Online abuse 'hits 40% of adults'

23 October 2014 Last updated at 17:03

Some 40% of adults have experienced online harassment, according to a study from the US Pew Research Internet Project.

From name-calling to other threats, harassment is a common part of online life for many, its research suggests.

While men are more likely to experience name-calling, women are more vulnerable to sexual harassment and stalking.

The report comes amid a rise in social media abuse aimed at women in the games industry.

The report found that 73% of American adult internet users had witnessed online harassment - from being called offensive names to witnessing someone being stalked online.

It found that young adults - aged 18-29 - are most likely to experience online harassment, with 65% of internet users in this age group claiming to have fallen victim.

The vast majority of harassment took place on social networking sites, according to the research.

The report looked at six types of abuse:

• Attempts to purposefully embarrass

• Harassment for a sustained period of time

• Online threats to physically harm

"It was striking to see how different varieties of harassment impacted different groups on different platforms, and the range of reactions online harassment elicited," said report author Maeve Duggan.

Of those who had personally been harassed online, the majority chose to ignore it, she found.

Young women are particularly vulnerable to sexual harassment and stalking online, she told the BBC.

Her research also found that gaming platforms were seen as the least welcoming to women, with 44% of people saying such forums were more geared towards men.

Last month, more than 2,000 people signed an open letter calling for an end to "hateful, harassing speech" on Twitter and other social media, following death threats to feminist games reviewer Anita Sarkeesian.

Her series on the portrayal of women in video games led to what she described as "some very scary threats" which forced her to leave her home.

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Dark Souls II named game of the year

Over nine million votes were cast for the awards

Dark Souls II has been named game of the year at the 2014 Golden Joystick awards.

Now in its 32nd year, the Golden Joysticks are the only annual awards voted for by gamers.

The ceremony also saw Metal Gear Solid series creator, Hideo Kojima, get a lifetime achievement award.

Other winners included DayZ, Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft and Assassins Creed IV: Black Flag, which all took home two awards.

Destiny missed out on four awards including game of the year

Destiny, which at £310m was the most expensive game ever to make, failed to pick up any of the four awards it was nominated for.

Following on from Demon's Souls and Dark Souls, Dark Souls II is the third game in the RPG series.

Described as "near perfect" when it was released in March, the game was the resounding winner as voted for by gamers around the world.

Hideo Kojima was given the Lifetime Achievement award

Lifetime achievement recipient, Hideo Kojima, is seen as one of the most influential figures in the world of gaming.

He has worked in the industry for almost 30 years and is behind the groundbreaking Metal Gear Solid series, as well as adventure games Snatcher and Policenauts.

He also produced series Zone of Enders, Boktai and Castlevania: Lords of Shadows.

Receiving his award, Kojima said, "Thank you very much for presenting me with this prestigious Golden Joystick Award.

"To be recognised with this award means a huge amount to me."

Personality of the year winner PewDiePie has more than 31.5m subscribers on his gaming YouTube channel

Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft, the free-to-play digital collectable card game, picked up best online game and best mobile game, while Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag won best visual design and best audio with the game's creators, Ubisoft Montreal, also winning studio of the year.

Elsewhere, Oculus Rift retained their innovation of the year crown.

Most wanted - which looks forward to game releases in the coming year - was won by The Witcher III: Wild Hunt, which was also exclusively revealed during the ceremony, and gaming personality of the year was won by PewDiePie, whose real name is Felix Kjellberg.

The winners of the Golden Joystick Awards 2014 are:

Lifetime achievement: Hideo Kojima

Game of the year: Dark Souls II

Best original game: DayZ

Best online game: Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft

Best storytelling: The Last of Us: Left Behind

Best visual design: Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag

Best audio: Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag

Most played game of the year: Rust

Best multiplayer: Battlefield 4

Best indie game: DayZ

Innovation of the year: Oculus Rift DK2

Best gaming moment: The Last of Us: Left Behind - "The kiss"

Best handheld game: Pokemon X & Y

Best mobile game: Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft

Most wanted: The Witcher III: Wild Hunt

Gaming personality of the year: PewDiePie

Studio of the year: Ubisoft Montreal

Gaming platform of the year: Steam

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Google offers new email app, Inbox

23 October 2014 Last updated at 12:02

Google is revamping its email service with a new mobile app it is simply calling Inbox.

It is an attempt to reorganise overcrowded inboxes and ensure important emails are not overlooked.

Currently the tech giant has invited a select group of Gmail users to try out the new service. Some experts believe it will eventually replace Gmail.

"Our biggest rethink of email since Gmail, really excited about Inbox," wrote one Google executive on Google+.

Among the main changes, Inbox will:

• highlight key information from important messages, such as flight itineraries, event information and photographs
• let users add their own reminders - to pick up dry-cleaning or give parents a call, for example
• categorise messages - clustering together receipts or bank statements for instance

"We get more email now than ever, important information is buried inside messages, and our most important tasks can slip through the cracks - especially when we're working on our phones," wrote Sundar Pichai, senior vice-president of Android, Chrome and apps.

"For many of us, dealing with email has become a daily chore that distracts from what we really need to do - rather than helping us get those things done," he added.

Reaction from the technology press appeared to be mixed.

The Verge described it as the future of email. "It's perfectly happy to have you use your email as a to-do list," it said.

But Mashable pointed out that other apps such as Mailbox and Box do similar things, and Engadget questioned whether it would really signal the end of Gmail.

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Zuckerberg's Chinese gets mixed reviews

23 October 2014 Last updated at 13:06

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Mark Zuckerberg did a 30-minute question-and-answer session in Mandarin

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg's attempt to woo a Chinese audience by speaking Mandarin has had mixed reviews from Chinese speakers.

News outlet Quartz described his 30-minute chat as making him sound "like someone was stepping on his face".

Others were kinder. "This CEO is so cool, I want to cry," wrote one.

Fellow chief executive - Apple's Tim Cook - was also in China, questioning officials about an alleged hack of its iCloud service.

Articulate seven-year-old

Mr Zuckerberg was in Beijing as a newly appointed member of the advisory board for Tsinghua University School of Economics and Management.

As part of that role, he met students for a 30-minute chat, which he conducted in Mandarin.

There was plenty of reaction to his attempts to communicate in Chinese.

One blogger wrote: "It's hard to describe in English what Zuckerberg's Mandarin sounded like but I'd put it roughly at the level of someone who studied for two years in college, which means he can communicate like an articulate seven-year-old with a mouth full of marbles."

Others commented: "Oh my god... this is terrible... but apart from the tones, he seems to have learnt the vocabulary and grammar pretty well."

One tonal slip-up led Mr Zuckerberg to claim that Facebook had just 11 mobile users instead of one billion.

While most agreed that his pronunciation was far from fluent, most were also impressed that he had attempted it at all.

Mr Zuckerberg, who is married to Chinese-American Priscilla Chan, set himself the goal of learning Mandarin in 2010, in part so that he could communicate with his Chinese relatives.

But Facebook as a company is also keen to improve relationships with China. There is currently a ban on the use of the social media site, which dates back to 2009.

There was no explicit chat about the ban and Mr Zuckerberg described China as a "great country".

"The Chinese language is difficult, and I speak English, but I like challenges," he said.

iCloud hack

On Facebook's future in the country, he was diplomatic: "We are already in China. We help Chinese companies gain customers abroad. We want to help the rest of the world connect to China," he said.

Fellow chief executive Tim Cook is also in China and will attend a meeting at Beijing's Tsinghua University with Mr Zuckerberg later in the week.

Meanwhile he has had talks with the vice premier of China to discuss protecting user data in the wake of recent alleged hack attacks targeting iCloud users.

The attacks were revealed by Chinese activist group GreatFire.org, which accused the Chinese government of being involved.

iCloud user data was collected by creating a spoof icloud.com website.

Mr Cook also used the trip to China to visit Foxconn's iPhone factory and said that the company would open 25 retail stores in China in the next two years.

Apple currently earns about 15% of its revenue in China.

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Piracy police to be given more money

23 October 2014 Last updated at 13:16 By Dave Lee Technology reporter, BBC News

More money is to be given to the City of London Police's Intellectual Property Crime Unit (Pipcu).

The division deals exclusively with investigating digital piracy and counterfeited goods.

