July 2010: Google "new approach" in its ongoing battle with China over censorship

Until recently, the firm automatically redirected Chinese users to its unfiltered search site in Hong Kong to get round censorship issues. Google has said it will now stop this after Beijing warned it could lose its licence to operate in the country.

Instead, Chinese users will be sent to a "landing page". Clicking anywhere on it sends them to the Hong Kong site. In practice, this will make little difference to Chinese internet users as searches for sensitive topics are still blocked by China's great firewall. However, Google said that the subtle change - where users have to actively click on a link to access unfiltered search results rather than being automatically redirected - was "consistent" with its approach not to self-censor search results and was hopeful it would allow it to continue operating in China. Chinese law demands that companies use web servers based in China and that they agree to censor certain sensitive information. BBC technology correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones said there was no guarantee the Chinese authorities would accept the new arrangement.

Google announced the changes one day before the deadline to renew its Internet Content Provider (ICP) licence, necessary to operate in the country. "Without an ICP licence, we can't operate a commercial website like Google.cn—so Google would effectively go dark in China," said David Drummond of the firm in a blog post. "That's a prospect dreaded by many of our Chinese users, who have been vocal about their desire to keep Google.cn alive." A spokesperson for the firm said Google was about to submit its new ICP application to the government and had made the changes in an effort to continue operating in the country. It has already begun to channel some Chinese web users to the new page. "Over the next few days we'll end the redirect entirely, taking all our Chinese users to our new landing page—and today we re-submitted our ICP licence renewal application based on this approach," said Mr Drummond.

Google has had a long history of run-ins with the Chinese authorities. However, these escalated in January when the search firm announced that it was considering withdrawing from China altogether following a "sophisticated" cyber attack originating from the country. The attacks targeted the e-mail accounts of Chinese human rights activists, along with the computers and infrastructure of Google and several other US firms. The firm eventually decided to stay in the country, but offer Chinese users unfiltered search results through its Hong Kong servers. The latest move was part of the firm's ambition to "make information available to users everywhere," said Mr Drummond. "This new approach is consistent with our commitment not to self censor and, we believe, with local law. We are therefore hopeful that our licence will be renewed."

China hopes that nearly half the population will have access to the internet within five years. That figure is nearly 30% at the moment. Losing business in the country could harm Google's future growth prospects. However, unlike in other markets, Google is not focused on search in China, which is currently dominated by Baidu. Instead, experts say, Google aims to develop its music and maps services in the country.

[source BBC Technology]

April 2010: Google releases tool to show government censorship requests

Google has hit out at state attempts to clamp down on the internet by revealing governments' requests to remove data from the web and get information about users.

Tonight it released a web page with a map showing country by country where it has had government requests or court orders to remove content from the YouTube video service or its search results, or to provide details about users of its services.

The release of the tool, announced on its official blog, comes as it has had to counter complaints from data protection authorities in 10 countries, including the UK, that its Street View product, which provides pictures of public streets, and its ad-hoc social networking service Buzz "were launched without due consideration of privacy and data protection laws" and that Buzz in particular "betrayed a disappointing disregard for fundamental privacy norms".

Details provided by Google cover requests between 1 July and 31 December 2009, and show that in the UK there were 1,166 requests for data about users and 59 requests to remove web pages in Google's services such as YouTube, or from its search results for the web. It complied with 45, or 76%, of the 59 requests, of which 43 were about YouTube videos. It does not specify which government agency – such as the police or others – made the request.

Launching the new tool, Google says that "We believe that greater transparency will lead to less censorship" and links to a list which already shows that Brazil, where Google's social network Orkut is hugely popular, leads the world with 291 removal requests – with Germany, India, the US, South Korea and the UK behind it. The "censorship" numbers also include non-governmental court-ordered removal of sites or results for defamation or criminal proceedings – though the company will try to clarify that in future updates to the data, probably every six months.

However China has no listed requests – because, as the online tool explains, "Chinese officials consider censorship demands as state secrets, so we cannot disclose that information at this time." If China were included it would almost certainly be in the top spot, because its government only allowed Google to operate inside the country if it hid thousands of web pages from search results.

