Microsoft's IE9 browser goes live

10 February 2011 Last updated at 16:14 ET By Maggie Shiels Technology reporter, BBC News, Silicon Valley

Microsoft has said the latest version of its internet explorer web browser puts it ahead of competitors like Google and Firefox.

The software giant, which is losing market share, made the bold claim as it unveiled what is known as the release candidate of IE9.

This is the final test drive for the new browser - a chance to catch any last-minute bugs before its debut.

IE9 has been downloaded 25 million times during beta testing.

Privacy and speed are being highlighted as two of the features that set IE9 apart.

"This release is one that is playing catch up [on past releases], but it leapfrogs everything and now you see the other folks on the back foot trying to catch up with us," Dean Hachamovitch, corporate vice president of Internet Explorer, told BBC News.

"With this release you are seeing innovation after innovation that other folks are catching up to. Hardware acceleration was something no one was talking about until we did it. No one else was talking about privacy and tracking until we did it."

According to Web analytics company Net Applications, IE lost more than six percentage points of user share in the past 12 months. At the end of January, the browser hit an historic low with 56% of users using IE.

"This is a real race again in terms of browsers," said Lance Ulanoff, editor-in-chief of PCMag.com.

"To some extent, Microsoft had ceded that race, but when I first heard about IE9, my initial reaction was 'oh the game is on'. Now it is a question of how people will perceive it when they look at it against Google Chrome and Firefox, but Chrome is where you have the most interesting battle and this is a true battle in the browser space."

Privacy features

One feature being put front and centre of IE9 is tracking protection that gives users better control over how their information is shared across the web.

Some content on websites can be used to track activity as people hop from one site to another. IE9's tracking protection means users can limit the browser's communication with certain websites to help keep information private.

This feature relies on tracking protection lists the user can create, or on lists created by the four main online privacy and tracking companies to allow or block a site or ad network from tracking users.

Microsoft has said it will not generate such lists.

The feature is seen as a response to a call by the Federal Trade Commission for a web equivalent to the Do Not Call list aimed at telemarketers calling and harassing people at home.

Firefox also offers a 'do not track' option.

"The most exciting thing is this is a technology that is ready to use today and can provide a meaningful level of protection as you browse around the web," said Andy Zeigler, privacy programme manager with Microsoft's IE team.

"For example, the lists can block companies that collect data about you without your consent, which could be information like your browsing history, the sites you visit, the things you buy online and the videos you watch."

Need for speed

With speed becoming an increasingly seductive selling point for users, Microsoft said that this latest version of IE9 is faster than the beta by 35%, making it faster than any browser currently available.

Also new is expanded support for HTML5 and what is known as other "future-web" technologies. These include support for a geolocation feature and HTML5 semantic tags. These features are largely present in other browsers.

The company said it received over 17,000 comments from early users. As a result of some of that feedback, the software will let people add a new row of tabs to the bar at the top of the browser window. It will also pop up fewer notifications.

The company is now focused on encouraging developers to build new websites and user experiences on IE9.

IE9 is a free download that works Windows Vista and Windows 7 computers. It's not compatible with Windows XP.

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Oil and gas firms hit by hackers

10 February 2011 Last updated at 08:54 ET

Hackers have run rampant through the networks of at least five oil and gas firms for years, reveals a report.

Compiled by security firm McAfee, it details the methods and techniques the hackers used to gain access.

Via a combination of con tricks, computer vulnerabilities and weak security controls, the attackers gained access and stole secrets, it says.

The hacker group behind the attack targeted documents detailing oil and gas exploration and bidding contracts.

Cashing in

Greg Day, director of security strategy at McAfee, said that the attacks used to break into all the networks were built around code and tools widely available on the net's underground.

As such, he said, they were not very sophisticated but that did not dent their effectiveness.

In its report detailing what it dubbed the Night Dragon attacks, McAfee said the series of co-ordinated attempts to penetrate at least a dozen multinational oil, gas and energy companies began in November 2009. Five firms had confirmed the attacks, said McAfee.

