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Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Babbage designs to be digitised

21 September 2011 Last updated at 08:00 ET

A project to construct one of the earliest mechanical computers based on sketches by its designer, Charles Babbage, has received a major boost.

The Science Museum in London has agreed to help by digitising the mathematician's original plans.

Eventually the images will be used to create a full working model of the Analytical Engine.

Conceived in the late 1830s, it foreshadowed the modern computer revolution by more than a century.

Babbage's many notepads and sketch books are currently held in the Science Museum's archives, but have never been converted into a form that is easily accessible.

It is hoped that the digital documents will allow researchers around the world to pick apart the many disparate ideas and settle on the definitive version of the machine.

"There are some complete plans, they are just not totally complete. There will be a degree of interpretation," said John Graham-Cumming, the programmer and computer historian who has been championing the project.

Mr Graham-Cumming explained that, following a period of study, a computer simulation of the Analytical Engine would be produced before its eventual construction.

"The machine itself is going to be enormous, about the size of a small steam train, so the simulation is important to allow anyone access," added Mr Graham-Cumming.

Computing power

Another key figure in the drive to build the Analytical Engine is Doron Swade, the Science Museum's curator of computing who led the construction of Babbage's earlier design, the Difference Engine No.2 between 1989 and 1991.

Where the Difference Engine was essentially an early calculator, the more sophisticated Analytical Engine is closer to a complete computer, with input via punched cards, processing by its rotating mechanical barrels and output to a printer, plotter or ringing bell.

In terms of processing power, Mr Graham-Cumming said it was possible to make some rough estimates about the Analytical Engine's capability.

Its memory would be equivalent to around 675bytes, or just over half that of Sinclair's ZX81, released in 1981. A later proposal by Babbage called for 20KB of storage.

The machine's clock speed would work out at around 7Hz, compared to the ZX81's 3.2MHz. Current high end microprocessors currently run at around 3GHz, although their sophisticated architecture means they are many, many times more powerful.

"[The Analytical Engine] is actually quite fast given that it's all in cogs, so Babbage was thinking about something relatively powerful. Of course, we're far beyond that now," said Mr Graham-Cumming.

The project does not yet have a fixed timescale, although it was unlikely to produce anything physical for "at least five years".

Mr Graham-Cumming said he had set the goal of completing it by 2021 - the 150th anniversary of Charles Babbage's death.

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Google+ opens service to everyone

20 September 2011 Last updated at 12:02 ET

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Vivik Gundotra, Google's senior vice president of social business: "We think there's lots of room for innovation"

Google+ is being opened up for anyone to join after two-and-a-half months in closed testing.

The search firm's latest foray into social networking was initially offered to journalists and people working in technology related fields.

However, members' ability to invite friends meant its user base quickly grew to tens of millions.

Google+ has been praised for several innovative features including its multi person "hangouts" video chat.

Two weeks after it launched, the company announced that its service had attracted 10 million users.

It has not produced official figures since then, although estimates by web analytic firm Comscore put membership at 25 million by the end of the first month.

Despite users' apparently rapid uptake, research carried out by Australian web software maker 89n suggested that the rate of public posting was declining. The survey did not take account of private postings.

Social search

Alongside its full public launch, Google is adding several new features to the service, including video hangouts on Android smartphones - allowing multi-person chats.

Users will also be able to share the content of their computer screens with whoever they are talking to.

Another notable addition is the integration of search within Google+, allowing members to find results from socially shared information, as well as across the wider web.

The prospect of "social search" through Google would appeal to businesses, according to social networking specialist Matt Rhodes from Fresh Networks.

"Brands know that a lot of people who come to them come through search and anything they can do make themselves come up through the right terms or higher up the rankings is important. Commercially that is the opportunity," he said.

"If you are logged into Google and search for supermarkets, if some of my friends have plus 1'd Tesco or commented about it, that might push Tesco above Sainsbury's in my search results."

