Apple to unveil own cloud service

31 May 2011 Last updated at 13:11 ET

Apple CEO Steve Jobs will announce a range of new products, including a widely anticipated cloud service, at its developer conference next week.

iCloud is likely to offer services rivaling that of Google and Amazon.

Attendees will also see Lion, the latest version of Apple's Macintosh operating system, and an upgraded version of mobile system iOS.

Mr Jobs, who is on medical leave, has not appeared in public since March.

Details of the products on show came via an Apple press release ahead of its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) - an unusual step for a company which is usually very secretive ahead of its flagship event.

Fierce competition

Rumours of the iCloud have been circulating since it was reported that Apple bought the "iCloud.com" domain name in April.

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Analysis

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Two things stand out from Apple's announcement about next week's event.

First, the news that Steve Jobs will take to the stage. Apple's charismatic boss has been on sick leave for months, so this appears to be welcome evidence that he is in reasonable shape.

Then, as well as confirming that the conference will see the unveiling of the next generation of Mac OSX, there's the revelation that iCloud - "Apple's upcoming cloud services offering" - will also be on show.

While the music industry has been buzzing for months, even years, with speculation that Apple would launch a streaming music service, it is unusual for a company that guards its secrets so jealously to give us even this much detail in advance.

The eyes of Google, Amazon and Europe's Spotify will be on Steve Jobs' keynote on Monday.

They will all be wondering whether the company that has dominated the digital download market now has plans to take control of the cloud too.

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However, it is unclear whether the iCloud will be a purely music streaming tool or if it will be a wider cloud service for storage such as the one offered by, among others, Dropbox.

Amazon and Google have already launched streaming music services, but so far have not managed to get big record labels on board - meaning they can only offer streaming of tracks already owned by the user.

Unconfirmed reports have hinted that Apple have managed to seal deals with several labels.

If true, this would make it a fierce competitor to Spotify, an already well-established music service with over 10m members.

Spotify is not yet available in the United States.

Last year, Mr Jobs said Lion - the eighth version of its Mac OSX operating system - would bring "many of the best ideas from the iPad back to the Mac, plus some fresh new ones".

Also on show will be the fifth version of iOS, the software which powers the iPad, iPhone and iPod touch.

However, official details about the next iPhone have yet to be publicised.

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UK beefs up cyber warfare plans

31 May 2011 Last updated at 08:22 ET

'Cyber' soldiers will be put alongside conventional troops as the government puts cyber attacks on an equal footing with other conflicts.

The news comes as US defence firm Lockheed Martin admitted it came under a significant cyber attack last week.

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) said it will recruit hundreds of cyber experts to shore up UK defences.

It is part of a �650m fund set aside by the government for dealing with cyber security.

"Our forces depend on computer networks, both in the UK and in operations around the world. But our adversaries present an advance and rapidly developing threat to these networks," said the MoD in a statement.

"Future conflict will see cyber operations conducted in parallel with more conventional actions the sea, land and air operations," it added.

It will see a growing band of cyber experts deployed by the armed forces to protect vital networks.

"We expect to significantly grow the number of dedicated cyber experts in the MoD and the number will be in the hundreds but precise details are classified," said an MoD spokesman.

"As with all personnel they will be expected to serve wherever necessary to do their jobs and this could be in the UK or in operational theatre," he added.

Cyber spies

MoD networks receive around 20,000 malicious e-mails each month, around 1,000 of which are deliberately targeting them.

There has also been a flurry of attacks aimed atother sensitive targets in recent months.

Defence firm Lockheed Martin, which makes weapon systems that are sold around the world, was the latest to be hit.

During a cyber attack last week, the firm said it took counter measures "almost immediately" and stressed that none of its programmes had been compromised.

The Pentagon is now investigating the incident.

The UK's National Cyber Security Programme was announced as part of the Strategic Defence and Security Review in October 2010.

It will see a number of government departments working with industry and universities in order to achieve the following:

• Reduce vulnerability to cyber espionage
• Improve ability to detect and defend against cyber attack
• Incorporate cyber into mainstream Defence concepts and doctrine
• Ensure the UK's critical infrastructure, vital government networks and service are resilient from attack.

The US is also taking a tougher line on cyber attacks and plans to issue detailed plans next month.

This week the Pentagon said that computer sabotage coming from another country can constitute an act of war, to which it may respond using traditional military force.

Security firm MacAfee recently found that eight out of 10 countries around the world had had critical networks targeted by hackers during 2010.

The Stuxnet worm has become the most high-profile piece of malware with the potential to harm key infrastructure.

Analysis of the malicious computer code suggests it was designed to take control of machinery in Iran's nuclear facilities.

Some have pointed the finger at the Israeli secret service as the source of the malware. Both Israel and the US have been highly critical of Iran's nuclear programme.

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Google to track dengue fever hubs

31 May 2011 Last updated at 08:09 ET

Google is using search patterns about dengue fever in an attempt to help health officials prepare for outbreaks.

It hopes to develop an early-warning system by monitoring dengue-related search terms by users in Bolivia, Brazil, India, Indonesia and Singapore.

Google said that its results are collected in real-time, whereas official data can take weeks to be analysed.

In 2009, Google used a similar approach to track the spread of flu.

"Using the dengue case count data provided by Ministries of Health and the World Health Organization, we're able to build a model that offers near real-time estimates of dengue activity based on the popularity of certain search terms," Google software engineer Vikram Sahai wrote in a blog post.

"Google Dengue Trends is automatically updated every day, thereby providing an early indicator of dengue activity."

The project was developed together with Boston's Children's Hospital and Harvard Medical School.

The methodology for the project has been shared in an article for the Public Library of Science's journal on neglected tropical diseases.

Real correlation

The tool is part of Google Correlate, a new service which connects search analysis with data collected in real life.

Correlate was created following Google's success with Flu Trends in 2009, a tool which tracked searches for flu-related searches worldwide.

Public health officials were able to use the data to distribute vaccines and treatments more effectively.

Google published a report in Nature, the highly-respected journal, and soon received attention by other researchers hoping to use the service to monitor other issues.

Correlate, launched last week, allows experts to upload their own data sets to compare against Google searches.

The software highlights when the real world data and online searches share the same patterns, such as flu outbreaks occuring at the same time as a large number of searches for "treatment for flu".

Professor Peter Sever, an expert in disease prevention from Imperial College London, said the tool could prove very useful for researchers that currently collect data using slower methods.

"It will of course be highly selective because you'll be picking out the people who are using Google, but of course year on year that's an increasing proportion of the population anyway," he said.

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