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Friday, October 14, 2011

Apple hits Samsung in court again

14 October 2011 Last updated at 07:54 ET

Samsung's tablets infringe patents owned by Apple, a US judge has ruled.

However, she warned that Apple needs to prove the validity of those patents if it is to win an injunction preventing the sale of Samsung's Galaxy Tab.

The decision is the latest in a dispute which spans 20 cases in 10 countries, some of which have lead to Samsung products being taken off the shelves.

Apple claims that the Galaxy range "slavishly" copies its massively-selling iPad and iPhone.

The Californian company has sought to ban the sale of the Galaxy S 4G smart phone and Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet in the US.

US mobile networks have opposed Apple's request, saying it could affect sales of the products in the run up to Christmas.

California District Judge Lucy Koh ruled that while patents have been infringed, Apple must now show that its claim on those inventions is valid.

The disputed patents include three covering design - including the exterior look of the device - and a 'list scrolling patent' which relates to how users view documents.

Samsung argued that Apple's claims are invalid due to previously registered patents relating to design elements and functionality.

The company's attorney, Kathleen Sullivan, said her client "clearly raised substantial questions" and that the injunction bid should therefore be rejected.

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It's no coincidence that Samsung's latest products look a lot like the iPhone and iPad"

End Quote Apple spokeswoman

But Apple argue that its own product's design is far superior to those which came before the iPad and iPhone, and so therefore its patents should not be invalidated.

At one point in the hearing the judge held both Samsung and Apple products up on the air and challenged the defence to whether they could identify which device was which.

Samsung attorney Ms Sullivan, who was roughly 10 feet away, responded: "Not as this distance your honour."

Another lawyer for Samsung correctly distinguished the two.

A spokesman for the South Korean company described Apple's claims as "groundless".

Apple spokeswoman Kristen Huget said: "It's no coincidence that Samsung's latest products look a lot like the iPhone and iPad.

"This kind of blatant copying is wrong, and we need to protect Apple's intellectual property when companies steal our ideas."

Both companies have been locked in patent disputes since April, with each accusing the other of infringing various patents.

Thursday, October 13, 2011

End date for analogue TV is set

13 October 2011 Last updated at 19:03 ET

The UK's analogue TV signals will be officially turned off on 24 October 2012.

The last region to enjoy the old style TV broadcasting system will be Northern Ireland and its analogue transmitters will be shut down on that date.

The switch-off brings the curtain down on a transmission technology that lasted for 80 years.

Once free of TV signals, the spectrum currently used for them will be used to support high speed mobile networks.

TV broadcasting began in August 1932 with a series of experimental analogue transmissions to test out the novel technology. The BBC began broadcasting TV to a schedule in 1936.

Freed spectrum

The UK's conversion from analogue to digital TV began in 2008, and early tests of the impact of the switch-off were held in the Cumbrian town of Whitehaven, which was also the first to receive digital-only signals.

Since the official conversion programme began most UK regions have had their analogue signals swapped for digital.

People, who do not subscribe to satellite or cable services have had to buy new televisions or set-top boxes to continue watching programmes.

About five regions, including London and Tyne Tees, remain to switch. Northern Ireland will be the last to swap to digital technology.

Digital is taking the place of analogue so viewers can be offered more channels and higher quality pictures.

The spectrum freed by the turn off of analogue signals will be re-used for a future mobile technology called Long Term Evolution. Ofcom is due to run an auction in late 2012 that will see the radio spectrum sold to operators to use for the service.

Switch-over fund

Ofcom is currently carrying out a consultation exercise to see how many people will suffer interference when LTE is turned on. It estimated that about 3% of UK viewers, about 760,000 people, will see poorer quality TV pictures when LTE is in wide use.

Filters that strip out the interfering signals are expected to solve the problem for most people but others may have to find other ways to watch digital TV.

The government set aside millions of pounds to help vulnerable people make the changes needed for the switchover. Much of that has now been subsumed into the fund to bring next-generation broadband to rural areas.

Unix creator Dennis Ritchie dies

13 October 2011 Last updated at 10:22 ET

Pioneering computer scientist Dennis Ritchie has died after a long illness.

Mr Ritchie was one of the creators of the hugely influential Unix operating system and the equally pioneering C programming language.

A vast number of modern technologies depend on the work he and fellow programmers did on Unix and C in the early days of the computer revolution.

Those paying respects said he was a "titan" of the industry whose influence was largely unknown.

