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Online games purge sex offenders

Written By Unknown on Selasa, 25 Desember 2012 | 23.43

21 December 2012 Last updated at 05:55 ET

Hundreds of accounts for online games used by registered sex offenders have been shut down in the US.

More than 2,100 gaming accounts were closed as part of Operation: Game Over run by New York's attorney general.

It was able to target the accounts because registered sex offenders are required to surrender details of their online aliases.

Blizzard, Microsoft, Sony, NCSoft and many other game firms are backing the purge, aimed at protecting children.

"The internet is the crime scene of the 21st Century, and we must ensure that online video game platforms do not become a digital playground for dangerous predators," said New York's attorney general Eric Schneiderman in a statement.

Mr Schneiderman said the action would make online gaming communities a safer place for children. Many parents did not know, he said, that online gaming platforms and services let players communicate anonymously. However, he added, offenders had used this capability in the past to contact and "groom" children they later went on to abuse.

New York's Electronic Securing and Targeting of Online Predators Act, known as the e-STOP law, requires convicted sex offenders to tell the state which email addresses, login names, screen identities and other online aliases they use. These are then passed on to game and web firms that have signed up to help the programme.

Gaming accounts on Xbox Live, PlayStation Network, World of Warcraft, Guild Wars, Gaia Online and many others have been deleted as a result of the law.

This action builds on the first stage of the e-STOP programme that saw more than 3,500 online accounts used by sex offenders shut down.


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Boeing uses potatoes to test wi-fi

21 December 2012 Last updated at 09:57 ET

US planemaker Boeing used an unusual substitute for passengers to test its in-flight wi-fi system - potatoes.

Passenger seats on a decommissioned plane were loaded with huge sacks of the tubers for several days as signal strengths were checked.

The company's researchers say that potatoes "interact" with electronic signals in a similar way to humans.

The technique also took advantage of the fact that spuds - unlike humans - never get bored.

Boeing's engineers did a number of tests to ensure that passengers would get the strongest possible wi-fi signal while in the air, all while meeting safety standards that protect against interference with an aircraft's electrical systems.

Wireless signals fluctuate randomly in the enclosed space of an aeroplane cabin as people move about.

This means that signal distribution is uneven throughout the cabin, with weaker and stronger connectivity in different seats.

"You want your laptop to work anywhere it's located on your seat, [but] there can be significant signal changes just due to the location of the laptop," said Boeing engineer Dennis Lewis.

To test the signal distribution, the firm turned to spuds instead of human test subjects, filling the seats with 20,000lbs (9,000kg) of potatoes in sacks.

According to Boeing, potatoes' "interactions" with electronic signals mimic those of a human body, making them "the perfect stand-in for people who would otherwise have had to sit motionless for days while the data was gathered".

The UK Potato Council said many people underestimated the humble potato's alternative uses.

"[The examples are] in paper and ink manufacturing, potato starch is used in clothing to strengthen the fibres so they don't break during weaving, and for sweetening - glucose can be extracted from potato starch," said the council's spokeswoman.

"For beauty and sores - potatoes have calming, decongestant and astringent properties and raw potatoes can calm tired eyes, potato as alcohol, and potatoes can produce electricity."

Frederic Rosseneu of the European Potato Trade Association Europatat said the organisation was "looking forward to other experiments in which spuds can help to make our lives more convenient".


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Steve Jobs' super-yacht impounded

21 December 2012 Last updated at 12:29 ET

Venus, the minimalist high-tech yacht commissioned by the late Apple founder Steve Jobs, has become embroiled in a row over a disputed bill.

French designer Philippe Starck claims Mr Jobs' heirs still owe him 3m euros of a 9m euro fee for the project, according to Dutch paper Het Financieele Dagblad.

Mr Starck called in the debt collectors and had the yacht impounded,

The Port of Amsterdam confirmed that the boat is not allowed to leave.