The unit will get an extra £3m so it can run until at least 2016. Since its 2013 launch, it has received £2.56m.

Pipcu says it has suspended 2,359 internet domain names and seized more than £1.29m worth of suspected fake goods since September 2013.

The latest action, on Thursday morning, saw a man, 55, and woman, 39, arrested in Bury for allegedly selling hard drives containing up to 200,000 counterfeited files.

Pipcu said the drives contained a mixture of karaoke tunes, full music tracks and music videos thought to be worth "more than £350,000".

Det Ch Insp Daniel Medlycott said: "Pipcu is committed to tackling individuals who think they can exploit others copyrighted material for their own financial gain, as crimes like these are costing our economy hundreds of millions of pounds."

Diverting traffic

Pipcu was set up in 2013 with the intention to "dismantle and disrupt" criminal activity relating to intellectual property theft.

Since then it says it has:

• suspended 2,359 internet domain names - replacing pages with a City of London Police notice
• seized more than £1.29m worth of fake goods
• diverted five million visits from copyright infringing websites to a Pipcu holding page

Pipcu has also set up an infringing website list (IWL) that acts as a database of sites deemed to be breaking copyright law.

This list is designed to be used as a resource for companies that place advertising on behalf of brands.

However some have raised concerns that lists of this nature - which do not require court approval - can result in over-blocking.

The new funding will come from the budget of the Intellectual Property Office - which is supported by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.

News of the additional money was welcomed by the Publishers Association.

Chief executive Richard Mollet said: "We have seen first-hand the important work the Pipcu team does in tackling the problem of pirate websites and the difference they are making in ensuring the online environment is one which is safe and secure for consumers and allows publishers and authors to be remunerated for their work."

Jim Cormack, a partner at law firm Pinsent Masons, requested serious consideration into how the money is spent.

He said: "The extra funding is very welcome but of course needs to be deployed effectively in further developing specialist police expertise in this area.

"If cases are to be successfully brought before the courts, then it is also vital that expert prosecutors are also available.

"It is key for law enforcement agencies to liaise effectively with technology owners to obtain information and evidence about their rights."

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US 'probes hackable' medical devices

23 October 2014 Last updated at 13:52

US officials have revealed they are investigating about two dozen suspected examples of medical equipment vulnerable to hack attacks, potentially putting patients' lives at risk.

The products include heart implants and drug infusion pumps, according to a report by the Reuters news agency.

It said investigators were concerned that flaws in the kit could be used to cause heart attacks and drug overdoses.

There are no known examples of deaths having happened this way.

One expert suggested that investigators' efforts would better channelled elsewhere.

But the Department of Homeland Security indicated its fears were justified.

"It isn't out of the realm of the possible to cause severe injury or death," an unidentified government official told Reuters.

"These are the things that shows like Homeland are built from."

The TV series Homeland featured a plot in which a fictional US vice-president was targeted via his pacemaker.

Dick Cheney, who was vice-president under President George W Bush, later revealed he had feared a similar attack and had the wireless connectivity of his pacemaker disabled.

Hacked pumps

The inquiry is reportedly being co-ordinated by the US Department of Homeland Security's Industrial Control Systems Cyber Emergency Response Team (ICS-Cert).

It is said to also cover medical imaging equipment and hospital networking systems.

The probe is reportedly an extension of research by Barnaby Jack, a security expert who died in July 2013, a week before he was scheduled to give a talk on the topic at the Black Hat conference.

He had earlier told the BBC about a way he had found to compromise insulin pumps used by diabetic patients, which connected to the internet to get updates.

"We can influence any pump within a 300ft [91m] range," Mr Jack told the BBC. "We can make that pump dispense its entire 300-unit reservoir of insulin and we can do that without requiring its ID number."

Reuters said that government staff told it they were working with device-makers to identify and patch software bugs and other vulnerabilities.

Three manufacturers, whose kit is believed to affected, told the news agency that they had already made safety improvements, but declined to provide specifics. The BBC requested further comment and one of the firms, Medtronic, provided a statement.

"We are committed to addressing the industry-wide issue of wireless hacking," it said.

"We believe the risk to an individual customer is low and the therapeutic benefits of our cardiac devices for treating heart conditions and insulin pumps for diabetes far outweigh this risk.

"Medtronic has already taken a number of concrete actions to enhance device security and... will assess whether additional security measures can be implemented without compromising the therapy that the device is designed to deliver to patients."

However, one expert suggested that the danger of such hacks was minor when compared with the risks caused by another tech-related problem with medical equipment - inconsistent user interfaces - and that efforts would be better spent on that issue.

"We've got no documented cases of people being killed as a result of hacking of medical equipment, but there are many instances of people dying as a result of safety usability failures," said Ross Anderson, professor of security engineering at the University of Cambridge.

"You can find instances of pumps from the same manufacturer where the up key and the down key might be '2' and '5' on one pump and '2' and '7' on another - the design of some medical equipment interfaces is as careless as the design of aircraft cockpits was in the 1930s.

"And there have been tragic cases, not just of kids being killed when they are given 10 times the dosage of morphine or whatever, but of nurses who are blamed for this subsequently committing suicide."

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'Anti-Facebook' investors dig deep

23 October 2014 Last updated at 14:00 By Zoe Kleinman Technology reporter, BBC News

A social network promising never to sell user data or incorporate advertising has secured multi-million dollar backing

Ello, which launched in August, has also become a Public Benefit Corporation, which prohibits its current and any future owners from breaking that promise.

The network plans to make money by introducing micro-payments for additional features.

Investors have pledged $5.5m (£3.4m).

"There are 'freemium' successes like Linked In and in gaming. Ello is taking a unique spin on this," said Lee Bouyea, of Fresh Track Capital, one of the platform's new backers.

"We are long-term investors. We have a company on our portfolio we invested in for nine years before they were successful. We look long term for a company to grow something of scale and value."

Some experts have argued that people are not prepared to pay to use social media platforms.

"You don't invite your friend to connect with you if it costs your friend money. Even in the world of digital music, you can pay for services but most people don't," James McQuivey, an analyst at tech research company Forrester, told the BBC recently.

'Tried and true'

But Ello founder Paul Budnitz insists his business can thrive without advertising or data mining.

"Our business model is tried and true - it's used all over the place, it just hasn't been applied to social networks," he said.

What the agreement means

Ello's developers have agreed to make Ello a Public Benefit Corporation - which means the site cannot, for monetary gain, do the following:

1. Sell user-specific data to a third party;
2. Enter into an agreement to display paid advertising on behalf of a third party; and
3. In the event of an acquisition or asset transfer, the Company shall require any acquiring entity to adopt these requirements with respect to the operation of Ello or its assets.

"You get an iPhone and it comes with basic apps - you can call, text and so on, but everybody buys apps because they want to customise their experience.

"For a few dollars, you can customise Ello to do what you want."

He added that the decision not to explore user data was already saving the company money.

"If you ask me what the demographic of the Ello user is I can't tell you - I don't know," he said.

"Maybe anecdotally but not at a granular level.

"While Ello has grown incredibly fast, we still have 14 staff.

"We're adding a few more people to help handle growth - but because we're not selling ads or mining data, there's a whole load of people we don't need to hire."

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Job centres to get digital makeover

24 October 2014 Last updated at 00:12 By Zoe Kleinman Technology reporter, BBC News

The government is investing in a digital revamp of the UK's job centres.

Electronic pads that recognise job seekers' signatures using biometric software will be installed at centres around the UK, along with PC workstations and free wi-fi.

The computers operate on the government's network and share the same level of security against hacking and viruses.

The equipment has been tested at London Bridge Jobcentre.

"We've moved away from customers coming in and standing in a queue waiting to be directed," said Baljeet Mahal, the branch's customer services manager.

"We don't have podiums, we don't have public-access phones.

"If you look back to Job Centre Plus from years ago, we had boards with paper cards with vacancies on them - we don't have those anymore."

The Department for Work and Pensions, which runs the job centres, estimates that installing the computers will save £2m per year.

While their use will not be not monitored formally, Ms Mahal said the screens were visible and staff would "have a chat" if they saw people using them for purposes other than job hunting.

Business analyst John Oldroyd told the BBC that cyber-security was crucial for all new equipment.

"I think every organisation is a target for hackers," he said.

"Security is a high priority for every system we introduced.