In a long-running campaign, the attacks continued and the hackers methodically worked to penetrate the computer networks of these firms.

The first stage of the attack was to compromise the external server running a company's website. Hacker tools were then loaded on the compromised machine and used to lever open access to internal networks. Then, cracking tools were used to gather usernames and passwords and get deeper access.

Once embedded, the hackers disabled internal network settings so they could get remote access to machines on the corporate networks. Via this route, sensitive documents, proprietary production data and other files were found and pilfered.

McAfee said the information stolen was "tremendously sensitive and would be worth a huge amount of money to competitors".

Mr Day said that although corporates were under attack all the time, the Night Dragon attack was no run of the mill incident.

"What makes this different is the very specific ongoing targeting of specific organisations with a very distinct purpose to what they were trying to achieve," he said.

In that sense, he added, the attacks seemed to have a motive in common with that behind the Operation Aurora attacks on Google in China and the Stuxnet virus, which targeted industrial plant and machinery, and is thought to have been designed to attack Iran's nuclear programme.

It was not clear if the Night Dragon attacks were state-sponsored, said Mr Day. Circumstantial evidence, such as the fact that all the attack activity took place during the Chinese business day, suggested China was involved but it was by no means conclusive.

Equally, the fact that during its investigation McAfee uncovered the identity of one individual based in China who provided invaluable aid and computer resources to those behind the attacks did not mean everything was backed by China.

The clues could be misdirection, said Mr Day.

"The attackers did not seem to be at all careful in covering their trail," he said. "Was that just they were not that skilled or were they trying to leave a bread crumb trail to paint a false picture?"

Corporates were going to have to get much better at analysing the attacks hitting them, said Mr Day, if they were to avoid falling victim in a similar way.

"We have had a decade of cyber crime all about 'write it, randomly spray it and see who falls foul'," he said. "In the next decade many attacks will have a more specific purpose and they will keep going until they are successful."

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HP unveils Palm-powered tablets

9 February 2011 Last updated at 14:50 ET By Maggie Shiels Technology reporter, BBC News

Hewlett-Packard (HP), the world's biggest technology company, is making a major play for the multi-billion dollar mobile market with a slew of products based on its own operating system.

At an event in San Francisco, the company announced two new phones and a long-awaited tablet computer.

HP's new TouchPad tablet will compete against Apple's iPad, Google's Android-powered machines and RIM's Playbook.

The TouchPad is based on the webOS operating system.

This was developed by Palm and bought by HP last year for $1.2bn (�745m).

HP is hoping its investment will pay dividends with tablet sales expected to soar to over 50 million in the coming year.

HP said the mobile connected devices market is currently worth $160bn dollars.

'Jumbo phones'

The Silicon Valley company that started life in a small garage is clearly betting big that products powered by its own operating system will give it a foothold in the sector and make it a force to be reckoned with.

"Our intention with webOS devices is to transform how people think, how they feel and how they connect," Todd Bradley, executive vice president of HP's personal systems group, told a room full of reporters, analysts and developers.

The two phones will also be powered by webOS. The Veer, which was billed as an alternative to "jumbo phones", is about the size of a credit card with a 2.6 inch screen and 8 gigabytes of storage.

Technology blogger Robert Scoble of Scoblizer.com told the BBC the Veer is "very much a second phone - cute, easy to carry and for going out at night."

The Pre3 smartphone has a 3.6-inch diagonal screen, slide-out keyboard, video calling capability and 16 or 32 gigabytes of storage.

There was no mention on how much the devices will cost.

The Veer will go on sale in the spring and the Pre3 in the summer. It will be joined by the TouchPad which will also hit shelves in the summer.

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Nokia at crisis point warns boss

9 February 2011 Last updated at 06:12 ET

Nokia's new CEO has sent an outspoken and frank memo to his staff that suggests the phone giant is in crisis.

Stephen Elop describes the company as standing on a "burning platform" surrounded by innovative competitors who are grabbing its market share.