Rivals' response

The rise of Google+ has not gone un-noticed by its competitors.

Facebook has recently rolled out a number of innovations which many observers have characterised as a direct response to the Google challenge, although the company argues that these have been in the pipeline for far longer.

These include a revamp of the social network's friend system, making in easier to add people to categories, similar to Google Circles.

Earlier this week it was revealed that Facebook users would be able to connect their status updates directly to their Twitter feed, in a move that may enhance the appeal of both Google rivals.

Conversely, Google finds itself in the unusual position of being a minority player in the market, facing Twitter's 200 million users and Facebook's 750 million.

Vivik Gundotra, Google's senior vice president of social business told the BBC that he welcomed the competition.

"We suspect people use many different tools to share," he said.

"The most popular mechanism people use to share today is email. So we think there's lots of room for innovation."

Hacked security firm to shut down

20 September 2011 Last updated at 11:04 ET

Dutch security firm DigiNotar has filed for voluntary bankruptcy following a series of attacks by a hacker.

The attackers penetrated DigiNotar's internal systems and then issued fake security certificates so they could impersonate web firms.

The certificates are believed to have been used to eavesdrop on the Google email accounts of about 300,000 people.

The hacker behind the attacks claims to have penetrated four other firms that issue security certificates.

No tears

DigiNotar's parent company Vasco Data Security said the firm had been put into voluntary bankruptcy. A trustee for the business has been appointed who will oversee the winding up of DigiNotar.

The scale of the attack on DigiNotar began to be uncovered on 19 July when the firm said it first found evidence of an intrusion. It started to revoke certificates and an investigation was carried out to find out how much damage had been done.

An initial report found that hundreds of fake certificates had been issued and hackers had almost total access to DigiNotar's network.

The security certificates it and many other firms issue act as a guarantee of identity so people can be sure they are connecting to the site they think they are.

The fake certificates DigiNotar revoked were for some of the biggest net firms including Google, Facebook, Twitter and Skype.

It is thought the fake certificates for Google were used in Iran to peep at the email accounts of about 300,000 people.

Soon after discovering the attack, DigiNotar stopped issuing certificates altogether. Once wound up its business and assets will be folded into Vasco.

"We are working to quantify the damages caused by the hacker's intrusion into DigiNotar's system and will provide an estimate of the range of losses as soon as possible, " said Vasco in a statement.

It added that its network and systems remained separate from DigiNotar and, as a result, "there is no risk for infection of Vasco's strong authentication business".

Writing on the Sophos blog, Graham Cluley said few people would shed tears over the closure.

"The firm lost all trust when when it was discovered that it had known that it had suffered a security breach weeks before coming clean about the problem," he said.

Gamers help anti-AIDS drug quest

20 September 2011 Last updated at 08:33 ET

By Katia Moskvitch Technology reporter, BBC News

An online game has helped determine the structure of an enzyme that could pave the way for anti-AIDS drugs.

The game, called Foldit, allows players to create new shapes of proteins by randomly folding digital molecules on their computer screens.

In the journal Nature Structural and Molecular Biology, scientists write that they have been puzzled by the protein's structure for over a decade.

But it took the online community just a few days to produce the enzyme's model.

Proteins are extremely complex organic compounds that everything is made of, and an enzyme is a particular type of protein.

The enzyme the gamers were presented with is called M-PMV retroviral protease. It is used by the HIV virus to grow and develop into AIDS.

Scientists all over the world have been trying to come up with anti-AIDS drugs that could block these harmful enzymes, but it was tricky as the precise structure of the protein remained unknown.

Following simple rules, gamers playing Foldit had to turn and flip a digital 3D model of the enzyme on their computer screens, to try out all folding combinations that were possible.

They eventually obtained the optimum one - the state that needed the lowest energy to maintain.