"It's all protected by the Department for Work and Pensions network, there are several firewalls in place."

He added that the signature pads had been designed to store data securely.

"The signature pad is used in banks in central Europe," he said.

"It uses biometric software, which measures how somebody writes their signature.

"It's not concerned so much with the image, but the way you write it - it's very consistent and individual to you like a fingerprint."

The overall signature also has to correspond at least 80% with six sample signatures, which each individual job seeker has to provide the first time they use the device.

"In terms of the signature data we store, we don't store images, we store data which builds up a signature profile," added Mr Oldroyd.

"If anyone did hack in there's no way that could be turned back into a visible signature."

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The Queen sends her first tweet

24 October 2014 Last updated at 11:51

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"Her Majesty used the technology of the moment, sending her first tweet", reports Rory Cellan-Jones

"It is a pleasure to open the Information Age exhibition today at the @ScienceMuseum and I hope people will enjoy visiting. Elizabeth R."

That was the Queen's first tweet - sent through the @BritishMonarchy account - heralding the launch of a major new exhibition at London's Science Museum.

Three years in the planning, the exhibition is one of the most ambitious projects the museum has undertaken.

Alongside historic objects, visitors can enjoy interactive experiences.

The Information Age gallery, opened by the Queen this morning, takes visitors on a journey through the history of modern communications from the telegraph to the smartphone.

There is the first transatlantic telegraph cable which connected Europe and North America, the broadcast equipment behind the BBC's first radio programme in 1922, and Sir Tim Berners-Lee's NeXT computer, which hosted the first website.

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The exhibition includes the NeXT computer Sir Tim Berners-Lee used to host the first website

You can construct a 1980s mobile phone network, making sure your cell towers are efficiently positioned. You can go into the web story box to find out exactly what happens when you click on a link. And you can plug headphones into a 1950s telephone exchange, and listen to the operators describing what their work involved.

The gallery's chief curator Tilly Blyth hopes that visitors who may be somewhat blase about the digital revolution will come away with a longer view.

"We really want them to see that our predecessors lived through similar periods of change. Ours isn't the only revolution - just the latest. in a series of transformations since the electric telegraph in the 1830s."

Baroness Lane-Fox, who has campaigned for better access to and understanding of the internet, welcomes the new gallery: "It's an amazing opportunity for people young and old to come and see the extraordinary developments in technology over the last hundred years or so. It really reminds me of the scale of ambition that people have had to change things."

She hopes too that visitors will learn of the great contribution made by Britain to the development of communications - from Ada Lovelace, the woman who conceived the idea of computer programming in the 1830s, through to the 1950s when Lyons Corner Houses introduced the first business computer Leo, and on to Sir Tim Berners-Lee: "I hope that people who visit will have their ambition and excitement lit so we can continue to be world leaders in this field because it's so important."

The gallery certainly does show off the role Britain has played, and a number of British companies including BT and the chip designer ARM Holdings have sponsored the Information Age and supplied exhibits. But, as they wander past early computers like the ACE, designed by Alan Turing, visitors may begin to ask themselves a question.

In a communications world now dominated by the likes of Google, Apple and Facebook, where are the British technology giants that will shape the communications of the future?

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Hailo says Uber blocked investors

24 October 2014 Last updated at 18:41 By Dave Lee Technology reporter, BBC News

Taxi app Hailo has complained rival Uber has blocked potential investors from offering funding.

Speaking to the BBC, Hailo chairman Ron Zeghibe alleged Uber would talk to potential investors only if they agreed not to invest in Hailo or other rivals.

Hailo recently abandoned its business in North America, saying it could not compete with Uber's "astronomical marketing spend".

Uber said it did not wish to respond to Mr Zeghibe's remarks.

However, other sources close to the taxi app industry said Uber was acting with "common sense" and protecting itself from having its ideas stolen.

Uber recently secured $1.2bn (£750m) in funding, valuing the company at $18bn.

Mr Zeghibe told the BBC: "[Uber] can spend money like drunken sailors."

He added: "In raising that massive [funding] round, any investor who wanted to even look at Uber's books to decide whether they wanted to make an investment had to sign an agreement which specifically named us, as well as Lyft, and restricting them from having any ability to even talk to us for at least a year.

"It wasn't just good enough for them to raise enough money for their business - they needed to restrict the market to Hailo and its competitors to have access to capital.

"That's what we're up against."

'Mug's game'

Hailo's comments came following an announcement about new features on the service, which has expanded to Leeds and Liverpool, and is also being rolled out in Singapore.

Of the new features announced, Pay With Hailo stood out the most - a way of using a Hailo account to pay for taxis hailed off the street, at no additional cost to the driver.

Hailo also waded into the debate around public transport regulation, calling upon the UK government to be stronger in enforcing public transport rules.

"It becomes very hard to play by the rules if no-one else is," Mr Zeghibe said. "It's a mug's game."

He argued that Uber drivers should face the same costs, and training requirements, as black-cab drivers who have to earn the right to be able to pick people up on the street and charge by the meter.

Many black-cab drivers insist that Uber's system - where a journey cost is determined at the end of the trip - amounts to a meter, and therefore drivers should be forced to comply.

Private hire vehicles, by contrast, state an agreed price at the start of a journey, and must be booked through a central office, rather than on the street.

Transport for London (TFL) has said it did not believe Uber was in breach of the rules.

It has so far ruled that as Uber requires booking a car on a central system, it should be considered a private hire vehicle.

However - it has referred the issue to the High Court for a final judgement on Uber's legality.

Hailo is concerned this process is taking too long.

"This thing is moving so fast, and the technology evolves so quickly, that it will be a fait accompli," Ron Zeghibe, Hailo's chairman, told the BBC.

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Rory Cellan-Jones talks to Uber co-founder Travis Kalanick

"In the end it is up to the politicians to decide where the public interest is and make sure there are the rules available to protect that interest. Right now, with the rapid changes going on, they better take some actions quickly.

"If they don't, they're going to find out that the public interest will be defined by the tech companies."

But Hailo's relationship with black-cab drivers has not always been steady.

It lost a lot of support earlier in the year by applying for a licence to operate private hire cars as well as black cabs which some cab drivers felt was a betrayal of trust. Around the city, drivers were displaying mock logos reading "Failo".

In the midst of the furore, a new competitor, Maaxi, began recruiting black-cab drivers disgruntled with Hailo.

The Licensed Taxi Drivers Association (LTDA) is currently in the process of taking several individual Uber drivers to court.

TFL's decision is to be reviewed by the High Court - but only after the LTDA action has concluded.

Follow Dave Lee on Twitter @DaveLeeBBC

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BBC to publish 'forgotten' page list

17 October 2014 Last updated at 14:25 By Dave Lee Technology reporter, BBC News

The BBC is to publish a continually updated list of its articles removed from Google under the controversial "right to be forgotten" rule.

The ruling allows people to ask Google to remove some types of information about them from its search index.

But editorial policy head David Jordan told a public meeting, hosted by Google, that the BBC felt some of its articles had been wrongly hidden.

He said greater care should be given to the public's "right to remember".

Following the ruling, Google set up a form on its site allowing people to request which links should be taken down.

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) said links that were "inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant" should not appear when a specific search - usually a person's name - was made.

Google decided to notify affected websites each time a link had been removed.

The BBC will begin - in the "next few weeks" - publishing the list of removed URLs it has been notified about by Google.

Mr Jordan said the BBC had so far been notified of 46 links to articles that had been removed.

They included a link to a blog post by Economics Editor Robert Peston. The request was believed to have been made by a person who had left a comment underneath the article.

An EU spokesman later said the removal was "not a good judgement" by Google.

Real IRA

The list will not republish the story, or any identifying information. It will instead be a "resource for those interested in the debate", Mr Jordan said.

He criticised the "lack of a formal appeal process" after links have been taken down, noting one case where news of the trial involving members of the Real IRA was removed from search results.

"Two of whom were subsequently convicted," Mr Jordan explained.

"This report could not be traced when looking for any of the defendants' names. It seems to us to be difficult to justify this in the public's interest."

He suggested that Google implement some changes to the process of making a "right to be forgotten" request - such as requiring the identity of the person to be shared with the publication, on condition of confidentiality.