In particular, he said, the firm had been caught off guard by the success of Google's Android operating system and Apple's iPhone.

BBC News has verified that the memo is genuine.

"The first iPhone shipped in 2007, and we still don't have a product that is close to their experience," Mr Elop wrote in the note that was distributed to the Finnish company's staff and was first published by technology website Engadget.

"Android came on the scene just over two years ago, and this week they took our leadership position in smartphone volumes. Unbelievable."

Although Nokia leads the global smartphone market in terms of handset sales, its overall share has been gradually declining.

According to research firm IDC, Nokia's share fell from 38% in 2009 to 28% by the end of 2010.

Meanwhile its rivals, including Apple and HTC have seen their share increase, or remain constant.

Ben Wood, an analyst at research firm CCS insight, said the memo showed that Mr Elop has a "deep understanding of the severe structural problems Nokia is facing".

"I think it shows that he has inherited an organisation that is in much worse shape than he anticipated and the work that will be required to get it back on track should not be underestimated," he told BBC News.

Mr Elop's leaked memo also suggests that Nokia is also being squeezed at the lower, non-smartphone end of the market by Chinese manufacturers.

"They are fast, they are cheap, and they are challenging us," he wrote.

Nokia is expected to publicly address its future strategy at a media event this Friday.

Mr Wood said that he thought Mr Elop would use the briefing as a chance to issue a "mea culpa".

"He will use it to say 'we are not in a good position, we have been outgunned and if we are to recover we are going to have to take some drastic decisions'."

Mr Wood said this could involve using Android or Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 operating systems.

"No options will be ruled out," he said.

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Robots to get their own internet

9 February 2011 Last updated at 05:54 ET By Mark Ward Technology correspondent, BBC News

Robots could soon have an equivalent of the internet and Wikipedia.

European scientists have embarked on a project to let robots share and store what they discover about the world.

Called RoboEarth it will be a place that robots can upload data to when they master a task, and ask for help in carrying out new ones.

Researchers behind it hope it will allow robots to come into service more quickly, armed with a growing library of knowledge about their human masters.

Share plan

The idea behind RoboEarth is to develop methods that help robots encode, exchange and re-use knowledge, said RoboEarth researcher Dr Markus Waibel from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich.

"Most current robots see the world their own way and there's very little standardisation going on," he said. Most researchers using robots typically develop their own way for that machine to build up a corpus of data about the world.

Continue reading the main story

"Start Quote

The key is allowing robots to share knowledge. That's really new"

End Quote Dr Markus Waibel

This, said Dr Waibel, made it very difficult for roboticists to share knowledge or for the field to advance rapidly because everyone started off solving the same problems.

By contrast, RoboEarth hopes to start showing how the information that robots discover about the world can be defined so any other robot can find it and use it.

RoboEarth will be a communication system and a database, he said.

In the database will be maps of places that robots work, descriptions of objects they encounter and instructions for how to complete distinct actions.

The human equivalent would be Wikipedia, said Dr Waibel.

"Wikipedia is something that humans use to share knowledge, that everyone can edit, contribute knowledge to and access," he said. "Something like that does not exist for robots."

It would be great, he said, if a robot could enter a location that it had never visited before, consult RoboEarth to learn about that place and the objects and tasks in it and then quickly get to work.

While other projects are working on standardising the way robots sense the world and encode the information they find, RoboEarth tries to go further.

"The key is allowing robots to share knowledge," said Dr Waibel. "That's really new."

RoboEarth is likely to become a tool for the growing number of service and domestic robots that many expect to become a feature in homes in coming decades.

Dr Waibel said it would be a place that would teach robots about the objects that fill the human world and their relationships to each other.

For instance, he said, RoboEarth could help a robot understand what is meant when it is asked to set the table and what objects are required for that task to be completed.

The EU-funded project has about 35 researchers working on it and hopes to demonstrate how the system might work by the end of its four-year duration.

Early work has resulted in a way to download descriptions of tasks that are then executed by a robot. Improved maps of locations can also be uploaded.