Jeroen Ranzijn, spokesman for the Port of Amsterdam told the BBC: "The boat is brand new but there is a 3m euro claim on it. The parties will have to fight it out."

Roelant Klaassen, a lawyer representing Mr Starck's company, Ubik, told the Reuters news agency that the boat would remain in port pending payment by lawyers representing Mr Jobs' estate.

"These guys trusted each other, so there wasn't a very detailed contract," he said.

Mr Starck was unavailable for comment.

Gerard Moussault, the lawyer representing the owners of the Venus told the BBC: "I cannot comment at all on this, sorry."

The sleek, 260ft-long (80m) aluminium super-yacht cost 105m euros ($138m; £85m) and was launched in October, at Aalsmeer, The Netherlands.

Mr Starck is known for his striking designs for the Alessi company, including an aluminium lemon squeezer that is shaped like a spaceship.

He collaborated with Steve Jobs for five years on the project, describing the boat as "showing the elegance of intelligence."

The vessel is minimalist in style and is named after the Roman goddess of love and its windows measure 3m (10 feet) in height.

Mr Starck has said that Venus "looks strange for a boat" but said its shape comes from design ideas he shared with Mr Jobs.

Mr Jobs died of pancreatic cancer in 2011 and never saw his boat go to sea.


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EU accuses Samsung of patent abuse

21 December 2012 Last updated at 14:29 ET

EU competition regulators probing Samsung's patent litigation tactics believe the firm has abused its position.

The European Commission's "preliminary view" follows the South Korean firm's efforts to ban Apple products.

Investigators took issue with the fact that Samsung had based its claims on patents which lie at the heart of industry-shared technologies.

A final ruling will be issued once Samsung has presented its defence.

The two firms make the world's bestselling smartphones - the Galaxy S3 and the iPhone 5. They have been engaged in a range of patent battles across the globe despite the fact Apple buys some of its components from its rival.

Frand obligations

At the core of the EU's concerns is Samsung's use of what are termed "standard-essential" patents - specifically innovations without which Apple devices could not offer 3G mobile data connections.

Firms register patents as being standard-essential because it is supposed to guarantee them an income from anyone who wants to make use of a commonly offered technology. Other examples include the MPEG movie format and MP3 music standard.

In return for being granted such status the company commits itself to licensing an invention under Frand rules - meaning the terms must be fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory.

Companies owning Frand-registered innovations agree that they cannot discriminate who gets to use their inventions so long as they are paid a fee which cannot be excessive.

After Apple and Samsung failed to agree royalty rates for some of the Asian firm's 3G-related patents, Samsung launched lawsuits in Germany, the Netherlands and elsewhere.

Bearing in mind Apple was not opposed to the principle of paying a fee but had rather disagreed about the amount being demanded, the Commission said that Samsung's efforts to seek sales injunctions "harms competition".

"Intellectual property rights are an important cornerstone of the single market," said competition commissioner JoaquĆ­n Almunia.

"However, such rights should not be misused when they are essential to implement industry standards, which bring huge benefits to businesses and consumers alike.

"When companies have contributed their patents to an industry standard and have made a commitment to license the patents in return for fair remuneration, then the use of injunctions against willing licensees can be anti-competitive."

Cooperation promise

The Commission first announced it was probing Samsung over possible patent rights abuses in January.

Earlier this week the Galaxy phone maker said it would drop its attempts to ban some Apple products in Europe on the basis of its Frand-type wireless patents.

If the move was designed to convince the EU to drop the probe it failed.

A statement from Samsung said: "We are studying the statement and will firmly defend ourselves against any misconceived allegations.

"We will continue to fully cooperate with the Commission. Samsung is confident that in due course the Commission will conclude that we have acted in compliance with European Union competition laws."


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Queen's message hails Olympic stars

23 December 2012 Last updated at 19:01 ET
The Queen

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In her Christmas message, the Queen praises the ''skill, dedication, training and teamwork'' of the Olympic athletes

The Queen is to pay tribute to the nation's Olympic and Paralympic athletes in her Christmas broadcast.