"Start Quote

These results show that gaming, science and computation can be combined to make advances that were not possible before"

End Quote Seth Cooper Foldit

Biochemist Firas Khatib of the University of Washington - where Foldit was created in 2008 - said that the goal was to see if "human intuition could succeed where automated methods had failed".

The researchers were so impressed with the result that they even included some participating gamers as co-authors of the study.

Complex structures

Even a small protein is able to fold in a huge variety of different ways, and it is always a challenge, even for computers, to figure out which of the many possible structures is the best one.

"Foldit attempts to predict the structure of a protein by taking advantage of humans' puzzle-solving intuitions and having people play competitively to fold the best proteins," states the game's website.

"Since proteins are part of so many diseases, they can also be part of the cure.

"Players can design brand new proteins that could help prevent or treat important diseases."

To play, no previous knowledge of proteins, biochemistry or biology is required - all a user has to have is a computer and an internet connection.

Once a gamer downloads an easy-to-install plug-in, he or she can start competing with other players, rotating complex three dimensional molecular structures with a click of the mouse.

The goal is either to design an entirely new protein, or to predict a certain structure, so that once an online model is generated, scientists and biotech companies take over.

The latest breakthrough, according to the paper's authors, is the first time that online gamers have solved a longstanding scientific problem.

Seth Cooper, a co-creator of Foldit and its lead designer, said that games provide a framework "for bringing together the strengths of computers and humans".

"People have spatial reasoning, something computers are not yet good at," Dr Cooper said.

"These results show that gaming, science and computation can be combined to make advances that were not possible before."

Results obtained by gamers playing Foldit have also helped scientists in Alzheimer's and cancer research.

Japan defence hit by cyber attack

20 September 2011 Last updated at 06:28 ET

Japan's top weapons maker has confirmed it was the victim of a cyber attack reportedly targeting data on missiles, submarines and nuclear power plants.

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) said viruses were found on more than 80 of its servers and computers last month.

The government said it was not aware of any leak of sensitive information.

But the defence ministry has demanded MHI carry out a full investigation. Officials were angered after learning of the breach from local media reports.

Speaking at a news conference on Tuesday, Japan's defence minister Yasuo Ichikawa said the cyber attackers had not succeeded in accessing any important information but MHI would be instructed "to undertake a review of their information control systems".

"The ministry will continue to monitor the problem and conduct investigations if necessary," Mr Ichikawa added.

All government contractors are obliged to inform ministers promptly of any breach of sensitive or classified information.

Analysis

The Ministry of Defence has said the delay in Mitsubishi Heavy Industries informing it of the cyber attack is "regrettable" - a bland term regularly deployed by Japanese bureaucrats to describe everything from near indifference to utter outrage.

But it is clear there is concern in Japan about security at the country's biggest defence contractor.

Mitsubishi Heavy makes everything from warships to missiles. The giant company says it discovered the breach in mid- August, and informed the Japanese police at the end of the month.

But the defence ministry was not told until Monday afternoon, after reports had appeared in local media.

The key issue is just how serious the attack was - and whether any of Japan's defence secrets have leaked.

Mitsubishi Heavy says the virus was confined to just 45 servers and 38 computer terminals - out of the many thousands it operates.

An ongoing internal investigation has found only network information, such as IP addresses, has been compromised.

"It's up to the defence ministry to decide whether or not the information is important. That is not for Mitsubishi Heavy to decide. A report should have been made," a defence ministry spokesman was earlier quoted by Reuters as saying.

Better protection

The online attacks - which are believed to be the first of their kind against Japan's defence industry - originated outside the company's computer network, MHI said.

They have been described as spear phishing attacks - when hackers send highly customised and specifically targeted messages aimed at tricking people into visiting a fake webpage and giving away login details.

Neither the Japanese government nor MHI have said who may be responsible. A report in one Japanese newspaper said Chinese language script was detected in the attack against MHI.

But China rebuffed suggestions it could be behind the attacks.

"China is one of the main victims of hacking... Criticising China as being the source of hacking attacks not only is baseless, it is also not beneficial for promoting international co-operation for internet security," foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei said.