[source Times Technology]

March 2010: Google's pictures of UK go live

Google has launched the UK version of its Street View service, which allows users to browse a selection of pictures taken along city streets.

Street scenes in 25 UK cities from Aberdeen to Southampton can be viewed using the service.

The Netherlands version of the service also launched on Thursday, bringing the number of countries covered to nine.

The imagery available comprises video taken along 22,369 miles of UK streets by customised camera cars.

Google Maps users can zoom in to a given location and then drag the "Pegman" icon above the zoom bar on to a given street.

A picture view of that street appears, which users can control to get a 360-degree view of the area or to progress on street level, throughout the city.

Google says it has gone to great lengths to ensure privacy, suggesting that the service only shows imagery already visible from public thoroughfares. It also uses face recognition technology to blur out faces and licence plates that appear in the images.

[source BBC Technology]

March 2010: Clinic opens for children addicted to video games and the internet

Doctors claim to have opened the first dedicated clinic in Britain to treat children addicted to video games and other technology.

Capio Nightingale Hospital, a private facility in Central London, introduced the service after calls from parents concerned about their children’s use of games, the internet, or mobile phones. A spokeswoman for the hospital said the service would be offered for children as young as 12 but those aged 15 to 17 are expected to be the main target group.

Richard Graham, a consultant psychiatrist who is leading the new clinic, added that although other clinics provided treatment for young people as part of general addiction treatments, services needed to “adapt quickly” to specifically address problems linked to technology.

Dr Graham, who also sees NHS patients, said some parents reported that their children flew “into a rage” when they were told to turn off their computer, and police had even been called to sort out the rows. “Mental health services need to adapt quickly to the changing worlds that young people inhabit, and understand just how seriously their lives can be impaired by unregulated time online, on-screen or in-game,” he said. He called for official guidelines “on what counts as healthy or unhealthy use of technology.”

The Capio spokeswoman declined to comment on the costs of a private consultation at the Young Person Technology Addiction Service, which aims to increase off-screen social activities and improve children’s general confidence. It also encourages them to think about their relationship with their phone, computer games or social networking websites like Facebook and teaches them skills to help them to switch off.

Other experts have previously questioned whether technology addiction is a real illness, or just an over-reaction on the part of parents and gamers. Richard Wood, a researcher at Nottingham Trent University, argued in 2008 that video game addiction was a “myth”. “Some people are being mislabelled addicts by concerned parents, partners or others when they have no problems with their game-playing behaviour. Some people who are concerned about their own behaviour ... end up labelling themselves as video game addicts,” he said.

[source Times Technology]

February 2010: Google threatens China pullout after attacks on Gmail accounts of human rights activists

Google is to stop censoring search results in China and could pull out of the country altogether after hackers coordinated a sophisticated attack on the Gmail accounts of human rights activists.

The hackers only managed to access two unidentified accounts and only a limited amount of data on those accounts, Google said. But the US company has now announced that the December attack, which it said also affected 20 other corporations, 'may well mean' the closure of Google.cn and its offices in China.

The hacking into the human rights activists' accounts follows 12 months of increased online censorship by the Chinese. Among the numerous websites blocked by authorities are social networking sites hosted overseas including Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. Google was criticised for hosting 'vulgar' content. The search engine conglomerate did not say whether it believed the Chinese government was behind the hacker attacks.

In a post on the official Google Blog, the company said: 'These attacks and the surveillance they have uncovered - combined with attempts over the past year to limit free speech on the web - have led us to conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China. 'We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all. 'We recognise that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China.'

[source Daily Mail Science]

February 2010: Scientists hail a thoughtful future with ‘brain-to-brain communication’

Ever wanted to read minds? Ever wanted to communicate your thoughts without speaking a word?

It may become possible after claims by British scientists that they have created a system that allows “brain-to-brain communication”, sending messages formed by one person’s brain signals though an internet connection to another person’s brain many miles away.

Christopher James, who worked with colleagues at the University of Southampton, said that his experiments were “the first baby steps” towards technologies that would allow people instantly to send thoughts, words, and images directly into the minds of others.

“This could be useful for those people who are locked into their bodies, who can’t speak, can’t even blink,” Dr James said. Others have hailed it as the future of the internet, a new way to communicate without the need for keyboards, telephones or even mouths. A decent broadband connection, however, would be essential.

Dr James admitted that we were a long way away from this thoughtful but speechless future. Currently, only a series of binary digits — a sequence of zeros and ones — can be sent between brains.

The scientists used “brain-computer interfacing”, a well-established technique that allows computers to analyse brain signals. Dr James said that his innovation was the transmission of these signals to another person through the internet.

[source Times Technology]

December 2009: Microsoft software pledge opens window for smaller rivals

Buy a computer with Windows, the software that runs the overwhelming majority of the world’s personal computers, and by default you become a user of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer.

But, after years of wrangling about competition and consumer choice, the US group has agreed a deal with the European Commission to supply Windows users with a choice of browsers to surf the web.

In return, Brussels yesterday dropped antitrust charges against Microsoft.

From March, European users who have Internet Explorer as their default browser will receive a software update with a pop-up menu of browsers.

Neelie Kroes, the EU Competition Commissioner, said: “Millions of European consumers will benefit from this decision by having a free choice about which web browser they use.”

Microsoft said that it was “pleased” with the decision but added that the move would not be extended outside the EU.

European users will be able to choose from Apple’s Safari, Google’s Chrome, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, Mozilla’s Firefox, Opera, AOL, Maxthon, K-Meleon, Flock, Avant Browser, Sleipnir and Slim Browser.

Analysts said the change meant that smaller browsers would be exposed to a huge new market and could chip away at Internet Explorer’s dominance. Others suggested the deal could ignite a “browser war”, as rivals worked to create alternatives to Internet Explorer.

[source Times Technology]

December 2009: Data deluge will reboot our brains

The speed of modern life is 2.3 words per second, or about 100,000 words a day. That is the verbiage bombarding the average person in the 12 hours they are typically awake and "consuming" information, according to a new study.

Through emails, texting, internet surfing, reading and other media, our brains are being deluged with increasing quantities of information. Although we may not actively read 100,000 words a day, that is the approximate number reaching our eyes and ears. Add images, such as videos and computer games, and we are faced with the equivalent of 34 gigabytes of information each day — enough to overload the typical laptop inside a week.

The study, How Much Information?, by the University of California, San Diego, estimates the total amount of words "consumed" in the United States has more than doubled from 4,500 trillion in 1980 to 10,845 trillion in 2008. Those estimates do not include people simply talking to one another.

Total information consumption from televisions, computers and other media was estimated at 3.6 zettabytes (3.6m million gigabytes) in 2008.

The scale of data and explosion of sources is changing the way we behave and think, say experts. It may even be changing the structure of our brains.

Roger Bohn, co-author of the study, said: "I think one thing is clear: our attention is being chopped into shorter intervals and that is probably not good for thinking deeper thoughts."

Edward Hallowell, a New York psychiatrist and author specialising in attention deficit disorder, said: "Never before in human history have our brains had to process as much information as they do today. We have a generation of people who I call computer suckers because they are spending so much time in front of a computer screen or on their mobile phone or BlackBerry.

"They are so busy processing information from all directions they are losing the tendency to think and to feel. [And] much of what they are exposed to is superficial. People are sacrificing depth and feeling and becoming cut off and disconnected from other people."

If the information load continues to increase, some scientists believe it will spur evolution of the brain.

[source Times Technology]

November 2009: Google opens new chapter as millions of books go into its online library

Controversial plans by Google to digitise millions of out-of-print books to create the world’s biggest online library have been approved by British publishing groups and authors.

The landmark deal between Google and authors’ associations in America is a watered-down version of the original plans. The new deal will still enable tens of thousands of British writers to profit, as readers can search millions of works, read extracts online and buy full copies.

Works from the US, Britain, Canada and Australia will be used, but under the proposals about 95 per cent of non-US books from the original deal will not be covered. Although the service will be available only in the US, Google said that it would expand to other countries including Britain. The company said that it had already copied ten million books, seven million of which were out of print. It could not say which ones yet because of legal reasons.

[source Times Technology]

November 2009: Intel debuts text reading device


Chip giant Intel has shown-off a device designed to give vision-impaired and dyslexic people access to printed text.

The device, known as the Reader, captures text and then reads it aloud and displays it on its built-in screen.

The development is unusual because so-called "assistive technologies" are normally manufactured by specialist companies rather than global giants.

The Reader is the size of a paperback book and uses a high-resolution camera and Intel's Atom processor.

The 600g (1.3lb) device was developed by Intel access technology director, Ben Foss, who is dyslexic himself.

"As someone who is part of the dyslexic community, I am thrilled to be able to help level the playing field for people who, like me, do not have easy access to the printed word," he said.

'Tactile scanner'

The Reader is being launched in the UK on 17 November at an event in London, after being unveiled in the US last week.

It is expected to sell for around £1,000.

Intel estimates that this technology could benefit as many as eight million people in the UK - if the six million people with dyslexia and other learning difficulties and the two million people with impaired vision are added together.

"The Intel Reader is a tool that can help give people with dyslexia, low-vision and blindness - or other reading-based disabilities - access to the resources they need to be successful in school, work and life," according to Mr Foss.

[source BBC Technology]

October 2009: Google says economy is on the mend

Google said yesterday that the worst of the recession is now over as it reported a rise in quarterly profits and sales ahead of analysts’ expectations.

The internet search group said that net income in the third quarter was $1.64 billion, or $5.13 a share, up 27 per cent from $1.29 billion, or $4.06 a share, a year earlier. Sales for the three months to September rose 7 per cent to $5.94 billion, suggesting that the demand for online advertising is growing as the economy shows signs of recovery.

Eric Schmidt, the company’s chief, said: "While there is a lot of uncertainty about the pace of economic recovery, we believe the worst of the recession is behind us and now feel confident about investing heavily in our future."

Google, considered a barometer for internet commerce because its search engine is the hub of the web’s largest advertising network, said that the number of paid clicks, including clicks on advertisements on Google and partner sites, rose 4 per cent from the previous quarter and 14 per cent from the same period last year.

The average amount per click paid to Google also rose about 5 per cent from last quarter, although it was down about 6 per cent from the same period a year ago.

Revenues from outside the United States came to $3.14 billion, representing 53 per cent of total revenues in the third quarter, the same proportion as the second quarter.

Mr Schmidt said that the company would continue to invest in its core business and in innovation. It wanted to get to "the perfect search engine" and advertisers would like to spend more with Google if the company’s product allows them to do that, he suggested.

He added that the group was "open for business in making strategic acquisitions, both large and small".

Earlier in the day, Google said that it would next year launch a new online service for booksellers called Google Editions, which will let readers buy books and read them on gadgets ranging from cell phones to possibly e-book devices.

Shares in Google rose by $7.76, or 1.5 per cent, to $537.67 in extended trading, closing at $529.91 on the Nasdaq stock market. The shares have climbed 72 per cent this year.

[source Times Technology]

October 2009: Scientists hail a thoughtful future with ‘brain-to-brain communication’

Ever wanted to read minds? Ever wanted to communicate your thoughts without speaking a word?

It may become possible after claims by British scientists that they have created a system that allows "brain-to-brain communication", sending messages formed by one person’s brain signals though an internet connection to another person’s brain many miles away.

Christopher James, who worked with colleagues at the University of Southampton, said that his experiments were "the first baby steps" towards technologies that would allow people instantly to send thoughts, words, and images directly into the minds of others.

"This could be useful for those people who are locked into their bodies, who can’t speak, can’t even blink," Dr James said.

Others have hailed it as the future of the internet, a new way to communicate without the need for keyboards, telephones or even mouths. A decent broadband connection, however, would be essential.

Dr James admitted that we were a long way away from this thoughtful but speechless future. Currently, only a series of binary digits — a sequence of zeros and ones — can be sent between brains.

The scientists used "brain-computer interfacing", a well-established technique that allows computers to analyse brain signals. Dr James said that his innovation was the transmission of these signals to another person through the internet.

During the transmission two people are hooked up to electrodes that measure activity in specific parts of the brain. The first person generates a series of zeros and ones, imagining moving their left arm for zero and right arm for one.

The first subject’s computer recognises the binary thoughts and sends them over the internet to the second person’s computer. A lamp is then flashed at two different frequencies for one and zero. The second person’s brain signals are analysed after staring at this lamp and the number sequence is picked up by a computer.

It takes about 30 seconds to send four numbers in this way. Dr James said that the next stage was to make the system quicker and simpler.

"It’s not telepathy," Dr James said. "There’s no conscious thought forming in one person’s head and another conscious thought appearing in another person’s mind.

"The next experiments are to get that second person to be aware of the information that is being sent to them. For that, I need to get my thinking cap on, so to speak."

He said that his research proved that it would eventually be possible to create a system where people sent messages through their thoughts alone. It would probably require electrodes to be attached inside the skull or even implanted in the brain. Dr James admitted that this opened up many ethical problems.

"How far can you go into someone’s brain? What are the long-term consequences? In principle this is all possible but there are a lot of issues that need to be considered first."

Experts said that we need not worry just yet. "In 30 years, you’ll think of a message and it will appear on your wife’s mobile phone," said Dr Ian Pearson, a futurologist who follows trends in advanced computing and communications. "But for that thought to appear in someone else’s mind? That won’t be easy.

"You don’t have to worry about Big Brother recording your thoughts for decades yet."

[source Times Technology]

August 2009: Search for answers to Google's power leaves UK internet firm baffled

A British husband and wife team have been waging a three-year battle to get their price comparison website recognised by Google in a saga that sheds new light on the power of the world's largest search engine Their website directs shoppers to online deals for goods such as TVs or flights, but has struggled since one day and it suddenly disappeared from Google search results.

There is no evidence that Google is in any way being dishonest or unfair in the way that it ranks such websites, but this has highlighted the ever-growing influence of its mysterious search algorithms.

Many consumers believe Google's search engine works on a formula that was created by founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page and that was that: they set it running and the rest is history. In fact, as those in the internet industry know, Google carries out regular "tweaks" of its algorithm. About 450 a year in fact. When they are made, the sheer scale of Google – it has an estimated 90% market share in Britain – means these can have huge and often unintended consequences.

For a start-up company, getting into Google's results is a question of survival. "A typical website in the UK receives around two in every five visits from search engines and obviously, the vast majority of those come via Google," according to Robin Goad, research director at Hitwise UK. It is definitely true that if you fall foul of the rules it can have a massive impact on your business."

Exactly what those rules are is far from clear because Google does not want to give too much information away in order to avoid web developers "gaming" the system and promoting sites that are not, in fact, relevant to users. Google search rankings are only ever driven by a desire to make results useful. "We can't comment on individual cases," said a spokesman. "But our systems are designed to produce the most relevant and useful results for the people who use Google search. "Where sites are adding little value or original content, they are likely to fall in our ranking. Surveys of our users show that what they most dislike when they search is to receive multiple results from sites showing the same or very similar content."

To become more well known and achieve a higher position on Google, as more people link to you, of course, takes advertising, but again the might of Google dominates the online advertising market in the UK.

[source Guardian Technology]

August 2009: Hi-tech takes to the stage.

If legendary Scottish poet Robert Burns can be inspired to write "love is like a red, red rose" from the world around him, from where do modern writers draw their inspiration?

It would seem from this year's Edinburgh Fringe Festival that the internet is as attractive as Burns' flower or Shakespeare's dark lady. For many modern artists the muse lurks online, in the web of social networks, instant messages and distant friends.