The meeting, hosted by Google chairman Eric Schmidt, is the latest of several that have taken place around Europe in the past two months. The next, on 4 November, will be held in Brussels.

However supporters of the ruling said the meetings were a "PR exercise" for Google - which would rather not deal with requests - rather than an open debate.

"They want to be seen as being open and virtuous, but they handpicked the members of the council, will control who is in the audience, and what comes out of the meetings," said Isabelle Falque-Pierrotin, head of CNIL - France's data protection body.

Being forgotten

People keen to get data removed from Google's index must:

• Provide weblinks to the relevant material
• Name their home country
• Explain why the links should be removed
• Supply photo ID to help Google guard against fraudulent applications

Follow Dave Lee on Twitter @DaveLeeBBC

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Google earnings miss expectations

16 October 2014 Last updated at 21:38

Google has reported third-quarter profits of $2.8bn (£1.7bn), down 5% from the same period a year earlier.

That sent shares in the internet giant down over 3% in after-hours trading.

A closely-watched figure - the average cost-per-click that Google - decreased by 2%.

The company also missed analyst expectations for revenue, which increased by 20% to $16.52bn for the period, which was for the three months ending on 30 September 2014.

"We continue to be excited about the growth in our advertising and emerging businesses," said Google chief financial officer Patrick Pichette in a statement accompanying the earnings statement.

Google's profits were also hit by increasing costs of real estate, such as data centres, and hardware inventory costs, which increased by 37% to $3.35bn from the same period a year earlier.

Although Google makes the majority of its revenue from the advertising it places on its search site and others, the technology giant has been looking to expand its offerings.

On Wednesday, it unveiled new models of its Nexus phone and tablet devices, as well as a new version of its Android operating system.

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'Secret' app denies tracking claims

17 October 2014 Last updated at 13:35 By Zoe Kleinman Technology reporter, BBC News

The editor of Whisper, an app for people to share secrets anonymously, has angrily denied reports that it has been tracking users and sharing data.

The Guardian newspaper claims Whisper has an in-house tool which can track the locations of all its users.

This includes some who have specifically opted out of sharing location details, the report claims.

Whisper editor Neetzan Zimmerman tweeted that the article was "riddled with outright lies and made-up quotes".

The Guardian also claimed the app was tracking "newsworthy" posters and was sharing data with the US Department of Defense in instances where secrets were uploaded from military bases.

"We are not sharing specific user data with any organisation," wrote Mr Zimmerman in response.

"We noticed how frequently suicide is mentioned among those living on US military bases or compounds and reached out to organisations to see how we could work together to address this important issue."

Law enforcement

However, he added that "violent or child-endangering threats" were reported to law enforcement agents "to protect our users and the public".

"We comply with the legal process in all instances," he wrote.

"We respond to both subpoenas and preservation requests from law enforcement. Whisper is not a place for illegal activity."

Two journalists from the newspaper had visited Whisper's offices in the US to explore a working relationship, which the Guardian says it will no longer pursue due to concerns over user privacy.

The Guardian has been contacted by the BBC for comment.

News and community site Buzzfeed has also announced it is "taking a break" from its partnership with the platform following the report.

"We're taking a break from our partnership until Whisper clarifies to us and its users the policy on user location and privacy," it said in a statement.

Behind the scenes

Millions of "secrets" - a short sentence written over a picture - have been shared via the social media platform since its launch two years ago.

"You look at all of these services like Facebook and Instagram, and they're all about, 'Let me show you the best version of me,'" Whisper co-founder Michael Heyward told the BBC earlier this year.

"Whisper is about showing people the behind-the-scenes stuff that we're not always comfortable posting on Facebook."

In his response to the Guardian's report, Neetzan Zimmerman added that the firm did not store geographical data or any other information which might identify a user.

"There is nothing in our geolocation data that can be tied to an individual user and a user's anonymity is never compromised," he wrote.

"Even for users who opt into geolocation services, the location information that we do store is obscured to within 500m of their smartphone device's actual location.

"Whisper does not follow or track users. Whisper does not request or store any personally identifiable information from users, therefore there is never a breach of anonymity."

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Minecraft city built in two years

17 October 2014 Last updated at 18:00 By Zoe Kleinman Technology reporter, BBC News

A student from Delaware has spent two years building a virtual world he has named Titan City in the video game Minecraft.

Titan City is constructed out of 4.5 million Minecraft building blocks and contains 96 buildings.

Duncan Parcells says it has taken him two years to build, averaging up to five hours a week on the project.

His first building was a virtual version of the World Trade Center, which took 18 months to perfect.

However the 19-year-old says Titan City is not a realistic model of New York.

"It's inspired by New York," he told the BBC.

"A lot of people think it's a recreation but it isn't."

He built the city using the Xbox 360 version of Minecraft but has now transferred it to the PC version which, he says, offers more construction opportunities.

Mr Parcells plans to add an airport and a sports stadium.

"I guess it's an outlet for architecture and energy," he said.

"I've always liked architecture. I'm most proud of the less modern builds, the more art deco, Victorian-style builds.

"A lot of people drop by and want to walk around and explore or help with the build. A lot of them help with roads."

While Titan City has received a warm welcome online, Mr Parcells said that until now he has kept his virtual world separate from his daily life.

"I've kept it under wraps, it's kind of like a second life I don't talk about but people are starting to find out," he said.

"My parents think it's cool - I think they're just glad I don't play it too much."

Microsoft recently agreed to purchase Minecraft studio Mojang in a deal worth $2.5bn (£1.5bn).

The game registered its 100 millionth user in February 2014, its inventor Markus Persson, aka Notch, announced on Twitter.

After an initial purchase of the game Minecraft is free to play but there are in-game purchases available.

The game is set in a virtual world made of cubes of different materials. Almost all of these can be used as building blocks and a few can be refined into usable raw materials (wood, iron, diamond etc).

Playing the game involves surviving by using blocks to build a shelter and turning raw materials and combinations of them into items (swords, armour, bows) to help kill the game's many monsters.

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Railways 'dead zones' for mobiles

16 October 2014 Last updated at 13:03 By Jane Wakefield Technology reporter

A comprehensive test of the state of mobile connectivity on Britain's busiest commuter routes has revealed much of the rail network is a blackspot for coverage.

The research, by Global Wireless Solutions (GWS), found one in three mobile internet tasks failed, as did one in seven voice calls.

Engineers tested the 10 most popular routes in and out of London.

GWS described many of the trains it had tested as "mobile dead zones".

Engineers travelled along 10 routes:

• Charing Cross to Sevenoaks
• Charing Cross to Dartford
• Euston to Watford Junction
• Fenchurch Street to Ockendon
• Liverpool Street to Broxbourne
• Liverpool Street to Manor Park
• St Pancras to St Albans
• St Pancras to Elstree and Boreham Wood
• Victoria to Oxted
• Waterloo to Epsom

Continue reading the main story

TIME TO UPLOAD 4MB picture

• Three - 33 seconds
• EE - 36.2 seconds
• O2 - 45.4 seconds
• Vodafone - 48.4 seconds

They used Samsung Galaxy S4s to gather data, using SIMs from each of the four major UK operators.

An interactive map detailed operator failures at each part of the journey.

• Three proved to have the best network for voice calls
• Vodafone's subscribers got the best 3G data service
• EE won best 4G service

But the research also found EE, O2 and Vodafone all heavily relied on their older 2G networks to cover commuters.

And commuters having to use 2G networks to route their calls were most likely to experience poor call quality.

Three's director of network strategy, Phil Sheppard, said: "2G simply can't deliver decent data speeds or the same quality of voice experience an advanced network provides.

"We will build on this to further improve our customers' experience by adding more mast sites and adding low-frequency spectrum to reach even more people on the move."

EE said it was "proud to be the best 4G network" and "would take on board the 3G findings".

"We are investing in improving voice and data quality for the UK's busiest road and rail routes to ensure all our customers get the best experience, and that will continue on into 2015."

Worst station

Continue reading the main story

3G RELIABILITY

• Three - 77.4% of time
• EE - 69.8%
• O2 - 78%
• Vodafone - 82%

Paul Carter, chief executive of GWS, said: "Pressure from commuters makes it inevitable that trains won't keep their status as mobile dead zones for much longer.

"It'd be great to see networks, rail operators and station-masters taking the lead on improving connectivity for commuters - rather than having to be dragged into the 21st Century kicking and screaming."