China has in the past been accused of carrying out online attacks on foreign government agencies and firms - claims Beijing has always denied.

MHI confirmed that 45 of its servers and 38 computers were infected by at least eight viruses.

The viruses targeted a shipyard in Nagasaki, where destroyers are built, and a facility in Kobe that manufactures submarines and parts for nuclear power stations, public broadcaster NHK reported.

A plant in Nagoya, where the company designs and builds guidance and propulsion systems for rockets and missiles, was also reportedly compromised.

MHI said it had consulted the Tokyo police department and was carrying out an investigation alongside security experts, which should be concluded by the end of the month.

Lockheed case

A second defence contractor, IHI, which supplies engine parts for military aircraft, said it had also been targeted.

IHI said it had been receiving emails containing viruses for months, but its security systems had prevented infection.

There are also reports that Japanese government websites, including the cabinet office and a video distribution service, have been hit by distributed denial-of-service attacks.

A typical DDoS attack involves hundreds or thousands of computers, under the control of hackers, bombarding an organisation's website with so many hits that it collapses.

Last month, a Japanese defence white paper urged better protection against cyber attacks after US defence contractors were hit by a spate of assaults.

One of the most high-profile cases involved Lockheed Martin - the world's biggest aerospace company, which makes F-16, F-22 and F-35 fighter jets as well as warships.

Although the firm said none of its programmes were compromised in the attack in May, it prompted other defence contractors to assess their own security measures.

Spam text message complaints rise

By Dan Whitworth
Newsbeat technology reporter Spam texts

There has been a rise in the number of complaints about spam text messages.

The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) received 618 complaints about them between April 2010 and April 2011.

That number has increased to 1008 in just the last five months which the ICO says is only the tip of the iceberg.

Research for the Direct Marketing Association suggests more than eight million spam texts, offering anything from insurance claims to loans, are sent out every day.

Dan Vickery was forced to get a new mobile phone because he was being sent 5 or 6 spam texts everyday.

Dan Vickery, a sales rep from Surrey, received a barrage of messages while his grandmother was sick in hospital.

"It started off with one or two spam texts and escalated to five or six and sometimes even ten a day.

"My Nan was ill in hospital at the time so I couldn't turn my phone off."

Things got so bad that Dan not only had to get a new mobile phone but ended up paying out a lot of money too.

'Murky world'

"It resulted in me having to go out and get a new contract at great expense to myself just to get rid of something that I didn't want in the first place".

Simon Entwhistle works for the Information Commissioner's Office and says spam text message senders operate in a legal grey area.

It's a pretty murky world. The reason that people do it is to make money.

Simon Entwhistle Information Commissioner's Office

"It's a pretty murky world.

"The reason that people do this is to make money.

"They send out text messages using sophisticated computer equipment buying untraceable SIM cards.

"If they send out 100 texts and one person replies that's some money made for them.

"They can sell that one claim on, times that by a million they can make a lot of money out of this business."

Sending out spam texts is not a criminal offence but it does break the Privacy and Electronic Communication Regulations which are part of European legislation.

That covers electronic marketing and means any company wanting to legitimately send out text messages must have the recipient's consent to do so.

The ICO says people who don't want to receive spam texts should be careful about giving their mobile phone number out.

They also say that the best way to avoid getting them is not to reply to any spam messages they get.

If people keep receiving texts they should get in touch with their mobile provider first or complain directly to the ICO.

Follow our technology reporter Dan Whitworth on Twitter

Monday, September 19, 2011

Laser helps detect roadside bombs

19 September 2011 Last updated at 11:05 ET

By Katia Moskvitch Technology reporter, BBC News

A laser beam that makes molecules vibrate could help detect improvised explosive devises, say scientists.

Every molecule vibrates with a unique frequency - so the laser could "sense" bombs while scanning the ground from a safe distance.

