive to ban access altogether," he said.
Real friends?
Meanwhile, scientists have cast doubt on how big a part social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace can play in people's offline social lives.
Dr Will Reader, a researcher at Sheffield Hallam University, has been conducting research into the new types of friendships being fostered online.
Presenting his findings at the BA (British Association) Festival of Science at York University, he said that the huge contact lists of some members of Facebook and MySpace belied their real social status.
"Although the number of friends people have on these sites can be massive, the number of close friends is approximately the same as in the face-to-face real world contact," he told delegates at the festival.
Miniature golden artwork unveiled
Tuesday, 11 September 2007
One of the tiniest artworks ever made has been unveiled by researchers.
The image of the Sun is just 80 microns (millionths of a metre) wide, less than a tenth of the size of a pinhead.
It was made using a novel nanoprinting technique and is composed of 20,000 gold particles, each 60 nanometres (billionths of a metre) in diameter.
The printing method, outlined in the journal Nature Nanotechnology, could be used to cheaply fabricate tiny sensors and components for future microchips.
"This method opens up new ways to precisely and efficiently position various kinds of nanoparticles on different surfaces," said Heiko Wolf of IBM and one of the authors of the paper.
Golden image
The computer giant, along with many other firms, is interested in manipulating particles at the nano-scale in its quest to shrink and improve the performance of future electronic devices.
The current generation of computer chips, which start production this year, already contain transistors with features just 45 nanometres wide.
Already, IBM has shown off techniques for manipulating individual atoms. And the firm's researchers are no strangers to creating tiny artworks. 
In 1990, scientists from the firm demonstrated a method for moving individual atoms using a scanning tunnelling microscope. The first structure they created spelt IBM.
But processes like this are too expensive and time consuming to be used to mass produce products.
The new printing method offers a solution, according to IBM.
To print an image, nano particles are precisely arranged on a soft silicone template. A substrate of glass or silicon, for example, is then laid on top and the image transferred.
According to the researchers, the process is efficient, reproducible and can lay down combinations of different materials such as metals, polymers, semiconductors, and oxides.
To demonstrate the capabilities of the process, the team reproduced Robert Fludd's 17th Century drawing of the Sun using microscopic gold particles printed on to silicon.
Tobias Kraus, also of IBM said that the technique produced images with a resolution "three orders of magnitude higher than in conventional printing".
The firm believes the technique could be used to print nano-circuits for tiny high performance chips as well as being used to produce tiny sensors to monitor diseases in the body.
"These are quite fundamental things that could go very broadly," Gina-Luca Bona of IBM told the Associated Press.
The work was carried out in collaboration with ETH in Zurich.
Fossett sought via Google Earth
Monday, 10 September 2007
Images from Google Earth are being enrolled in the search for adventurer Steve Fossett.
Many people are scouring up-to-date satellite images of Nevada to try to spot Mr Fossett's downed plane or wreckage.
The project is being co-ordinated via Amazon's human-powered problem solving scheme called the Mechanical Turk.
It comes after a frustrating weekend in which searchers failed to turn up any sign of Mr Fossett.
False alarm
Mr Fossett went missing on 3 September after taking off in his single-engine Citabria aircraft from the Flying M Ranch near Yerington, Nevada. The trip was supposed to last a maximum of three hours.
The search for Mr Fossett or his downed plane covers 44,000 sq km (17,000 square miles) of Nevada's wilderness as well as parts of California.
In a bid to help searchers focus their efforts, Google released up-to-date images of Nevada for the search giant's Google Earth software.
Following the release of the images, Amazon created a collaborative search scheme run via its Mechanical Turk system.
The Mechanical Turk pays people to perform tasks that computers would struggle to complete, such as translating text or evaluating images.
Anyone taking part in the Mechanical Turk scheme downloads the updated images and an associated program that shows them recent images that they can flag if any appear to be candidates for a crash site. 
The creators of the search scheme said Mr Fossett's plane would appear as an object about "21 pixels long and 30 pixels in wingspan".
Flagged images will be passed on to the search team co-ordinating flights over the area where Mr Fossett is thought to have gone missing.
Talking to reporters, Nevada Civil Air Patrol Major Cynthia Ryan welcomed the help but said it was unlikely that Google Earth would have picked up anything that military satellites would not spot.
The search in Nevada by the Civil Air Patrol and many private pilots has discovered six previously unknown wrecks - some of which were decades old.
The 63-year-old adventurer reportedly took the flight to look for locations that could be used for an attempt on the land speed record.