A system such as RoboEarth was going to be essential, said Dr Waibel, if robots were going to become truly useful to humans.

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Newspapers warn Apple over sales

8 February 2011 Last updated at 10:03 ET

Apple is being warned against trying to squeeze cash out of the newspaper industry by controlling subscriptions for iPads and iPhones.

The European Newspaper Publishers' Association (ENPA) says it is concerned by the company's plans to direct online sales through iTunes.

If that happens, the ENPA warns, a large cut of their profits would go to Apple.

However, the technology giant insists it wants to give customers choice.

Several European Newspapers claim that Apple has banned them from offering free electronic editions to their print customers.

The move sparked industry speculation that a further clampdown was imminent.

Publishers' main concern is that users will not be allowed to subscribe via newspapers' own websites.

In a statement, the ENPA said: "consumers may only have access to the newspaper of their choice via the iTunes store, where the transaction would be subject to commission."

Apple currently receives a 30% share of revenue from apps and eBooks sold this way.

Official investigation

Publishers are also worried that if Apple takes control of sales, they could lose access to subscribers' personal information.

Details such as age, sex and location are useful when selling advertising.

Apple declined to comment on the ENPA's criticism.

The company has previously denied that it plans to stop users from buying subscriptions through publishers' own websites.

However, it has introduced a rule that newspaper apps must include an option to purchase through iTunes.

Critics argue that the ease of "in app" subscription means most users will opt for Apple's preferred method.

In a related move, Belgium's economy minister has called for an official investigation into Apple's plans to sell e-newspapers.

Vincent Van Quickenborne has suggested that the company may be abusing its dominant position in the market.

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File-sharing case 'must continue'

8 February 2011 Last updated at 12:24 ET

A controversial law firm that sent letters to alleged illegal file sharers has been told it cannot drop its cases to "avoid public scrutiny".

ACS:Law contacted thousands of people accusing them of illegally downloading movies and songs and demanding payments of �500 to avoid court action.

Cases against 26 of them proceeded, before the company attempted to pull out of prosecution at the last minute.

Now a judge had criticised the firm for its methods.

"I cannot imagine a system better designed to create disincentives to test the issues in court," said Judge Ian Birss at the Patents County Court in London.

The case stems from a letter-writing campaign by ACS:Law and its partner company MediaCAT, which sent an undisclosed number of notices to alleged file sharers demanding they pay a fine or face the prospect of costly legal action.

Some of those contacted paid up, but it later emerged that the two companies had been taking 65% of the fines collected, with the minority of the money being passed back to the copyright holders in question, most of whom remain anonymous.

Those tactics - known as "speculative invoicing" - had come in for heavy criticism from those who claimed that the action was unfair.

Consumer group Which? said it had found several instances where plainly innocent people had received the demands.

Campaign of harassment

The concerns stepped up last month when the head of ACS:Law, solicitor Andrew Crossley, suddenly told the court he wanted to withdraw all of the cases.

Mr Crossley blamed a campaign of harassment and threats that had "caused immense hassle to me and my family".

But the court said that the move was confusing and gave the impression that ACS:Law was attempting to avoid scrutiny.

Judge Birss added that the case could not be discontinued, since the copyright holders themselves should be given time to take further action if they wanted, but strongly criticised the tactics used by the two companies.

"Why take cases to court and test the assertions when one can just write more letters and collect payments from a portion of the recipients?"

Mr Crossley, who was not present in court, had said that he fully intended to prosecute the cases before pulling out.

The judgment, however, cast doubt on that - pointing out that one of the reasons given for discontinuing the cases was that crucial documents were in storage.

Continue reading the main story

"Start Quote

Why take cases to court and test the assertions when one can just write more letters and collect payments."

End Quote Judge Ian Birss

"If true, it is extraordinary," said the ruling. "A party who keeps key documents which are cited in the particulars of claim in storage is not a party anxious to progress their claim in court."

ACS:Law announced that it was shutting down last week, and MediaCAT has also been wound up.

Mr Crossley is now the subject of an investigation by the Solicitors Regulation Authority.

Lawyers acting for some of the 26 defendants said they were pleased the complex case had been treated properly.

"The judgment highlights a number of legal and technical difficulties with these case, which we had advised our clients of throughout," said Michael Forrester of law firm Ralli, which represented some of the defendants.

"We are dealing with cases where consumers have explained how they cannot possibly have uploaded or downloaded copyright protected material, but they are still pursued."

The court gave MediaCAT and the copyright owners in question 14 days to join the action before it faces being struck out.

A further hearing is set for 16 March, when applications to award costs are also likely to be discussed.

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Europe's virus victims revealed

8 February 2011 Last updated at 07:00 ET

Almost one third of internet users in the European Union caught a PC virus despite the majority having security software installed, statistics show.

Viruses were most prevalent in Bulgaria and Hungary, the survey of 30 countries reveals.

The 2010 figures, released by the EU's statistics office to mark Internet Safety Day, show the safest countries were Austria and Ireland.

The figures also detail financial losses online.

They show that 3% of net users in the 27 EU states lost money due to phishing attacks or fraudulent payments.

Phishing involves using fake websites to lure people into revealing details such as bank accounts or login names.

Latvia recorded the highest rate of this kind of fraud with 8% of its internet users affected, followed by the United Kingdom (7%), Malta and Austria (both 5%).

The survey covered more than 200,000 computer users across the 27 countries in the European Union and was conducted during the second quarter of 2010.

The EU statistics office said the survey results were probably lower than actual infection rates as the numbers only included users who realised they had an infection. Although the EU figures focus on viruses that infect PCs, security firms have warned that other devices now face similar threats.

In its fourth-quarter threat report for 2010, security firm Mcafee said that it has seen a 46% increase in malware that targets smartphones, compared to the same period in 2009.

Numbers suggest that smartphones are becoming more widespread than PCs, meaning they are becoming an increasingly lucrative target for scammers and hi-tech thieves.

Manufacturers shipped 100.9 million smartphones globally in the fourth quarter, compared to 92 million PCs, according to research firm IDC.

Much of the malware targeting smartphones was spread via PDFs and Flash software, Mcafee said.

However, the number of infections targeting mobile devices is still relatively small, with just 967 threats recorded by Mcafee in the fourth quarter of 2010.

In early January, according to some estimates, the number of viruses targeting PCs hit 50 million.

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Last.fm ends free mobile service

7 February 2011 Last updated at 13:28 ET

Users of online music site Last.fm will have to pay for its mobile phone service starting from next week.

Until now, the site has provided its personalised radio for free for mobiles, making money by placing adverts between songs instead.

However, it now says this is "not practical" and is instead asking users to pay for an ad-free service.

Listening via the web will remain free but charging is a "rational" move, the site's Matthew Hawn told BBC News.

"We think that the best experience is ad-free," said Mr Hawn, Last.fm's head of product.

"It's not that we're losing buckets of money on our service... but we're trying to make rational decisions about our business model."

From next Tuesday the new mobile service will cost �3 a month, a price which will allow users to listen to personalised radio stations - but not to pick out individual songs.

The move puts the site directly into competition with rivals such as Spotify, which charges �10 a month for ad-free, on-demand access across the web and mobile phones.

Users who listen on the Last.fm website will not have to pay for any services, and Microsoft has agreed to subsidise the costs so that users who listen using their Xbox or Windows Phone 7 handset will still be able to do so for free.

User complaints

The announcement was met with some concern from users, who complained on the company's blog that they that they felt it was not a positive development.

"May as well just get Spotify to listen to music on mobile then," said one user.

"Makes sense," admitted another, "But I'd rather have adverts and keep it free".

It is the latest in a series of moves to scale back services by Last.fm, which is based in London but was bought by American media conglomerate CBS in 2007.

Last year the site scaled back on-demand streaming for many users around the world, and turned off some specific radio station features shortly before Christmas.

However Mr Hawn said that the introduction of mobile subscription marks the end of major changes in the way the service works.