The Michigan State University team's work is another attempt to curb the number of deaths from roadside bombs in places such as Afghanistan.

The research appears in the journal Applied Physical Letters.

An improvised explosive device is a homemade bomb and more than half the deaths of coalition soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan have been as a result of IEDs.

The lead developer of the laser sensor, Dr Marcos Dantus said detecting IEDs has always been a challenge because of the chemical compounds present in the environment that mask the bomb's molecules.

"Having molecular structure sensitivity is critical for identifying explosives and avoiding unnecessary evacuation of buildings and closing roads due to false alarms," he said.

The invention uses a laser beam that combines short pulses that "kick" the molecules to make them vibrate with longer pulses.

"The laser and the method we've developed were originally intended for microscopes, but we were able to adapt and broaden its use to demonstrate its effectiveness for standoff detection of explosives," said Dr Dantus.

The researcher said he was not able to describe the technology behind the invention in great detail because of the project's sensitive nature.

"I cannot give you more specific information regarding its implementation," he told BBC News.

"All we are saying is that it could detect explosives from a standoff distance."

Robot dog's nose

Many different devices and techniques have been developed to help safely detect roadside bombs.

In mid-2010, UK scientists from University of St Andrews developed laser technology able to sense hidden explosives by "pumping" a type of plastic called polyfluorene with photons from another light source.

They found the laser reacted with vapours from explosives such as TNT.

The lead scientist of that study, Dr Graham Turnbull, told the BBC that one of the ways to use this type of laser would be to have it on a robotic, perhaps remotely controlled, vehicle that would be able to "sniff around" in a mine field, looking for vapour clouds.

"On a dusty road in Afghanistan there are relatively few things that might give you a false positive and it certainly could have potential in that area," said Dr Turnbull.

"Essentially it's making an artificial nose for a robot dog."

Facebook and Twitter get closer

19 September 2011 Last updated at 06:50 ET

Facebook members will soon be able to pipe their profile directly to a connected Twitter account.

The social networking giant said it was working on the feature in a document sent to developers about upcoming changes.

Before now linking to Twitter was only possible from Facebook pages which are meant for bands, public figures and businesses.

Facebook said linking was coming "soon" but gave no specific date.

The mention of the forthcoming connection to Twitter came as Facebook unveiled its "subscription" system which works in a similar fashion to Twitter's "follower" feature.

Those who subscribe to a Facebook page, and eventually a profile, will automatically be informed when its owner publishes what they flag as a public update.

The feature changes the dynamic of Facebook which before now has been about sharing updates with those a user deems to be their "friends". By subscribing, Facebook members will be able to see the public activities of almost any of its 600 million users.

Many suspect the feature that links profiles to Twitter will be formally unveiled at Facebook's F8 developers conference which starts on 22 September.

The move is widely seen as a response to a change made by Twitter. In early September, Twitter made it easier to send Tweets directly to a Facebook account.

Prior to the changes, many Twitter and Facebook users relied on stand alone applications or add-ons to link the two.

Both the changes are also seen as responses to the success of the Google + social network which makes it easier to send updates to other places.

Friday, September 16, 2011

Blood vessels made on 3D printer

16 September 2011 Last updated at 06:49 ET

By Katia Moskvitch Technology reporter, BBC News

Artificial blood vessels made on a 3D printer may soon be used for transplants of lab-created organs.

Until now, the stumbling block in tissue engineering has been supplying artificial tissue with nutrients that have to arrive via capillary vessels.

A team at the Fraunhofer Institute in Germany has solved that problem using 3D printing and a technique called multiphoton polymerisation.

The findings will be shown at the Biotechnica Fair in Germany in October.

Out of thousands of patients in desperate need of an organ transplant there are inevitably some who do not get it in time.

In Germany, for instance, more than 11,000 people have been put on an organ transplant waiting list in 2011 alone.