One in four data-task failures occurred while trains were in stations, and one in five on open track.

Voice calls were more likely to fail on open track than in a station, and the most failures occurred when a train was travelling above 50mph (80km/h).

St Pancras was the worst-connected station, with engineers experiencing an average of 99 voice and data failures across all four operators while testing at the station.

"It's hard to believe we're in 2014 and in a situation whereby a trained wizard would have a tough time getting a signal on the Hogwarts Express while it's sitting in St Pancras," said Mr Carter.

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Apple reveals its thinnest iPad

16 October 2014 Last updated at 19:18 By Leo Kelion Technology desk editor

Apple has announced a new version of its tablet, the iPad Air 2, which it said was the thinnest device of its kind on the market.

It is 6.1mm (0.24in) thick, and also gains a Touch ID fingerprint sensor.

It has an anti-reflective coating on the screen for the first time, and the A8X - a faster version of the processor featured in the firm's latest iPhones.

However, some analysts have questioned whether the upgrade will be enough to turn around iPad sales.

An upgraded version of the firm's smaller tablet - called the iPad Mini 3 - was also announced.

Like its bigger sibling, it gets the company's fingerprint recognition component. But it uses the older A7 processor and has a lower-resolution rear camera.

Some of the details were published by Apple, reportedly by mistake, on Wednesday.

Apple's last earnings release revealed that it had sold 13.3 million iPads in the April-to-June quarter. That marked a 9% fall on its tally for the same period in 2013, despite the fact the company saw sales of iPhones and Mac computers rise.

It also contrasted with an 11% rise in the number of tablet shipments across the market as a whole - with Lenovo and Asus making some of the biggest gains - according to data from IDC.

The market research firm said that the iPad remained the bestselling tablet brand, but that its market share had dropped over the year from 33% to 26.9%.

Cannibalised sales?

One expert suggested that the recent launch of the 5.5in (14cm)-screened iPhone 6 Plus, which shares most of the new iPads' features, could further temper demand.

"Given that Apple's launched larger iPhones, it needs to find a market that the iPad Mini fits into," said Jitesh Ubrani from IDC.

"It was a response to the market as a whole moving to smaller tablets. And now that phablets are growing in not just screen size but also in market size, unless Apple carves out a special place for it, we expect sales of the Mini in particular to be cannibalised quite a bit."

Apple's chief executive Tim Cook has told investors he still believes that the tablet market will eventually surpass that of PCs, and has pointed to a recent deal with IBM - involving the two firms co-developing business-centric apps - as a way to get iPad sales on "a faster trajectory".

Mr Ubrani agreed that targeting businesses had huge potential, but warned that sales to consumers would remain a challenge.

"People who have the old iPad 2 or more recent versions are still happy with these devices - they are still functioning perfectly fine," he said.

"There's really no reason to upgrade."

Other new features of the iPad Air 2 include an eight megapixel rear camera that can now capture slow-mo videos at 120 frames per second. The front camera has also been upgraded to allow in more light and take a rapid succession of selfies.

In addition, the machine includes a new type of wi-fi chip that supports faster data speeds, including downloads at up to 866 megabits per second (Mbps).

"It is disappointing - particularly to enterprise buyers - that there wasn't a 12.9in [32.8cm] iPad model," said JP Gownder from research firm Forrester, who otherwise praised the update.

"In order to return iPad to high growth, form factor innovation will be required."

The new tablets will become available to buy next week at similar prices to before.

New iMacs

Apple also introduced a new model of its all-in-one iMac computer featuring what it said was the highest resolution display on the market.

The computer has a 27in (68.6cm) screen that has a resolution of 5K - 5210 by 2880 pixels - offering about five times the detail of a "full HD" 1080p television.

That represents four times the number of pixels found in the standard iMac of the same size.

The basic model will cost $2,499 (£1,555) and is already available for sale.

Lenovo already sells the N308 - an all-in-one Android-powered desktop PC with a 19.5in (49.5cm) screen offering slightly lower 4K resolution, while Panasonic has the Toughpad MB5025 - a 20in (50.8cm) 4K computer that runs Windows 8.

Intel and Samsung have also announced plans to manufacture 4K screens for other all-in-one PCs.

Otherwise, large ultra-high definition display are still a rarity in the computing sector beyond the use of separate monitors, which may aid demand for the new computer.

"There is a huge difference in quality once you start moving through the different sets of screens," remarked Ranjit Atwal, research director at the tech consultancy Gartner.

"Given the amount of consumption people are doing of online video, and the quality of what they can get from services like YouTube and Netflix on 4K TVs, they want to see that replicated on a PC as well."

Apple suggested that people doing visual productivity tasks, such as photo editing, would also benefit from the innovation.

Apple also announced an upgraded version of its screenless computer, the Mac Mini, but there was no mention of an update to its Apple TV set top box, which last received a hardware refresh in March 2012.

The company also said that the latest version of its operating system for Mac computers - OS X Yosemite - was being made available for download this Thursday.

The software allows data to be swapped back and forth with iOS-powered iPhones and iPads more easily than before. Its user interface has also been designed with higher resolution screens in mind.

The company added that version 8.1 of iOS, which introduces support for its near field communication (NFC)-powered payment service Apple Pay, would be released on Monday.

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Smart meters open to hack attack

16 October 2014 Last updated at 13:18 By Mark Ward Technology correspondent, BBC News

Smart meters widely used in Spain can be hacked to under-report energy use, security researchers have found.

Poorly protected credentials inside the devices could let attackers take control over the gadgets, warn the researchers.

The utility that deployed the meters is now improving the devices' security to help protect its network.

The discovery comes as one security expert warns some terror groups may attack critical infrastructure systems.

Many utility companies are installing smart meters to help customers monitor and manage their power use and help them be more energy efficient.

"We took them apart to see how they work," said independent researcher Javier Vidal who, with Alberto Illera, found the flaws in the smart meters.

"We suspected there could be some issues with them and we wanted to check.

"We feared the security would be easy to break and we confirmed that," he told the BBC.

Network nodes

Buried inside the onboard software, or firmware, the pair found encryption keys used to scramble all the information that the smart meter shares with "nodes" sitting higher in the power distribution system.

Using the keys and the unique identifier associated with each meter it became possible for the researchers to spoof messages being sent from the power-watching device to a utility company.

"We can fool the nodes and send them false data," said Mr Vidal.

Attackers could use what Mr Vidal and Mr Illera found to under-report energy use or to get someone else to pay their bill by using their ID in messages sent back to the nodes that log usage. With more work it might be possible to find a way to seek out meters and cut off the power they are supplying, they said.

The Spanish utility firm deploying the meters, which the researchers declined to name, had been told about the work and was working to close loopholes, said Mr Vidal. Millions of the smart meters are set to be installed in Spain before 2018, he added.

Security investigator Greg Jones who carried out similar work on smart meters being rolled out in the UK, said he was "not surprised" about the Spanish researchers' findings.

Mr Jones's work uncovered shared IDs, poor protection against tampering and data formats that would be easy to fake.

"I'm pretty sure that anyone who picked up one of these units would find similar problems," he said.

Although many different researchers had found the security on smart meters wanting, so far, he said, this work had not prompted a big improvement in the way the gadgets worked.

Some meters were being installed in their millions across nations, he said, despite security holes having been found in them.

A lot of the equipment being rolled out was securable, he added, though its limited computational capacities made it a tricky job to get right.

Added to this was the problem that the devices sat in peoples' homes and were not under the control of power firms.

"If you physically own a piece of hardware you can compromise it," he said.

'Brutal' entities

Ashar Aziz, founder and head of security firm FireEye, said it was easy to explain why power networks and other critical infrastructure systems had not yet been attacked despite widespread reporting of their security shortcomings.

"The balance is maintained right now because the people that have the skill set and capability to infect these kinds of networks do not have the motivation," he said, "and those that have the motivation do not have the skill set."

Cybercrime gangs who had programming skills on tap were much more interested in making money than knocking out power grids, he said. By contrast, terror groups currently did not have the depth of computational skill required to tackle such a big target.

The research, analysis and development required to carry out such an attack was "non-trivial", said Mr Aziz and would probably take many months.

"The threshold to acquire this sophisticated cyber-weapon is much bigger than you need to make credit-card stealing malware," he said.