The first news of Mr Ritchie's death came via Rob Pike, a former colleague who worked with him at Bell Labs. Mr Ritchie's passing was then confirmed in a statement from Alcatel Lucent which now owns Bell Labs.

Jeong Kim, president of Alcatel-Lucent Bell Labs, said Mr Ritchie would be "greatly missed".

"He was truly an inspiration to all of us, not just for his many accomplishments, but because of who he was as a friend, an inventor, and a humble and gracious man," said Mr Kim.

Along with Ken Thompson, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna, Mr Ritchie was one of the key creators of the Unix operating system at Bell Labs during the 1960s and 70s.

Unix's influence has been felt in many ways. It established many software engineering principles that persist until today; it was the OS of choice for the internet; it kicked off the open source movement and has been translated to run on many different types of hardware.

It was also at Bell that Mr Ritchie created C, one of the most widely used programming languages in the world. It is familiar to almost every modern-day developer.

In 1999, Mr Ritchie's influence and accomplishments won official notice when he was awarded the US National Medal of Technology - the highest honour America can bestow on a technologist.

Mr Pike said that with his passing, the world had lost a "truly great mind."

Paying tribute on his blog, Google programmer Tim Bray said it was impossible to overstate the debt his profession owed to Dennis Ritchie.

"I've been living in a world he helped invent for over thirty years," he wrote.

On Twitter, developer James Grimmelman said: "Ritchie's influence rivals Jobs's; it's just less visible."

Blackberry service 'is improving'

13 October 2011 Last updated at 04:22 ET

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Stephen Bates, RIM UK: "The back-up system did not operate in the way we would expect"

Blackberry's owner RIM said that its services "have improved significantly", following a three-day global blackout.

Millions of customers worldwide had their messaging and email service disrupted with many turning to Twitter to express their anger.

RIM put the ongoing problems down to "backlog issues", following a system failure.

Users began to report loss of services mid-morning on 10 October and the problems spread around the world.

On Thursday, RIM issued a statement saying services across Europe, the Middle East, Africa and India "have improved significantly".

"We continue to monitor the situation 24x7 to ensure ongoing stability," the update on its website said.

The firm is keen to be seen as sorting the problems swiftly, following confusion earlier in the week when it said services were back to normal, only to be contradicted by frustrated customers.

Robin Bienfait, chief information officer of RIM, the Canada-based owner of Blackberry, issued an apology for the ongoing issues.

"You've depended on us for reliable, real-time communications, and right now we're letting you down. We are taking this very seriously and have people around the world working around the clock to address this situation," he said.

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"We believe we understand why this happened and we are working to restore normal service levels in all markets as quickly as we can."

It blamed the ongoing issues on a backlog of emails to Europe from Asia and the Americas, following a "core switch failure" in its infrastructure.

"Clearly we have a backlog in Europe... as you can imagine, with the global reach of Blackberry and people using it to contact others around the world, there's a lot of messages to Europe from Asia and the Americas," RIM software vice president David Yach told a press conference in Ottawa, Canada.

"Over time that backlog has built up and affected our other systems."

'Data backlog'

Many tweeters called on the phone firm to "sort out" the problems and get the network running again.

RIM eventually explained what had caused the problems in the first place.

"The messaging and browsing delays... in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, India, Brazil, Chile and Argentina were caused by a core switch failure within RIM's infrastructure," a company statement said.

"Although the system is designed to failover to a back-up switch, the failover did not function as previously tested.

"As a result, a large backlog of data was generated and we are now working to clear that backlog and restore normal service as quickly as possible."

The server problems are believed to have originated at RIM's UK data centre in Slough.

The "issues" left many Blackberry owners only able to text and make calls.

BBC's Rory Cellan-Jones looks at what caused the worldwide crash

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BBC's Rory Cellan-Jones: "Blackberry has so many high profile users who are complaining about the crash"

Such a major failure will come as unwelcome news to RIM, which has been losing market share to smartphone rivals - in particular Apple's iPhone.

Many corporate clients have switched to the device after Apple made a concerted effort to improve its support for secure business email systems.

Malik Saadi, principal analyst at Informa Telecoms & Media, said the timing of the outages was bad for RIM.

"The current situation with the Blackberry outages couldn't come at a worse time for RIM, following some harsh criticism in recent months," he said.

Such crashes may lead RIM and others to "re-evaluate their reliance on centralised servers and instead look to investing in more corporately controlled servers", he added.