During his life, Mr Fossett has racked up about 100 world records. In March 2005 he became the first to fly a plane non-stop around the globe without refuelling.
Mobiles for the 'world's poorest'
Monday, 10 September 2007
Nearly half a million people, described by the UN as "the poorest of the poor", will soon be able to make mobile calls.
As part of a UN programme to tackle poverty in rural Africa, 79 villages across 10 African countries will be hooked up to cellular networks.
It is hoped that the connections will help improve healthcare and education, as well as boosting the local economy.
A 2005 study showed that an increase of 10 mobile phones per 100 people could increase GDP growth by 0.6%.
"This is a technology that is remarkably empowering, especially for remote areas where the ability to communicate is vital," Dr Jeffery Sachs, Special Advisor to the United Nations Secretary-General, told the BBC News website.
Farming tool
The plan to extend the mobile network to people that would not normally be considered a priority for mobile phone firms is part of the UN Millennium Villages programme.
The initiative, a collaboration between the Earth Institute at New York's Columbia University and the UN, started in 2004.
The first Millennium Village was started in Sauri, Kenya, and there are now 79 in countries including Mali, Uganda, Senegal and Ethiopia. 
According to the UN, the Millennium Villages are "located in hunger 'hotspots' where chronic hunger is widespread, often accompanied by a high prevalence of disease, lack of access to medical care, and a severe lack of infrastructure".
The programme aims to tackle all of these areas, rather than focusing on a specific problem.
"It is a holistic approach rather than a magic bullet approach" said Dr Sachs.
He said building the mobile infrastructure would allow for improvements to healthcare, such as an emergency phone number.
"We also see this as crucial for education where the kids will not only learn IT skills but will also have access to a world of information," he said.
He said schemes could also be used to trade agricultural information as well as allowing people to have bank accounts and make "micro payments" for goods such as fertilizers.
Data rate
Ken Banks of Kiwanja.net, an organisation that helps promote innovative uses for mobiles in developing countries, said that the arrival of mobiles would also spur new businesses. 
"From day one, taxi drivers will be using mobiles to get business, as will casual labourers," he said. "Other people will then begin to source the information they need.
"Past lessons have shown that many Africans are entrepreneurial enough to develop their own services and solutions once a technology arrives."
The infrastructure, as well as solar chargers for phones, have been provided free of charge by mobile firm Ericsson, but services will be run and charged for by local operators.
In most countries, Ericsson will install a 2G network, able to handle voice calls as well as data downloads of around 200 kilobits per second (kbps).
"That is a fairly good broadband capable network," said Carl-Henric Svanberg, CEO of Ericsson. "From a laptop you will be able to surf the internet."
Mr Svanberg said the firm would also install 3G networks in those countries where "regulations and spectrum" allowed.
But Mr Banks believes that initially there will be very little use of mobile internet and data services.
"Voice is still the killer app in many developing countries," he said. "Data is going to be playing catch-up for a long time to come."
Facebook opens profiles to public
Thursday, 6 September 2007
Popular social networking site Facebook has added a public-facing search function in a move which is likely to anger privacy advocates.
The function will initially allow anyone who is not registered with the site to search for a specific person.
More controversially, in a month's time, the feature will also allow people to track down Facebook members via search engines such as Google.
The firm said that the information being revealed is minimal.
Privacy erosion
The public search listing will show the thumbnail picture thumbnail of a Facebook member from their profile page as well as links allowing people to interact with them.
But, in order to add someone as a friend or send them a message, the person will have to be registered with Facebook.
Users who want to restrict what information is available to the public or opt out of the feature altogether can change their privacy settings. They have a month to do so.
Despite assurances from Facebook, critics have expressed disappointment at the move.
"This move transforms Facebook from being a social network to being a quasi-White Pages of the web," commented technology writer Om Malik in his blog GigaOm.
Mr Malik, and others, are concerned about the data trail that people are routinely leaving behind them on social networking and other sites.
There are concerns that personal content will become aggregated for marketing or other purposes.
Security experts have pointed out the dangers of publicising your date of birth - one of the options in a Facebook profile - because of the way it has been traditionally used as a way of identifying bank customers.
Facebook began life as a way of keeping US college students in touch with each other. Devised by Harvard drop-out Mark Zuckerberg, the site now accounts for 1% of all net traffic and is the sixth most visited site in the US
The social networking site is thought to have about 39 million members. Numbers have jumped since the firm removed the need to have an academic e-mail address in September 2006.
New boom-time for British tech?