The Spanish researchers took about six months to reverse engineer the smart meter and work out how the power network handled communication.

Despite this hurdle, Mr Aziz said that an attack on critical infrastructure was bound to happen.

"We have a lot of brutal, non-state entities popping up all around the world and they are getting more organised on a daily basis," he said. "That capability is getting to be within the reach of them."

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Twitter users respond to 'experiments'

Many users suggested the move is similar to one made by Facebook which made them leave the site

"Don't", "*sigh*" and "no".

Those three words sum up the response of Twitter users to the social media site "testing and exploring ways to include tweets in your timeline we think you'll find interesting or entertaining".

A blog post explaining the move reads: "Testing indicated that most people enjoy seeing tweets from accounts they may not follow".

But it doesn't seem to have gone down too well.

In fact, during a good couple of minutes scrolling, the only remotely positive comment we could find on the post says: "I mean, why not."

But the site's post continues to suggest you might not even notice the change.

"Some timeline experiments never make it to 100% of users," it reads.

"The ones that do aim to make the experience more interesting and relevant.

"As the timeline evolves, we will continue to show you tweets you care about when they matter most."

Audio Card currently works on mobile devices using Android or Apple's iOS software

However, the site's developers might be happier with the response to another new feature announced on the same day.

Audio Card is a service which allows users to instantly stream audio directly from Twitter.

The feature, launched in partnership with SoundCloud and iTunes, was marked by artists including Foo Fighters and David Guetta.

"We're just beginning to test the Audio Card and plan to make it available to more partners and creators," the San Francisco firm said in a blog post.

Foo Fighters were amng the first to use the feature

Users are able to dock Audio Card and continue listening while browsing Twitter.

Around 60 Twitter users were offered Audio Card at its launch, including the White House, NASA and Coldplay.

Alt J, Olly Murs and BBC World Service were also among the accounts able to post podcasts, music and other types of audio through the new service.

Newly added members will be listed by the Twitter Music account.

"Many more musical artists and creators will be able to share exclusive, in-the-moment audio to millions of listeners," the blog post added.

Foo Fighters tweeted the official release of their new single, Something From Nothing, which could be heard in full via iTunes.

The track is the first release from the band's upcoming album Sonic Highways and was premiered on Zane Lowe's show on Radio 1.

David Guetta and Chance The Rapper also tweeted to mark the launch, posting songs that could be played through SoundCloud.

Follow @BBCNewsbeat on Twitter and Radio1Newsbeat on YouTube

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UK builds child abuse image database

17 October 2014 Last updated at 08:55 By Mark Ward Technology correspondent, BBC News

The UK is creating a national database of images of child sexual abuse seized during police raids on paedophiles and sites that trade in the content.

The Child Abuse Image Database (CAID) will help UK police forces co-ordinate investigations into abuse.

Huge growth in the number of abuse images circulating online means forces need help analysing what they seize.

The database is part of a massive international effort to classify images and track down victims.

The need for CAID has arisen because such action against abusers and websites often leaves police forces needing to categorise hundreds of thousands and sometimes millions of images.

Many of these images will have been seen before as the trade in abuse content has led to them being duplicated many times. This can make it difficult for investigators to pick out novel images that could lead them to victims that have not been seen before.

Project Vic

In a statement, policing minister Mike Penning said CAID was "a watershed moment in this government's drive to stamp out the despicable crime of online child sexual exploitation".

"The outcomes will be life-changing, and in some cases life-saving," he said. "That is how important this database is."

The CAID database is also part of a larger international effort called Project Vic that seeks to classify images held by forces around the world.

Richard Brown from the International Centre for Missing and Exploited Children, which is helping co-ordinate Project Vic, said the two initiatives were using the same protocols to ensure images could be swapped back and forth easily.

Seven other countries were already helping with Project Vic and more were expected to sign up soon, he said.

"It is groundbreaking for law enforcement, tool providers, non-profits and industry to all stand together and agree on the need to standardize the approach to such egregious crimes," Mr Brown told the BBC.

CAID is being built by tech firms NetClean, Hubstream and L-3 ASA and is set to be working by the end of 2014.

As well as improving collaboration among police forces, it is hoped that the database will save forces more than £7.5m by cutting the time it takes to conduct investigations.

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Internet trolls face longer sentences

19 October 2014 Last updated at 13:03

Internet trolls could face up to two years in jail under new laws, Justice Secretary Chris Grayling has said.

He told the Mail on Sunday quadrupling the current maximum six-month term showed his determination to "take a stand against a baying cyber-mob".

The plan was announced days after TV presenter Chloe Madeley suffered online abuse, which Mr Grayling described as "crude and degrading".

She has welcomed the proposed laws but said social media should be regulated.

Social media 'venom'

Under the new measures, magistrates could pass serious cases on to crown courts.

Mr Grayling told the newspaper: "These internet trolls are cowards who are poisoning our national life.

"No-one would permit such venom in person, so there should be no place for it on social media. That is why we are determined to quadruple the current six-month sentence."

Miss Madeley received threats after defending her mother Judy Finnigan's comments on a rape committed by footballer Ched Evans, which she said was "non-violent" and did not cause "bodily harm".

Richard Madeley has said "prosecution awaits" those who sent "sick rape threats" to his daughter.

The justice secretary said: "As the terrible case of Chloe Madeley showed last week, people are being abused online in the most crude and degrading fashion.

"This is a law to combat cruelty - and marks our determination to take a stand against a baying cyber-mob.

"We must send out a clear message - if you troll you risk being behind bars for two years."

Extreme

Miss Madeley said she was an "avid supporter of free speech and of social networking".

Continue reading the main story

Most people know the difference between saying something nice and saying something nasty"

End Quote Edwina Currie Former Tory MP

"However, threats of any kind must not be interpreted as freedom of speech. Threatening to harm others is extreme and crosses the line of personal opinion into criminal behaviour.

"I am pleased the government are now talking about ways to deter trolls, and quadrupling the sentencing is a good place to start."

She added that the Malicious Communications Act is 10 years' old and outdated, having been drawn up before Facebook and Twitter gained prominence.

"While I agree that spending time and money on trolls is somewhat disagreeable, social networking has become the most influential and powerful voice of the people, and the fact of the matter is it now needs to be regulated."

Claire Hardaker, an academic from Lancaster University who studies online aggression, said proving the intent of a threat on the internet was difficult for police.

"It's like your mum sending you a text saying 'I'm going to kill you' because maybe you forgot to bring something that she asked you to bring, versus somebody on the internet saying 'I'm going to kill you'," she said.

"You have to know the intent of the two different people and to know the intent of the stranger on the internet you've got to be able to read their mind.

"Proving intent, proving that they really meant it, that they had the means to carry it out, it's very difficult."

Better training

Former Conservative MP Edwina Currie, who has experienced online abuse, said people should learn to show restraint when making online comments.

"Most people know the difference between saying something nice and saying something nasty, saying something to support, which is wonderful when you get that on Twitter, and saying something to wound which is very cruel and very offensive.

"Most people know the difference - I don't think education is the issue. I think making sure society takes a dim view of the latter is exactly the right thing to do."

Labour MP Stella Creasy, who has been the target of Twitter trolls, says police and prosecutors need better training on stalking and harassment to deal with online abuse.

"We need the police and the CPS to have better training in what stalking is and what harassment is to understand that if somebody is sending messages and escalating their fixation on somebody... to be able to assess the risk the person faces," she said.

"It's no good saying we'll extend sentences if we're still reaching that barrier where people say, 'Well someone sent you a message online, don't be offended by it'."

Peter Nunn, 33, from Bristol, sent abusive Twitter messages to Ms Creasy after she campaigned to put Jane Austen on the £10 note. He was jailed for 18 weeks earlier this year.

Law change

Those who subject others to sexually offensive, verbally abusive or threatening material online are currently prosecuted in magistrates' courts under the Malicious Communications Act, with a maximum prison sentence of six months.

Under the act, it is an offence to send another person a letter or electronic communication that contains an indecent or grossly offensive message, a threat or information which is false and known or believed by the sender to be false.

More serious cases could go to crown court under the proposals, where the maximum sentence would be extended.

The law change is to be made as an amendment to the Criminal Justice and Courts Bill going through Parliament.