This should not come as a great surprise. There is more emotional activity happening online every day, from relationships and marriage proposals, to storytelling, describing the world and capturing moments with sounds, pictures, video and text.

Far from turning us into a nation of reclusive typists, the internet is proving to be a rich catalyst of emotive experiences and settings for playwrights to explore the age old worries of life, love, tragedy and humanity. One of those playwrights is Lee Freeman. His first professional musical is "Chat! The Internet Musical" playing at George Square Theatre. "Using online technology gave me a reason to write a more modern, contemporary piece, which is much more compelling to the audience"

With over 2000 shows at the Edinburgh Fringe, is the use of the internet a gimmick just to get bums on seats? "When you first start writing you can't escape that it is a bit of a gimmick," said Mr Freeman. "But once people are in the theatre, watching the show, the chatroom environment allows the characters and the story to develop in front of them. The challenge is in making something that is so unreal into something that is real on stage."

While Chat! looks at characters creating alter-egos of themselves and hiding their online activities from each other, Chatroom, from Exeter University looks at the darker and more manipulative side of the internet. A group of teenage characters gather online, ostensibly to chat, but as the story progresses one of the group brings up thoughts of committing suicide and the rest of the group are either trying to support him, or goading him into doing it. The staging of the online action, with the actors looking out at the audience during the chat scenes means they never make eye contact with others on stage.

"It made me much more self conscious" said lead actor Nic McQuillan. "More aware of your personal space, your hands and how it is seen by the audience. "And for the audience it changes how you perceive the characters," he said. "It makes you more aware when eye contact is made, when characters interact in the physical world."

[source BBC Technology]

August 2008: More people get news from web than TV or print

The web is now a more important source of news for most Americans than either newspapers or free-to-air television. Only just over a quarter of Americans - 27 per cent - picked up a newspaper on any given day, whereas well over a third - 37 per cent - regularly go online for news, according to a report.

[source Times Technology]

August 2008: Computer virus infects orbiting space station

As far as space monsters go it is less menacing than Daleks or Klingons, but an unwanted intruder has made its way aboard the international space station. Gammima.AG, a malicious password-swiping computer virus, has broken new frontiers, by infecting two laptops on the ISS orbiting 215 miles above Earth. The virus was first detected on Earth in August 2007 infecting machines to steal login names for popular online games. Nasa officials have begun an investigation into how the virus made it aboard the ISS, but it is thought it might have been inadvertently carried into space on an astronaut's USB drive. Reports suggested that once on board the station, the memory device was plugged into the computers, infecting them both. Computers on the ISS are not directly connected to the internet but they have access to a satellite data link. They are not part of the space station's "command and control" network, Nasa said. It is understood astronauts were using the laptops to compose email and store information on nutritional experiments. Once it has scooped up passwords and login names Gammima.AG tries to send them back to a central server. It targets a total of 10 online games most of which are popular in the Far East. Nasa, who described the virus as a "nuisance" is now working with its international partners on the space station, including Russians, to find out how it got on board. Nasa spokesman Kelly Humphries said: "It's not a frequent occurrence, but this isn't the first time."

[source Guardian Technology]

September 2008: Secrets of the hidden universe: first hurdle cleared in hunt for dark matter

Never before has such attention been focused on the click of a mouse. Yesterday, the click in question started up the biggest, most complicated machine in the world, the $10bn Large Hadron Collider, which was put through its paces for the first time at Cern, the European nuclear research organisation in Geneva.

The man with his finger on the button was Lyn Evans, a Welsh engineer who has devoted 14 years of his life to the machine. The moment came at 8.32am UK time and was broadcast around the world, and via videolink to more than 300 journalists who had descended on the laboratory to witness the event.

The LHC lies 100 metres beneath fields and farmland, where it occupies a 17-mile (27km) circular tunnel carved through rock and sandstone.

When it is working at full speed, it will be the most powerful particle collider on the planet. Inside, it will crash subatomic particles together with enough energy to re-create the intense conditions that existed one trillionth of a second after the big bang.