She will hail the "splendid summer of sport" and highlight how the sportsmen and women allowed spectators to feel part of the "excitement and drama".

For the first time the address will be broadcast in 3D.

On Sunday, the Queen missed church as she was recovering from a cold, Buckingham Palace said. But she is expected to attend on Christmas Day.

A Buckingham Palace spokeswoman said the speech, which will be broadcast in full on Christmas Day, would focus on "service, achievement and the spirit of togetherness".

During the address the Queen will say: "As London hosted a splendid summer of sport, all those who saw the achievement and courage at the Olympic and Paralympic Games were further inspired by the skill, dedication, training and teamwork of our athletes.

"In pursuing their own sporting goals, they gave the rest of us the opportunity to share something of the excitement and drama."

The Queen had her own starring role in the London Olympics, declaring them officially open after appearing to parachute into the stadium with James Bond.

It has been an eventful year for the royal family, with the Queen celebrating her Diamond Jubilee in June, marked with UK-wide celebrations.

She also became the first British monarch to reach a 65th wedding anniversary.

But there were health scares, with Prince Philip, 91, forced to miss some key events during the Jubilee celebrations after being taken to hospital with a bladder infection.

'Absolutely lovely'

Earlier this month, her grandson Prince William announced that his wife the Duchess of Cambridge was expecting a baby.

Behind-the-scenes footage of the Christmas message, made on 7 December, has been released, showing the Queen meeting senior staff from Sky News which produced the broadcast this year.

In other footage she wears 3D glasses as she watches part of the broadcast.

The message was recorded in Buckingham Palace's white drawing room with the Queen wearing a fine silk tulle gown by Angela Kelly.

The Christmas address is written by the Queen and usually has a strong religious framework, reflects current issues and draws on her own experiences over the past year.

Her use of 3D technology comes 80 years after George V first broadcast a Christmas speech on the radio and started the 25 December tradition.

A Buckingham Palace spokeswoman said the monarch thought the broadcast was "absolutely lovely".

She added: "We wanted to do something a bit different and special in this Jubilee year, so doing it for the first time in 3D seemed a good thing, technology-wise, to do."

The message will be transmitted on both television and radio at 15:00 GMT on Christmas Day.

It will be available on the Royal Channel on the YouTube website and will also be shown in Commonwealth countries.

The broadcast will also be screened in standard and high definition.


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Newsweek unveils last print cover

24 December 2012 Last updated at 07:34 ET

The 80-year-old US current affairs magazine Newsweek has revealed the image that will grace the cover of its last-ever print edition.

A black and white photo of the publication's Manhattan headquarters takes pride of place, with the strapline #lastprintissue.

The nod to Twitter is regarded as a backhanded compliment.

The death of the print edition was caused by falling advertising revenues, as audiences moved online.

From the new year, Newsweek will be a digital-only publication. Editor Tina Brown described it as "a new chapter" for the magazine.

In a defiant editor's letter, she wrote: "This is not a conventional magazine, or a hidebound place.

"It is in that spirit that we're making our latest, momentous change, embracing a digital medium that all our competitors will one day need to embrace with the same fervor.

"We are ahead of the curve."

Ms Brown became editor of the publication two years ago, after it merged with The Daily Beast, a news website she co-founded in 2008.

'Bitter sweet'

Newsweek's first edition was published on 17 February, 1933. It made an immediate splash with its front cover, featuring seven photos - one news story for each day of the week.

Although it always took second place to its rival, Time, it gained prominence in the 1960s for its coverage of the civil rights movement.

At its height, it had a circulation of 3 million, but declining readership and advertising revenue saw it fall into losses.

It was sold by the Washington Post Company to businessman and publisher Sidney Harman for $1 in 2010, and was merged with the Daily Beast three months later.

Ms Brown is a former editor of Vanity Fair and The New Yorker. She unveiled Newsweek's final front cover via Twitter, saying: "Bitter sweet! Wish us luck!"