But he thinks customers will stick with the firm despite current frustrations.

"It will take more than just a couple of collapses to persuade loyal consumers of Blackberry services to look for alternatives," he said.

Arrest made in LA hacking probe

12 October 2011 Last updated at 16:18 ET

The FBI has arrested and charged a Florida man in a probe of email hacking that targeted Hollywood celebrities, US law enforcement officials say.

Christopher Chaney, 35, of Jacksonville, was arrested on Wednesday on charges stemming from a year-long probe known as Operation Hackerazzi.

He is accused of hacking into more than 50 email accounts.

According to an FBI statement, Mr Chaney offered up photos from the accounts to celebrity blog sites.

He is also alleged to have stolen financial information and film scripts through hacking email accounts.

"Unfortunately, Mr Chaney was able to access nude photos of some of the celebrities and some of them were uploaded on the internet," US Attorney Andre Birotte Jr said.

Mr Birotte confirmed that a recently circulated nude photo of film star Scarlett Johansson is part of the investigation.

Mr Chaney is charged with hacking Google, Apple and Yahoo email accounts.

He set up each account to forward a copy of every email received to himself, according to the charge sheet issues by a Los Angeles grand jury.

He faces up to 121 years in prison if convicted on all 26 charges, including accessing and damaging computers, wire tapping and identity theft.

The Florida man allegedly used several online aliases, including "anonygrrl" and "jaxjaguars911".

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Blackberry problems spread to US

12 October 2011 Last updated at 10:29 ET

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BBC Radio 1 Newsbeat listeners described how the crash affected them

Problems with the Blackberry smartphone system appear have to spread to the United States.

Users began to report loss of services on Wednesday, with many turning to Twitter to complain about their lack of email.

The latest development follows two days of sporadic blackouts across Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Blackberry's owner, RIM, said that the earlier problem was caused by core and back-up switch failures.

As news of the failure in the US spread, one user tweeted: "What is the status here in the USA? I am in New York and there seems to be no email service."

Another, who lives in Texas, wrote: "My #blackberry is not working! I can dial out that's it. What's up?".

'Data backlog'

Blackberry had earlier declared services to be "operating normally", only to be contradicted by frustrated users.

Many called on the phone firm to "sort out" the problems and get the network running again.

RIM acknowledged that it was still experiencing problems and apologised for the inconvenience.

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"Although the system is designed to failover to a back-up switch, the failover did not function as previously tested.

"As a result, a large backlog of data was generated and we are now working to clear that backlog and restore normal service as quickly as possible."

The blackouts have left millions of users without email, web browsing and Blackberry Messaging (BBM) services.

The cause is believed to be due to server problems at RIM's Slough data centre.

Blackberry users around the world began reporting problems with their handsets mid-morning on 10 October and at 14:42 BST, Blackberry UK sent out a tweet which said: "Some users in EMEA are experiencing issues."

The "issues" left many Blackberry owners only able to text and make calls.

'Harsh criticism'

Many corporate customers said they had not lost service, suggesting that the problem was with Blackberry's BIS consumer systems, rather than its BES enterprise systems.

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BBC's Rory Cellan-Jones: "Blackberry has so many high profile users who are complaining about the crash"

"Blackberry runs two infrastructures," explained Simon Butler, a Microsoft Exchange consultant at Sembee.

"The understanding I have is that the BIS service has crashed.

"The business side runs on a different set of servers, although enterprise Blackberrys can still use messenger and the consumer services, so they are also affected," said Mr Butler.

Such a major failure will still come as unwelcome news to Blackberry's owner RIM, which has been losing market share to smartphone rivals - in particular Apple's iPhone.

Many corporate clients have switched to the device after Apple made a concerted effort to improve its support for secure business email systems.

Malik Saadi, principal analyst at Informa Telecoms & Media, said RIM would have to resolve the problem quickly.

"The current situation with the Blackberry outages couldn't come at a worse time for RIM, following some harsh criticism in recent months," he said.

Such crashes may lead RIM and others to "re-evaluate their reliance on centralised servers and instead look to investing in more corporately controlled servers", he added.

But he thinks customers will stick with the firm despite current frustrations.

"It will take more than just a couple of collapses to persuade loyal consumers of Blackberry services to look for alternatives," he said.

Many of those complaining about the crash said on Twitter that they could not live without access to BBM.

iPad turned into Braille keyboard

12 October 2011 Last updated at 08:59 ET

A team of US researchers has devised a way for people with impaired vision to use the touchscreen of an iPad as a Braille keyboard.