The new measures would also give police more time to collect enough evidence to enable successful prosecutions to be brought.

Mr Grayling announced earlier this month that the bill would also have an amendment dealing with so-called "revenge porn", with those posting such images on the internet facing two years in jail.

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Nude 'Snapchat images' put online

10 October 2014 Last updated at 17:25 By Dave Lee Technology reporter, BBC News

Explicit images believed to have been sent through messaging service Snapchat were reportedly put online, with threats from hackers to upload more.

Users who had been accessing the service via a third-party app, and not the official Snapchat app, had their images intercepted.

As half of its users are aged between 13 and 17, there is concern that many of the images may be of children.

Snapchat said its servers "were never breached".

The company added: "Snapchatters were victimised by their use of third-party apps to send and receive Snaps, a practice that we expressly prohibit in our Terms of Use precisely because they compromise our users' security.

"We vigilantly monitor the App Store and Google Play for illegal third-party apps and have succeeded in getting many of these removed."

However, security researchers said Snapchat had to take more responsibility over user data.

"For them to just turn round and say, 'It's the users' fault,' does seem harsh," said Mark James, a security specialist from ESET.

"They give the perception it is safe, they need to make it safe. They need to crack down on people's ability to access their data."

The images were uploaded to the internet with a download link shared on a message board on Thursday night, according to reports.

The download has since gone offline, but hackers threatened to post thousands more images.

However, some doubted the authenticity of the images, suggesting many of them were duplicates or "fake".

Troubling incident

Snapchat is a messaging app that allows the sharing of videos and images that "disappear" after a short period of time, usually just a few seconds.

But according to Business Insider reporter James Cook, hackers had boasted of having access to 13 gigabytes' (GB) worth of pictures that had been intercepted over a number of years.

Speculation as to the source of the leak has pointed towards two third-party, unauthorised services that offered the ability to save Snapchat messages permanently. It suspected that at least one such service was keeping a database of all the pictures and videos that had passed through it.

The leak is yet another troubling security and privacy incident for Snapchat, said security consultant Brian Honan.

At the start of this year, 4.6m usernames and phone numbers were leaked online. More recently, the service has been suffering from spam messages being sent out from users' accounts without their knowledge.

"Has Snapchat been breached? According to the letter of the law, no," said Mr Honan.

"But people use Snapchat to keep their information secure and would expect the company to have systems and services in place to support that."

Follow Dave Lee on Twitter @DaveLeeBBC

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Microsoft will 'respect' Minecraft

10 October 2014 Last updated at 10:57

The boss of Minecraft-maker Mojang has reassured fans worried about what will happen when Microsoft takes over.

A $1.5bn (£1bn) deal that will see Microsoft acquire Mojang was announced in mid-September.

But Vu Bui, chief operating officer of Mojang, said there were no plans in the offing to change the game or what people can do with it.

Feedback from players would still be crucial in helping to develop the game, he said.

"Nothing's really changing," said Mr Bui. " We have no plans on anything changing and, of course, I can't talk about the deal and I don't know everything but we're still here, the game's still here and it's business as usual."

Open view

Mojang had always sought to preserve the original impetus that helped to make the game so popular, he said.

"Maintaining that original culture is really difficult," he said. "It's a culture which respects the community and allows that community to do what they want with the game and make it theirs.

"It is absolutely our intention, as it always has been, to continue with that," he told the BBC in an interview at London's Olympia exhibition centre where he was giving a keynote speech at the Brand Licensing Europe trade show.

Mr Bui acknowledged that the deal was "still in the works" but said Mojang's intention was to keep working closely with its huge community of players.

Many fans of the block-building game have expressed fears about what will happen once Microsoft is in ultimate control.

Minecraft inventor Markus Persson, aka Notch, has written about his reasons for approaching Microsoft and said he was handing it over as it had become a burden for him to run.

Continue reading the main story

People are at their most creative sometimes when you just let them do what they want"

End Quote Vu Bui Mojang boss

"I can't be responsible for something this big," he wrote soon after details of the deal were announced.

"It's not about the money," he added. "It's about my sanity."

Mr Bui said there would undoubtedly be some changes in the future, but these would still be done with the input, comments and feedback of fans.

The current system, in which Minecraft developers share what they are working on long before it is added to the game, would continue.

"We don't keep features secret," he said.

This openness would also operate as Mojang started to show off the new titles developers were working on, even though the studio was not yet ready to talk specifics, he said.

When they were ready, said Mr Bui, Mojang would let players try early versions of a game and help the title's creators refine it and help it become a commercial property.

A similar approach was used with Minecraft, and Mojang wanted to repeat the process because it was proven to help developers as they worked on a project.

It was not about trying to replicate what happened with Minecraft to make another title that proved just as popular. It was more about faith in the overall approach, said Mr Bui.

"We believe in that model," he said. "Regardless of your art form people should definitely put their energy into what they believe in, regardless of whether it will be successful.

"That's a noble effort," he added.

In the same way, he said, Mojang believed that it was a mistake for anyone to try to manage or manipulate the Minecraft community and dictate what can and cannot be done with the game.

Far better, he said, was to just get out of the way.

"People are at their most creative sometimes when you just let them do what they want," said Mr Bui. "You have to give them guidelines, but for the most part if you let people be creative they will come up with cooler stuff than we ever could ourselves."

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Phones held by police remotely wiped

9 October 2014 Last updated at 13:30 By Jane Wakefield Technology reporter

All the data on some of the tablets and phones seized as evidence is being wiped out, remotely, while they are in police custody, the BBC has learned.

Cambridgeshire, Derbyshire, Nottingham and Durham police all told BBC News handsets had been remotely "wiped".

And Dorset police said this had happened to six of the seized devices it had in custody, within one year.

The technology used was designed to allow owners to remove sensitive data from their phones if they are stolen.

"If a device has a signal, in theory it is possible to wipe it remotely," said Ken Munro, a digital forensics expert with Pen Test Partners.

Romance fraud

A spokeswoman for Dorset police told the BBC: "There were six incidents, but we don't know how people wiped them.

"We have cases where phones get seized, and they are not necessarily taken from an arrested person - but we don't know the details of these cases as there is not a reason to keep records of this," she added.

A spokeswoman for Derbyshire police confirmed that the force had had one incident of a device being remotely wiped while in police custody.

"We can't share many details about it, but the case concerned romance fraud, and a phone involved with the investigation was remotely wiped," she said.

"It did not impact upon the investigation, and we went on to secure a conviction," she added.

Meanwhile Cleveland police told the BBC that it too had had a case of a phone that had been wiped but it was not clear "whether it was wiped prior to coming into police hands".

Asked whether the police felt that the issue had damaged their investigation, the spokeswoman said: "We don't know because we don't know what was on the phone."

Other police forces affected by the issue include:

• Cambridgeshire - one incident between August 2013 and August 2014
• Durham - one incident during the same period
• Nottingham - one incident

Microwave help

Mr Munro, who analyses hundreds of laptops, tablets, phones and other devices for corporate clients, said: "When we seize a device for digital forensics, we put it immediately into a radio-frequency shielded bag, which prevents any signals from getting through.

"If we can't get to the scene within an hour, we tell the client to pop it in a microwave oven.

"The microwave is reasonably effective as a shield against mobile or tablet signals - just don't turn it on."

SecureDrives, which develops hard drives for the military, is releasing one next year that can be physically destroyed just by sending a text message.

The hard drive -which will cost more than £1,000 - is also immune to the radio-frequency blocking bags.

"The hard drive is constantly looking for GSM [Global System for Mobile Communications] signals, if it is starved of them it it would destroy itself. It would see such a bag as a threat," said James Little, head of sales at SecureDrives.

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Anti-snoop phone maker plans tablet

Encrypted calls are only possible between Blackphone users or other devices running the Silent Phone app

The company behind the privacy-focused Blackphone has told Newsbeat it is planning to release a tablet.

Jon Callas, co-founder of Silent Circle which makes the anti-snooping device, said "we are going to have a tablet soon".

The Blackphone offers users encrypted calls, text messages and extra protection when browsing the web.

Mr Callas hinted there could also be further versions of the Blackphone in the works.

"Blackphone as it is, is our first device not our last device," he said.

Since going on sale in June 2014, the Blackphone has been selling "very well" according to Jon, but he admitted the device has limited appeal.

"We expect that it is going to be a niche, but it's a larger niche every day."

The Blackphone runs a modified version of the Android operating system, but without Google apps.

Jon Callas, co-founder of Blackphone maker Silent Circle told Newsbeat "We've been very fortunate that we've been on the early edge of a wave."

Jon Callas said despite the relatively limited number of apps available, the Blackphone offers users greater choice.

"You can have social media apps which can't get to your contacts, game which can't get to your network."

With no further details available on the forthcoming products from Silent Circle, potential customers will just have to wait and see.

Revelations by former US National Security Agency employee Edward Snowden raised a fresh awareness of privacy and data security.

"They have shown that we were onto something," said Jon Callas, acknowledging the timing has helped the company's sales.

"We've been very fortunate that we've been on the early edge of a wave."

At the Defcon conference in August 2014 there were claims the Blackphone had been hacked.

Silent Circle President Phil Zimmerman said despite the phone being touted as the most secure available, government intelligence agencies could still potentially gain access to it.

He said in a BBC interview "If they really wanted to attack just your phone... they would find a way in."

Follow @BBCNewsbeat on Twitter and Radio1Newsbeat on YouTube

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Meerkat-cam uses TV white space

10 October 2014 Last updated at 00:04

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WATCH: Rory Cellan-Jones discovers how the experiment works

The public will be able to find out what meerkats, otters and giant tortoises, housed at London Zoo, get up to when the visitors have left, thanks to new wireless technology.

London Zoo is working with UK regulator Ofcom to test so-called TV White Space (TVWS) technology.

TVWS uses gaps in the spectrum assigned for television transmissions.

Videos of the animals will be streamed to YouTube 24 hours a day.

TVWS uses sections of spectrum either left intentionally blank to act as a buffer between TV signals or space left behind when services went digital.

Compared with other forms of wireless technologies, such as Bluetooth and wi-fi, the radio waves can travel longer distances and also travel more easily through walls.

The trials are intended to test white space-enabled devices as well as identify what spectrum is available and the processes needed to minimise the risk of interference.

It will be used in other projects, including one led by the Oxford Flood Network, a citizen-built wireless sensor network which provides early flood warnings.

TVWS has also been earmarked as a way of providing broadband at sea.

It will be tested on ferries travelling to the Orkney Islands.

Meerkat-cam

At London Zoo, the trial dubbed, Whitespaces for Wildlife, will see cameras and radios installed in the enclosures of meerkats, giant tortoises and otters.

Footage will be wirelessly transmitted to YouTube using Google's spectrum database to ensure no interference with existing channels.

As well as allowing members of the public to check out what the animals get up to 24 hours a day, it will play a more serious role.

"Remote monitoring of wildlife is a vital conservation tool, from helping us to better understand species behaviour," said Whitespaces for Wildlife project co-ordinator Louise Hartley.

"The prototype systems at ZSL London Zoo are already demonstrating that they can transmit high definition video over long distances, confirming their invaluable potential to use wireless connectivity to transform ZSL's (Zoological Society of London) worldwide conservation work."

The technology could be used in areas of the world where poaching and illegal logging are affecting wildlife populations, she added.

Internet of things

The UK is leading Europe in the use of TVWS technology.

Philip Marnick, Ofcom's head of the Spectrum Policy Group said: "In a world where consumers' demand for data services is experiencing huge growth, it is essential we find the most efficient ways to share the airwaves."

It is expected to be commercially available in the UK from next year.

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Symantec to split in two companies

10 October 2014 Last updated at 04:18

US software maker Symantec is the latest tech company to announce that it will split its operations into two.

The Norton antivirus software maker said it would spin off operations into two publicly traded firms, one focused on security and the other on storage.

The move follows similar operational division by tech giants Hewlett-Packard (HP) and eBay.

Analysts said the break-up by struggling Symantec would make it more attractive for takeovers.

Potential buyers like Cisco and NetApp are likely to show interest in Symantec's California-based businesses, said Piper Jaffray analyst Andrew Nowinski.

Its earnings growth and share price, impacted by slow PC sales, has lagged behind other software makers and led Symantec to fire two chief executives since 2012.

The company's revenue fell 3% to $6.7bn (£4.1bn) in its recent fiscal year on a struggling storage business, while operating income fell almost 20%.

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Robot learns how snakes climb dunes

10 October 2014 Last updated at 09:21 By Jonathan Webb Science reporter, BBC News

With the help of a robot, US researchers have described for the first time precisely how "sidewinder" rattlesnakes climb up sand dunes.

By observing snakes on an artificial dune, they found that on steeper slopes the animals flatten themselves to increase their contact with the sand.

They then tested the new insights with a robotic snake and calculated the best strategy for snakes - and robots - to scale sandy slopes without slipping.

The work appears in Science Magazine.

Unstable, granular surfaces like sand dunes pose a particular problem for animals and robots trying to traverse them.

Sand strategy

"We originally hypothesised that the way the snakes could ascend would be to dig their bodies more deeply into the sand, just like we would do on a sandy slope," said senior author Dr Daniel Goldman, who runs a biomechanics lab at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Continue reading the main story

We found that they could basically ascend any sand dune we threw at them"

End Quote Dr Daniel Goldman Georgia Institute of Technology

That was not what he and his team found, however, when they painted reflective markers - carefully - on to six venomous rattlesnakes and put them to work on a tilting bed of sand, fresh from the Arizona desert that these snakes call home.

"One of the first surprises was how nice these animals are as subjects - they tend to just sidewind on command," Dr Goldman told the BBC.

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Watch a rattlesnake, then a robot, climb the artificial sand dune

The next surprise, captured by several high-speed videocameras, was that instead of digging in for extra purchase, the snakes flattened themselves more smoothly against the sand, every time the researchers tilted the "dune" more steeply.

Furthermore, it was only sidewinding rattlesnakes - a species called Crotalus cerastes - that used this strategy. Thirteen related species of pit viper, faced with the same challenge, tried other wriggling techniques and got nowhere, with the exception of one: a speckled rattlesnake that inched its way very slowly up the incline using a concertina motion.

Sidewinders, on the other hand, Dr Goldman said, "could basically ascend any sand dune we threw at them".

To test out their findings in detail, Dr Goldman's team of physicists and biologists contacted robotics engineers at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.

There, Prof Howie Choset and his lab had been working on sidewinding robots for several years. Their designs are aimed at various applications, from search-and-rescue to surgery.

But Prof Choset's robotic sidewinders were troubled by the very same challenge that the snakes had a knack for: sandy ascents.

A particular robot, nicknamed "Elizabeth", had failed on assignment in Egypt, slipping and falling on a slope within an archaeological site.

So the engineers brought Elizabeth to the artificial dune that Dr Goldman's team had built "in a shed out back of Zoo Atlanta", to see what they could learn.

Sure enough, using the insight from the rattlesnakes that flattening more of its body on to the sand would help with steeper slopes, the robot's performance improved.

Flow stopping

Adjusting Elizabeth's settings also allowed the collaboration to figure out other secrets to the sidewinders' success.

In particular, their motion boils down to a surprisingly simple combination of a horizontal and a vertical wave: a left-right slither, along with up-and-down movement, both travelling down the body but slightly out of sync.

"If you phase those waves just right, you get sidewinding," Dr Goldman explained.

Flattening or enlarging the vertical wave allowed Elizabeth to get just the right amount of contact with the sand. Too much, and the robot would slip; too little, and it risked tipping over.

The reason all these adjustments help the snakes and robots to climb is because they keep the sand more stable underneath them. Getting enough purchase without making too much sand flow downhill is a delicate balancing act.

"What we noticed was that when the snake's ascending effectively... the material behind it was in a nice solid state. And when we applied the changes to the robot, we found a similar feature of the interaction, such that the material didn't flow much," said Dr Goldman.

Andrew Graham is the technical director at Bristol company OC Robotics, which specialises in snake-like robots. He said that although the Carnegie Mellon team were already known for their sidewinding designs, the new study was "a very thorough investigation of the efficiency of the process".

"They've looked at the whole problem, end to end, and demonstrated the application of what they've observed in nature to a robotic model," Mr Graham told BBC News.

He added that the insights from the snakes would help make Prof Choset's robots "more efficient and more applicable to different environments".

Follow Jonathan on Twitter

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