One reader commented that the hashtag headline was "like using your final breath to ID the killer".

The move to a digital edition will allow Newsweek to cut costs such as printing, postage and distribution. However it will lose money from print advertisers, who traditionally pay more than their online counterparts.

As the final edition went to the printers, The Daily Beast confirmed it would be making many of its editorial staff redundant.


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Game of Thrones tops TV piracy chart

24 December 2012 Last updated at 07:56 ET

Game of Thrones has emerged as the most-pirated TV show over the internet this year, according to news site Torrentfreak's latest annual survey.

It said one episode of the series had racked up 4,280,000 illegal global downloads - slightly more than than its estimated US television audience.

The site said that overall there had been a "small increase" in the amount of illegal sharing.

That was despite a "levelling out" of the activity the previous two years.

The rise also followed increased efforts to shut down or block websites providing access to copyright infringing material.

Investigations by the US, Mexican and Ukrainian authorities led to two of the best known file-sharing services disappearing earlier this year - digital locker service Megaupload and Bit Torrent link site Demonoid.

The administrators of Newzbin2 - a site which aggregated links to illegally copied material sourced from Usenet forums - also abandoned the operation after the UK courts forced internet service providers (ISPs) to block access.

In addition, UK-based Surfthechannel went offline after its owner went on trial for "facilitating" copyright infringement - a crime which resulted in him receiving a four year prison sentence.

Continue reading the main story

1. Game of Thrones

2. Dexter

3. The Big Bang Theory

4. How I Met Your Mother

5. Breaking Bad

6. The Walking Dead

7. Homeland

8. House

9. Fringe

10. Revolution

(Source: Torrentfreak)

Several countries ISPs have also been ordered to block The Pirate Bay, although political activists at Europe's Pirate Parties continue to offer proxy-based workarounds.

Delayed broadcasts

Despite all the closures, one episode of of Game of Thrones racked up 4,280,000 illegal global downloads, according to Torrentfreak. That was slightly more than than its estimated US television audience.

The level of piracy may be linked to the fact that the TV company behind it - HBO - does not allow Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime or other US streaming services access to its programmes. It instead restricts them to its own HBO Go online product, which is only available to its cable subscribers.

Outside the US, Torrentfreak noted that Australia was responsible for a disproportionate amount of illegal copies of Game of Thrones and suggested this may have been because episodes were broadcast locally a week later than in the US.

Torrentfreak's editor acknowledged that, despite his findings, HBO might still want to keep its current model.

"Not all of the people who pirate do it because it's free - availability is also a big factor," Ernesto Van Der Sar told the BBC.

"Most of the titles in the top 10 list are behind paywalls and are not distributed very widely. If TV companies offered them online to a broader audience, piracy would be lower than it is now.

"But I'm not sure that would be best for their revenues as they rely on expensive subscriptions which they still sell a lot of. If they allowed people to download individual episodes from Netflix, for example, they might not make as much money."

Ditched laws

The latest effort to combat piracy is a newly announced action plan by Russia and the US.

It involves the two countries:

  • Co-ordinating efforts with rights holders and law enforcement agencies to force copyright infringing content off the net and take action against those responsible for putting it online.
  • Pledging to seize and destroy equipment used to make the pirated files.
  • Working together on legislation, including plans for a Russian law to make ISPs liable for piracy carried over their networks.

"Intellectual property rights not only protect our creators and innovators, but also promote foreign investment, economic development, and job creation." said US Trade Representative Ron Kirk.

It follows success at introducing other anti-piracy action over the past year.

A series of website blackouts and protests led to the US's House of Representatives abandoning its Stop Online Piracy Act (Sopa) and the Senate its Protect Intellectual Property Act (Pipa) in January.

An attempt to bring in an international treaty - the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (Acta) - was also derailed after the European Parliament rejected it in July.

However, more recently countries have signalled they intend to press forward with anti-piracy efforts,

In September, Japan changed the law to introduce a maximum two year jail sentence for users found guilty of downloading pirated files.

Major ISPs in the US have announced plans to launch a "six strikes system" early next year, under which suspected pirates would be sent a series of warning letters before facing bandwidth throttling and other punitive measures. And the UK also plans to introduce a letter-writing scheme in 2013.


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Child abuse Twitter accounts closed

24 December 2012 Last updated at 08:10 ET

Several private Twitter accounts have been disabled after they were revealed to contain indecent images of children.

Some hacking groups are claiming to have unmasked them, the NSPCC said.

Members of the public have reported the accounts to Greater Manchester Police and North Yorkshire Police, while Ceop - the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre - says it is "aware".

The NSPCC asked people to "be vigilant" and report such suspicious activity.

Ceop - the policing unit dedicated to eradicating the sexual abuse of children - said it had had 25 to 30 reports of these accounts.

A Ceop spokesman said Twitter had disabled the accounts and would be reporting the find to the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) - Ceop's US equivalent - which as an American company it was legally required to.

"NCMEC will forward the account details to law enforcement in the countries where the individual concerned is," he said.

It is unclear whether the images were uploaded by a UK user, or a user based abroad.

The NSPCC said the accounts were made public in the early hours of Monday.

"To be honest, it's not a massive surprise. In our experience sex offenders will use whichever mean they can to connect with each other. They are usually quite devious," a spokesman said.

He asked people to be vigilant.

"It you see something, or are aware of something, you should report it."

As for those people storing such content, Professor Alan Woodward, of the University of Surrey's department of computing, said they were increasingly using social media rather than computers.

"If they use the web to keep any pictures then they will be able to claim it wasn't them. The weight of evidence isn't the same."

Twitter is yet to comment.


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DIY Tardis is 'bigger on its inside'

24 December 2012 Last updated at 09:52 ET By Leo Kelion Technology reporter
The home made Tardis

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Greg Kumparak shows how his Tardis looks bigger on the inside

A US-based Doctor Who fan has built a model of the Tardis designed to look bigger on its inside than its outside.

Rather than circumvent the laws of physics Greg Kumparak has relied on augmented reality (AR).

The actual interior of his wooden model features a zebra-striped fabric.

But when a smartphone is held in front of it running an AR app, it appears to show a spacious interior modelled on the ninth and tenth Doctors' time machine.

Mr Kumparak, former mobile editor at the Techcrunch news site, said he decided to embark on the project over his Thanksgiving break.

He had carved the exterior out of wood, painted it blue and attached a working light to its top before coming up with the idea of creating the illusion that the inside was huge.

"There's a running gag in Doctor Who, wherein new characters are always dumbstruck by the Tardis being bigger on the inside than it appeared on the outside," he wrote on his blog.

"Once I realised I had a rough idea of how to pull that off, I couldn't not do it."

Digital dimensions

To bring his idea to life, the Silicon Valley-based designer first created a 3D computer model of the Tardis's interior using the free-to-use open source computer software programme Blender.

He then used the Unity graphics rendering engine - commonly used by independent video games developers - and Vuforia - an AR app development platform made by the chip maker Qualcomm - to allow a smartphone to interact with his creation.

The only problem was that the software needed to latch onto a specific part of the model to be able to map out the appropriate view of the Tardis's interior.

Mr Kumparak initially tried using the sign on the police box's door which says: "Free for use of public", but it proved to be too small to work.

So, he ultimately detached the front door and added a piece of material with a black-and-white pattern. The smartphone software could then use this to work out which part of its camera's image should be superimposed and what angle of the interior image should be shown.

Reaction to the invention has been overwhelming positive on Twitter and YouTube - a site notorious for attracting some of the web's harshest feedback.

"Insanely cool," wrote one admirer. "You have just made my Xmas," posted another.

One user suggested the inventor might like to add features - perhaps even allowing the Doctor and some of his companions to appear inside.

"The feedback has been resoundingly positive so far," