Broadband's 'rush-hour' revealed

15 November 2011 Last updated at 20:11 ET

UK broadband speeds drop by an average of 35% from their off-peak highs when most people are online in the evening, according to a report.

The research, conducted by the comparison site Uswitch, was based on two million broadband speed tests.

The peak surfing times between 7pm and 9pm were the slowest to be online, the report said.

There were also huge regional variations between evening and early morning surfing times.

The report suggested the best time to be online was between 2am and 3am.

Users in Evesham, Worcestershire, fared worst, according to the survey, with a massive 69% drop-off between off-peak morning and evening surfing.

Those living in Weston-super-Mare did little better with speeds falling from an off-peak average of 9.5Mbps (megabits per second) to 3.4Mbps in the evening - a 64% drop.

The difference was often most noticeable in rural areas where even peak speeds were relatively slow. In Wadebridge, in Cornwall, speeds nearly halved from 4.1Mbps at off-peak times to 2.1Mbps at peak times.

"It really is surprising just how much broadband speeds fluctuate at different times of the day, with drop-offs of almost 70% in some areas of the UK," said Uswitch's technology expert Ernest Doku.

"Not many internet users enjoy the maximum headline broadband speeds offered by providers, and certainly not during the working week," he added.

New rules

Broadband speed is becoming more important as bandwidth-hungry services such as on-demand TV become more popular.

Telecoms regulator Ofcom recently revealed that British households download an average of 17 gigabytes of data on average every month over their home broadband connections.

That monthly data diet is equivalent to streaming 11 movies or 12 hours of BBC programmes via iPlayer.

Critics say consumers are being misled by internet service providers who continue to advertise their maximum broadband speeds, even though many users do not get them.

New rules from the Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP) say that from April next year providers will no longer be able to advertise maximum speeds for net packages unless 10% of customers receive them.

Almost half of broadband users are now on packages with advertised speeds above 10Mbps but the average broadband speed is 6.8Mbps according to Ofcom.

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Dell warns over Thai flood impact

15 November 2011 Last updated at 20:06 ET

Dell has warned its revenues could be hit by a worldwide shortage of hard drives caused by the flooding in Thailand.

Thailand is a production hub for many global firms, and severe flooding has hurt a wide range of industries.

US-based Dell is the world's third-largest personal computer maker.

The earnings warning came as Dell announced revenues of $15.4bn (�9.7bn) and net profits of $893m (�564m) for the third quarter of 2011.

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Shares in Dell fell by 2% in after-hours trading in New York, after the warning and after analysts said revenues had slightly missed expectations.

Brian Gladden, Dell's chief financial officer, told Reuters that the Thai floods may mean the company has to give priority to "higher-end customers and products".

He also warned that the company may have to raise computer prices after the flooding forced the closure of factories and pushed up the global cost of hard drives.

In recent years Dell has focused more on corporate needs and less on the home consumer, which is reflected in its latest results.

Its earnings from large corporations rose by 4% to $4.5bn compared to the same period last year, and revenue from consumers dropped by 6% to $2.8bn.

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Scientists promise battery boost

15 November 2011 Last updated at 11:03 ET

Batteries for phones and laptops could soon recharge ten times faster and hold a charge ten times larger than current technology allows.

Scientists at Northwestern University in the US have changed the materials in lithium-ion batteries to boost their abilities.

One change involves poking millions of minuscule holes in the battery.

Batteries built using the novel technique could be in the shops within five years, estimate the scientists.

Fast movers

A mobile phone battery built using the Northwestern techniques would charge from flat in 15 minutes and last a week before needing a recharge.

The density and movement of lithium ions are key to the process.

Dr Harold Kung and his team at Northwestern said they have found a way to cram more of the ions in and to speed up their movement by altering the materials used to manufacture a battery.

The maximum charge has been boosted by replacing sheets of silicon with tiny clusters of the substance to increase the amount of lithium ions a battery can hold on to.

The recharging speed has been accelerated using a chemical oxidation process which drills small holes - just 20-40 nanometers wide - in the atom-thick sheets of graphene that batteries are made of.

This helps lithium ions move and find a place to be stored much faster.

The downside is that the recharging and power gains fall off sharply after a battery has been charged about 150 times.

"Even after 150 charges, which would be one year or more of operation, the battery is still five times more effective than lithium-ion batteries on the market today," said lead scientist Prof Harold Kung from the chemical and biological engineering department at Northwestern.

So far, the work done by the team has concentrated on making improvements to anodes - where the current flows into the batteries when they are providing power.

The group now plans to study the cathode - where the current flows out - to make further improvements.

A paper detailing the work of Prof Kung and his co-workers has been published in the journal Advanced Energy Materials.

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Facebook hardcore porn complaints

15 November 2011 Last updated at 08:17 ET

A growing number of internet users are complaining that their Facebook pages contain pornographic and violent images.

The pictures are reported to have shown up in users' newsfeeds.

According to the technology site, ZDnet, the material is being spread via a "linkspam virus" which tempts members to click on a seemingly innocuous story link.

Facebook is not commenting on the issue at this time.

However, thousands of its members have posted comments about the breach on Twitter.

"Discovered a new porn site, it's called Facebook," wrote one user.

"Facebook should do something about the photoshopped porn images, it's offensive," wrote another.

Other users complained they had seen pictures of mutilated animals and people, in some cases adding that they had deactivated their accounts as a consequence.

Several people are linking the attack to the Anonymous hackivist group after a video appeared on YouTube threatening to "kill" the social network.

However, experts have questioned whether the video was authentic.

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Diaspora&#39;s co-founder dies at 22

15 November 2011 Last updated at 06:29 ET

Ilya Zhitomirskiy, the co-founder of Facebook rival Diaspora, has died.

The 22-year-old was one of four New York-based students who launched Diaspora as a "privacy-aware, user-controlled" social network.

It was set up in response to criticism that Facebook was not handling the privacy of its users well.

The cause of Mr Zhitomirskiy's death is yet to be determined. The San Francisco coroner's office said it will have details in several weeks time.

In tribute, the home page of Diaspora featured a giant dandelion seed head next to an image of Mr Zhitomirskiy.

Public memorial services are being planned for Mr Zhitomirskiy in San Francisco later this week.

A statement by co-founder Peter Shurman said: "We'll all miss Ilya more than we can say. Ilya was a great friend and a brilliant person, a visionary whose work for a better future online brought hope to many people."

Start-up

The site was launched a year ago by Mr Zhitomirskiy and three fellow students at New York University. Facebook's co-founder, Mark Zuckerberg, said he donated an undisclosed sum to the project.

Diaspora featured pages that were similar to those on Facebook but offered simpler privacy settings. However, its launch was not without criticism.

When it released its first code in September, developers found multiple security bugs. Some also questioned whether the team could deliver their vision.

It is one of several sites - including Appleseed, OneSocialWeb and Elgg - that aims to challenge Facebook's model.

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