To make sure more patients receive these life-saving surgeries, researchers in tissue engineering all over the globe have been working on creating artificial tissue and even entire organs in the lab.

But for a lab-made organ to function, it needs to be equipped with artificial blood vessels - tiny and extremely complex tubes that our organs naturally possess, used to carry nutrients.

"Start Quote

The individual techniques are already functioning and they are presently working in the test phase"

End Quote Dr Gunter Tovar Fraunhofer Institute, Germany

Numerous attempts have been made to create synthetic capillaries, and the latest one by the German team seems to be especially promising.

"The individual techniques are already functioning and they are presently working in the test phase; the prototype for the combined system is being built," said Dr Gunter Tovar, who heads the BioRap project at Fraunhofer Institute for Interfacial Engineering and Biotechnology IGB in Stuttgart.

Elastic biomaterials

3D printing technology has been increasingly used in numerous industries, ranging from creating clothes, architectural models and even chocolate treats.

But this time, Dr Tovar's team had a much more challenging printing mission.

To print something as small and complex as a blood vessel, the scientists combined the 3D printing technology with two-photon polymerisation - shining intense laser beams onto the material to stimulate the molecules in a very small focus point.

The material then becomes an elastic solid, allowing the researchers to create highly precise and elastic structures that would be able to interact with a human body's natural tissue.

So that the synthetic tubes do not get rejected by the living organism, their walls are coated with modified biomoelcules.

Such biomolecules are also present in the composition of the "inks" used for the blood vessel printer, combined with synthetic polymers.

"We are establishing a basis for applying rapid prototyping to elastic and organic biomaterials," said Dr Tovar.

"The vascular systems illustrate very dramatically what opportunities this technology has to offer, but that's definitely not the only thing possible."

Planet with double sunset found

15 September 2011 Last updated at 20:52 ET

A planet orbiting two suns - the first confirmed alien world of its kind - has been found by Nasa's Kepler telescope, the US space agency announced.

It may resemble the planet Tatooine from the film Star Wars, but scientists say Luke Skywalker, or anyone at all, is unlikely to be living there.

Named Kepler-16b, it is thought to be an uninhabitable cold gas giant, like Saturn.

The newly detected body lies some 200 light years from Earth.

Though there have been hints in the past that planets circling double stars might exist - "circumbinary planets", as they are known - scientists say this is the first confirmation.

It means when the day ends on Kepler-16b, there is a double sunset, they say.

'Stunning'

Kepler-16b's two suns are smaller than ours - at 69% and 20% of the mass of our Sun - making the surface temperature an estimated -100 to -150F (-73 to -101C).

The planet orbits its two suns every 229 days at a distance of 65m miles (104m km) - about the same distance out as Venus.

The Kepler telescope, launched in 2009, is designed to scour our section of the Milky Way for Earth-like planets.

"This is really a stunning measurement by Kepler," said Alan Boss of the Carnegie Institution for Science near Washington DC, a co-author of the study.

"The real exciting thing is there's a planet sitting out there orbiting around these two stars."

Kepler finds stars whose light is regularly dimmed when an orbiting planet passes between the star and the telescope.

In this case, the team was also able to observe dimming when one star passed in front of the other.

Nasa's scientists saw additional dips in the light in both stars at alternating but regular times, confirming the dual orbit of the planet.

Data collected by the Kepler telescope allows for very precise measurements of the mass, radius and trajectories of all three bodies - the best ever estimates of a extra-solar planet.

The finding was reported in Friday's issue of the journal Science.

World News | Latest News

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Babbage designs to be digitised

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Google+ opens service to everyone

Hacked security firm to shut down

Gamers help anti-AIDS drug quest

"Start Quote

Japan defence hit by cyber attack

Analysis

Spam text message complaints rise

Monday, September 19, 2011

Laser helps detect roadside bombs

Facebook and Twitter get closer

Friday, September 16, 2011

Blood vessels made on 3D printer

"Start Quote

Planet with double sunset found

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