It turns some previously fundamental thinking about how to make technology accessible to blind people on its head.

Instead of using a keyboard or mechanical writer, users type directly onto the flat glass.

The inventors used a novel design for the keyboard to overcome the lack of tactile features.

Smart keyboard

"Instead of having fingers that find the buttons, we built buttons that find the fingers," said Stanford's Sohan Dharmaraja, one of the researchers on the project.

Users place eight fingers on the screen and the keyboard appears. Shaking the device activates a menu, and further interaction is achieved by regular touch gestures.

Mr Dharmaraja, alongside team-mates Adam Duran - an undergraduate from New Mexico University - and assistant professor Adrian Lew, came up with the idea during a boffin's X-Factor-style contest.

The competition, organised each year by Stanford University, challenges students to come up with some innovative future computing ideas over their summer break.

In demonstrations Mr Duran typed out a complicated mathematical formula and the chemical equation for photosynthesis.

But it also offers a solution for more basic problems.

"Imagine being blind in the classroom, how would you take notes? What if you were on the street and needed to copy down a phone number? These are real challenges the blind grapple with every day," said Prof Lew.

There are some obvious benefits to using touchscreen technology over traditional Braille writers.

"Current physical note takers are big and clunky and range from $3,000 (�2,000) to $6,000 (�4,000). Tablet PCs are available at a fraction of the cost and do so much more," said Mr Dharmaraja.

Promising development

As part of the project, the students had to learn Braille. The system, originally developed for the French military, is made up of six dots arranged in various patterns. They are read by people's fingertips.

But the system can seem outdated in a modern era where touchscreens are ubiquitous.

Accessible touch screen devices such as the iPad offer a huge range of possibilities for developers and for blind and partially sighted people," said Robin Spinks, the Royal National Institute for Blind People's manager of digital accessibility.

"This prototype Braille keyboard for touch screen devices represents a very promising development, and RNIB look forward to being able to test it with our members in the future," he added.

It may be some while until the Stanford project is turned into a commercial reality but the team are determined.

"Who knows what we will get because of this device. It is opening a door that wasn't open before," said Mr Dharmaraja.

Sony offers 'smoking' TV checks

12 October 2011 Last updated at 06:10 ET

Sony is to offer free safety checks on several of its TV models after a number of sets started smoking.

The company warned that a component used in eight different versions of its Bravia televisions may be faulty and could, in rare cases, overheat.

However, it stopped short of issuing a full recall.

Instead Sony said that anyone who was concerned could request an engineer come to their home for free to inspect their TV.

The models affected are all LCDs, sold in Europe since June 2007.

They are: KDL-40D3400, KDL-40D3500, KDL-40D3550, KDL-40D3660.

KDL-40V3000, KDL-40W3000, KDL-40X3000, KDL-40X3500.

Some 1.6 million of the TVs have been sold worldwide; 630,000 of them in Europe.

Reports of overheating sets have so far all come from Japan.

The company said that the televisions were not at risk while they were switched off.

It warned owners to be aware of any unusual noises, smells or smoking coming from their Bravia.

Anyone noticing those symptoms should unplug the power cable and stop using the set immediately, said a Sony statement.

Details on how to find a set's model number were published on the company's website.

Ultrasound used to heal fractures

11 October 2011 Last updated at 21:03 ET By Eleanor Bradford BBC Scotland Health Correspondent

Patient's leg fitted with equipment to use ultrasound

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Ultrasound technology has been shown to speed up recovery for patients with broken bones

Doctors in the Scottish city which pioneered the use of ultrasound to scan the body are now using it to heal broken bones.

Orthopaedic surgeon Angus MacLean has been using the technology at Glasgow's Royal Infirmary's fracture clinic.

It has been shown to speed up recovery times for patients with severe fractures by more than a third.

Ultrasound was first developed as a diagnostic tool in Glasgow in the 1950s.

Mr MacLean said: "We use it for difficult fractures, the ones with problems with healing, and it's a very simple, painless treatment that we can give.

"It's a very interesting scientific development and there's good evidence that it just vibrates the cells a little which then stimulates healing and regeneration in the bone."

A team of specialists, led by Professor Ian Donald, produced the first images of the body using a technology adapted from sonar at Glasgow's Western Infirmary.

It has become one of the most common medical technologies in the world.