Continue reading the main story

"Start Quote

I feel very positive about the rest of our services and I would never consider turning those off."

End Quote Matthew Hawn Head of Product, Last.fm

"It's the last thing we're going to do," he said. "I feel very positive about the rest of our services and I would never consider turning those off."

Instead, he said, the company plans to launch a new mobile application next week to address concerns that some users have had over quality of service.

The music site was seen as a major British success story during the so-called "Web 2.0" boom, building a large user base before being sold in May 2007 for $280m - �140m at the time.

Since the takeover, however, progress seems to have slowed down. The site's founders have all left the company and the true costs of music licensing mean the site has yet to make a profit.

James Cridland, managing director of the Media UK website and a radio futurologist, said financial concerns were spreading across the online industry - despite the fact that there was a clear public appetite for online radio.

"There is a real market there," he said. "According to figures from Rajar [the radio industry measurement group] there are 2.6 million people a week [in the UK] who use personalised radio services like Last.fm or Spotify."

"But over the last six months we've seen a lot of people start charging for all kinds of things. Maybe this is another part of the commercialisation of the web."

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Anonymous hack hits security firm

7 February 2011 Last updated at 05:39 ET

Online activist group Anonymous has targeted an American security firm that claimed to know the identities of its leaders.

The secretive organisation is being investigated in several countries over strikes on Visa, PayPal and others.

Over the weekend Aaron Barr, head of HBGary Federal, said he had discovered the names of its most senior figures.

The group retaliated overnight by breaking into the company's website and hijacking his Twitter account.

Anonymous, known for being a loosely-knit group, has been involved in a number of high profile online protests and attacks in recent months.

In December, the group launched a campaign in support of Wikileaks that disrupted services at MasterCard, Visa and other companies that had withdrawn support the whistle-blowing website.

The strike led to police investigations around the world, and a number of arrests in Britain and the Netherlands.

Although the individuals who make up the collective claim they do not have a traditional hierarchy, Mr Barr told the Financial Times that he had infiltrated the organisation and uncovered the names and addresses of several senior figures.

He said he did not intend to hand the information over to the authorities unless forced to, but did plan to present his findings at a conference in San Francisco later this month.

The attacks began shortly after his claims were made public, with a sustained attack that targeted him both personally and professionally.

Mr Barr's Twitter account was filled with a sequence of racial and sexual slurs, along with a string of personal details such as his mobile phone and social security numbers.

Meanwhile, a message on the company's website said that Anonymous had "seized" HBGary's operation in order to defend itself.

Continue reading the main story

"Start Quote

"You brought this upon yourself. Let us teach you a lesson you'll never forget"

End Quote Anonymous statement

"You brought this upon yourself," the statement said.

"Let us teach you a lesson you'll never forget: don't mess with Anonymous."

The group said it had gained control of all the company's e-mail, erased its files, taken down their phone systems and placed copies of many internal documents online.

Mr Barr could not be contacted for comment, but the hacked site was later replaced with a placeholder page.

Anonymous, which started as an offshoot of the notorious 4Chan internet messageboard, has been linked to a number of virtual and real-world protests over recent years.

As well as the Wikileaks attacks, it also orchestrated strikes on government services in Tunisia and Egypt in support of popular protests in those countries.

It has also launched vociferous protests for the right to uncensored access to pornography online and taken action against an anti-piracy firm hired by Bollywood studios.

It is involved in a long-running battle with the Church of Scientology, amid claims that the religious group stifles dissent.

The loosely-organised group has previously claimed it has no real leadership, although some individuals have come forward from time to time to explain their motives.

One, known as Coldblood, told the BBC in December that "thousands" of people had joined the protests to support Wikileaks' right to publish the US government's classified diplomatic cables.

"We are trying to keep the internet open and free but in recent years governments have been trying to limit the freedom we have on the internet," he said at the time.

Coldblood confirmed to the BBC that he was among five people arrested across the UK last month as part of the police investigation into the Wikileaks protests.

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