Wednesday, 5 September 2007
Britain is still home to some of the world's best scientists - but when it comes to giving them the money to turn their ideas into world-beating companies we are third-rate. True?
"That's guff," is the impatient response of Anne Glover, a leading venture capitalist.
She believes this is the best time since the short-lived dot com bubble for anyone looking to get their idea funded: "It's never been better, except during the boom for a short nine-month period."
Not from the perspective of Noah Freedman, who has tried to get venture capital firms interested in Ionscope, a firm using world-leading science from Imperial College and Cambridge University. "I don't think the situation has improved in the UK over the last decade," he says
But Anne Glover, whose venture capital firm Amadeus Capital has backed businesses such as lastminute.com, Cambridge Silicon Radio and Plastic Logic, points to the figures.
Last year £1bn of venture capital money was invested in young firms in the UK - that's more than a third of all the money invested across Europe.
"We get beaten up all the time," says Ms Glover, "but which other sector has as big a share of the European market?"
Lack of ambition 
And just as in other industries there are fashions in venture capital. What's hot right now? Mobile technology, semi-conductors, and consumer internet firms, according to Amadeus - rather similar to what was getting funded during the last boom in 2000.
That ended with a bust which saw many start-ups disappear and was followed by several years in which venture capitalists seemed to have gone into hiding. But Anne Glover says they've come through the experience stronger.
"The ones who have survived the boom and bust are experienced and well-funded and have similar global aspirations to the best entrepreneurs."
But Noah Freedman, an entrepreneur who was previously involved in Brainspark, an incubator for technology start-ups, says there is still a funding gap.
Ionscope, which makes very high resolution microscopes, was not able to raise venture capital until it had sold its first products. "The bottom line is that in the UK, it may be easy to get venture capital money to fund growth of an established concept or business, but it is exceptionally difficult to get seed and start-up money for real innovation."
Anne Glover says the real problem is a lack of ambition, from both investors and entrepreneurs.
"We maybe spread our money too thinly rather than concentrate on the best ideas. When we've got a world-leading company that's the point where we need to finance it properly."
She says she spends more time trying to raise the ambitions of start-up firms rather than lower them.
Silicon Fen? 
So what's the lesson from those who have made it? Alex van Someren is one entrepreneur who did raise the money to create a successful global business.
His Cambridge-based internet security company Ncipher raised venture capital money between 1996 and 2000, and then floated just in the nick of time before the stock market crash.
He believes we are making progress: "Both investors and the people they invest in have become much more sophisticated." He says the problem is not a lack of money or ideas. "There is plenty of both - but ideas are not the same as investable businesses."
But he says young companies are now more likely to turn to business angels - often people who have built their own firms - rather than venture capitalists: "Angels have done it themselves, so they bring more added value - and they're willing to invest in businesses too small for venture funds to look at."
What Britain doesn't have - despite attempts to brand Cambridge as Silicon Fen - is one area that can compete with Silicon Valley as a place which produces innovative businesses and the investors to fund them.
But Anne Glover says we shouldn't get hung up on the comparison: 
"You would find the same inferiority complex in Indiana or Wisconsin - Silicon Valley is unique. It's difficult to raise venture capital anywhere in the world. Entrepreneurship is hard and don't expect it to be easy."
The good news is that, when it comes to innovation, Britain has a growing number of entrepreneurs who have been there and done that.
Many are now starting new firms or investing in other start-ups. Their only fear is that the latest boom in technology investment could melt away like the last one.
Yahoo takes on Google on adverts
Wednesday, 5 September 2007
Yahoo has moved to further strengthen its service to advertisers by buying web marketing business BlueLithium for $300m (£149.4m).
Set up in 2004, BlueLithium provides technology enabling websites to better match adverts with users' interests.
The purchase is the latest in a series of deals by Yahoo as it seeks to regain ground on market leader Google in the web search sector.
In June, boss Terry Semel quit after concerns about the firm's direction.
Maximising value
Yahoo's profits have fallen in each of the past six quarters, prompting new boss Jerry Yang to start work on a "strategic plan" to improve the firm's performance.
He has sought to make Yahoo's web search functions more attractive to advertisers, recently buying online advertising exchange Right Media for $700m.
Mr Yang said the addition of BlueLithium, whose clients include General Motors, to the Yahoo stable would help Yahoo advertisers to maximise their online expenditure.
"BlueLithium's products, technology and team will be an integral part of our drive to build the industry's leading advertising network," he said.