"Start Quote

My leg healed after four months and I'm looking to go back to work within eight months"

End Quote Gary Denham Patient

But it is only now, 50 years later, that its potential for aiding the healing process is being unlocked.

Apprentice engineer Gary Denham was offered ultrasound treatment after he fell 20ft (6m) from a water tank and broke his ankle into eight pieces.

"It's got a wee strap and that goes round where the break was," he explained.

"I put some gel on the probe and then I just put the probe inside the strap and then just basically leave it for 20 minutes. There's no sensation at all, it's completely painless."

Mr Denham's injury was so severe that there was a chance it would never heal and might eventually have to be amputated.

After ultrasound treatment, he was back on his feet within months.

He added: "I'd never heard of it before, but my leg healed after four months and I'm looking to go back to work within eight months."

Because of the costs involved - around �1,000 per patient - ultrasound is only being used on complex fractures at Glasgow Royal Infirmary but Mr Denham's doctor, Mr MacLean, is very happy with the results.

"Before we used ultrasound I would expect to see this kind of injury healing with some difficulty, and some of them don't heal at all," he said.

"Even if they do heal, it can take between six and 12 months and patients have ongoing pain during that time.

"The evidence suggests that ultrasound speeds things up by about 40%, but the main interest for me is to use it to make sure the bone heals rather than the bone not 'knitting' together which then leads to serious problems."

The technology is similar to that used on pregnant women.

Ultrasound waves are used at a slightly different frequency and a slightly different pulse. Research suggests this encourages cells to remove bacteria, stimulates the production of new bone cells and encourages those cells to mature more rapidly.

It is expected the cost of using ultrasound to treat fractures will reduce over time, making it a cheap way to speed up the healing of common fractures as well as complex ones.

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Families offered bar on web porn

11 October 2011 Last updated at 02:31 ET

Four leading web providers are to offer customers the option to block adult content at the point of subscription.

BT, Sky, Talk Talk and Virgin will offer the protection for smart phones, laptops and PCs.

It comes as David Cameron is set to meet industry representatives amid concern over sexualisation of children.

The prime minister will also launch Parentport - a website to help parents complain about inappropriate content.

And he will back a ban on billboards displaying risque images near schools.

The new measures, aimed at helping parents protect their children from internet porn and other explicit sites, follow a report earlier this year by the Mothers' Union charity.

The BBC's technology correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones said the industry was a bit wary of these plans as it did not want to be seen as censors.

He added web providers currently offer packages which enable certain websites to be filtered out however this was an "imprecise art".

Pop videos

Mothers' Union's head, Reg Bailey, warned that childhood was being wrecked by the "commercialisation and sexualisation" of children on TV, amongst advertisers and on the web.

Mr Cameron is due to meet Mr Bailey at the Downing Street summit later, at which he will also urge companies not to use children to market goods to other children.

The changes proposed in Mr Bailey's review include restricting steamy pop videos to older teenagers and later television slots and covering up magazines on shelves that feature sexualised images.

In a letter to Mr Bailey in June, the prime minister wrote: "As you say, we should not to try and wrap children up in cotton wool or simply throw our hands up and accept the world as it is.

"Instead, we should look to put 'the brakes on an unthinking drift towards ever greater commercialisation and sexualisation'."

Mr Cameron added that he welcomed recommendations to make it easier for parents to block "adult and age-restricted material" across all media.

He also said he supported banning the use of children to market goods to other children.

Telecoms watchdog Ofcom said the launch of Parentport would make it easier for parents to complain about material they had seen across the media, communications and in retail.

It said the website had a "have your say" section where parents could give informal feedback and comments and also offered advice on keeping children safe online.

Chief executive Ed Richards, said: "Seven UK media regulators have come together to develop a single website, with a single aim - to help protect children from inappropriate material.

"Each regulator shares this common purpose and is committed to helping parents make their views and concerns known."

Do you welcome this decision? Have you encountered difficulties when trying to protect your children from internet porn? Send us your stories using the form below.

World News | Latest News

Friday, October 14, 2011

Apple hits Samsung in court again

"Start Quote

Thursday, October 13, 2011

End date for analogue TV is set

Unix creator Dennis Ritchie dies

Blackberry service 'is improving'

Arrest made in LA hacking probe

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Blackberry problems spread to US

iPad turned into Braille keyboard

Sony offers 'smoking' TV checks

Ultrasound used to heal fractures

"Start Quote

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Families offered bar on web porn

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