BlueLithium, which specialises in analysing data on web usage, employs 145 staff at 10 locations in the US.
All the leading web search providers have been strengthening their advertising functions in recent months.
Microsoft bought aQuantive for $6bn last month while Google's $3.1bn acquisition of DoubleClick is awaiting clearance by US regulators.
Apple overhauls entire iPod line
Wednesday, 5 September 2007
A touch-screen iPod has been added to Apple's popular line of portable music players.
The gadget also has wi-fi and a web browser on-board so people can buy music when they are out and about.
The device was unveiled by Apple boss Steve Jobs during a press conference that also showed off revamped versions of the other models of music players.
The overhaul comes in time for the key US holiday season when Apple typically sees an upturn in sales of the players.
The iPod touch was the star of the widely anticipated announcements made by Mr Jobs which saw changes made to every music player the company makes.
Owners of the iPod touch will be able to use the built-in Safari browser to surf the web or buy music via the onboard wi-fi iTunes store.
A deal with Starbucks will let people use the wi-fi iTunes store for free while inside one of the company's cafes.
Two versions
Dedicated icons on the touch screen give access to YouTube or the Google and Yahoo search engines.
The touch screen iPod comes in two versions that have 8 or 16 gigabytes of memory. In the US the smaller device will cost $299 (in the UK it will cost £199) and the larger $399 (£269 in the UK). Prices in Europe have not been announced but are likely to be higher than direct comparisons suggest.
The iPod touch will be in shops by the end of September.
Said Mr Jobs: "It's one of the seven wonders of the world - it's just incredible."
Apple also announced that the full-sized iPod will now only be available in 80 or 160 gigabyte versions.
The iPod nano got an overhaul that saw it assume a squarer shape, the ability to handle video and bigger memory. The shuffle is now available in five colours.
Apple is also starting to sell ringtones via iTunes for iPhone owners. An update to iTunes will let them craft their own ringtones for $0.99.
The price of the iPhone with eight gigabytes of storage is being cut by $200 to $399. The four-gigabyte model is being dropped.
Cyber crime tool kits go on sale
Tuesday, 4 September 2007
Malicious hackers are producing easy to use tools that automate attacks to cash in on a boom in hi-tech crime.
On sale, say security experts, are everything from individual viruses to comprehensive kits that let budding cyber thieves craft their own attacks.
The top hacking tools are being offered for prices ranging up to £500.
Some of the most expensive tools are sold with 12 months of technical support that ensures they stay armed with the latest vulnerabilities.
Tool time
"They are starting to pop up left and right," said Tim Eades from security company Sana, of the sites offering downloadable hacking tools. "It's the classic verticalisation of a market as it starts to mature."
Malicious hackers had evolved over the last few years, he said, and were now selling the tools they used to use to the growing numbers of fledgling cyber thieves.
Mr Eades said some hacking groups offer boutique virus writing services that produce malicious programs that security software will not spot. Individual malicious programs cost up to £17 (25 euros), he said.
At the top end of the scale, said Mr Eades, were tools like the notorious MPack which costs up to £500.
The regular updates for the software ensure it uses the latest vulnerabilities to help criminals hijack PCs via booby-trapped webpages. It also includes a statistical package that lets owners know how successful their attack has been and where victims are based.
MPack has proved very popular with criminally minded groups and in late June 2007 managed to subvert more than 10,000 websites in one attack that drew on the tool.
Hacking groups also operate volume pricing schemes and discounts for loyal customers, he said.
"It's almost a play-by-play of good business practices of software marketing," he said. "When it comes to the hacking industry and level of business acumen there's no limit to what your money can buy."
Paul Henry, vice president of technology evangelism at Secure Computing, said the numbers of downloadable hacking tools was growing fast.
According to Mr Henry there were more than 68,000 downloadable hacking tools in circulation. The majority were free to use and took some skill to operate but a growing number were offered for sale to those without the technical knowledge to run their own attacks, he said.
But, he added, many hacking groups were offering tools such as Mpack, Shark 2, Nuclear, WebAttacker, and IcePack that made it much easier for unskilled people to get in to the hi-tech crime game.
Mr Henry said the tools were proving useful because so many vulnerabilities were being discovered and were taking so long to be patched.
Little risk
"MPack used more than 12 different vulnerabilities that were launched against any web browser that visited any compromised site," he said.
Many hacking groups were attracted to selling the kits because it meant they took little risk themselves if the malicious software was used to commit crimes.
"The only thing you are going to find is a disclaimer that this was distributed for educational purposes and the user accepts any responsibility for any misuse," he said.
The only risk the hacker groups faced in making the tools available was in having someone else steal them and offer them at a lower price. Already, he said, the sheer number of tools for sale was driving down prices.
Garry Sidaway, a senior consultant at security firm Tricipher, said the success of MPack and the attendant publicity was rumoured to be worrying its creators.
"It was made by a group of friends and they all have regular jobs," he said.
Mr Sidaway said the group would not lose much money if they did stop selling it because they made much more from other lines of business.
In particular, he said, the groups can sell information about unpatched or unknown vulnerabilities in software for thousands of pounds per bug.
China denies Pentagon cyber-raid
Tuesday, 4 September 2007
China has denied reports that its military hacked into the computer network of the US Department of Defense in Washington.
A foreign ministry official said the claims "reflected Cold War mentality".
The Financial Times quoted US officials as saying the Chinese army made the attack, which crashed part of a system for the defence secretary's office.
Last week China dismissed reports that its armed forces had infiltrated German government computer systems.
The reports come as US President George W Bush prepared to meet his Chinese counterpart, Hu Jintao, at the Apec summit in Sydney, Australia.
'Wild accusations'
Chinese foreign ministry official Jiang Yu said Beijing "opposed and vigorously attacked" all attacks on the internet including hacking.
"Some people are making wild accusations against China ... These are totally groundless and also reflect a Cold War mentality," she said.
The Financial Times quoted a senior official as saying the Pentagon had pinpointed the origins of the attack and another as saying there was a "high level of confidence" that the People's Liberation Army was responsible.
The Pentagon has declined to say who it thinks is behind the attack, which took place in June.
Correspondents say the US and Chinese military regularly probe each other's networks, but the scale of disruption in the recent attack has raised concern.
The Pentagon shut down the network for more than a week while attacks continued, the newspaper said.
It quoted a source with knowledge of the attack as saying the data downloaded by the hacker was probably unclassified.
Sony confirms security problem
Monday, 3 September 2007
Electronics giant Sony has confirmed a recently discovered security flaw in some of its products that could leave PCs vulnerable to attack by hackers.
The firm said that the fault, which affected software packaged with memory sticks, was developed by a third-party.
Sony said it was conducting an internal investigation into the problem and would offer a fix "by mid-September".
The vulnerability, found by security firm F-secure, was similar to one found on CDs sold by Sony BMG in 2005.
That led to the discs being recalled and several lawsuits against the record label.
A Sony spokesperson said of the latest vulnerability: "While relatively small numbers of these models were sold, we are taking the matter seriously and conducting an internal investigation. No customers have reported problems related to situation to date."
Surprise flaw
The flaw affects three models of Sony's MicroVault USB sticks with fingerprint readers. 
Although the spokesperson said that the models have now been discontinued, they are still available to purchase through several websites.
The flaw was in software that came bundled with the USB devices. The program used virus-like techniques to create a hidden directory on a computer's hard drive.
Researchers at F-secure said that a hacker could then infect a computer as any files stored on the hidden directory would be invisible to the user and also from some virus scanners and security software.
"The apparent intent was to cloak sensitive files related to the fingerprint verification feature included on the USB drives," said researchers at security firm McAfee, who also investigated the flaw.
"However, in this case the authors apparently did not keep the security implications in mind."
Researchers at both F-secure and McAfee expressed surprise at the flaw, as Sony has faced similar problems in the past.
In 2005, Sony BMG sold CDs bundled with XCP digital-rights management (DRM) software, installed as an anti-piracy measure. It also left machines open to exploit by malicious programmers and computer virus writers.
In addition, researchers found vulnerabilities in another program, known as MediaMax, used by the firm on other CDs. In all, millions of discs sold in North America were thought to have been sold that used the controversial programs.
Quick fix
However, security researchers said that latest flaw was not as serious.
"In a nutshell, the USB case is not as bad as the XCP DRM case," said a blog entry on the F-secure website.
As well as differences in how the software was installed and operated, the researchers said there was a legitimate case for having the software on the USB sticks
"Sony is attempting to protect the user's own data. In the DRM case, Sony was attempting to restrict you - the user - from accessing the music on the CD you bought.
"So their intent was more beneficial to the consumer in this case."
F-secure is assisting Sony with their investigation.
The Sony spokesperson said: "While the software at the issue was developed by a third-party vendor in conjunction with our outsourced device manufacturer, as a precaution and to alleviate any potential concerns, we will be issuing a downloadable software to address the situation by mid-September."
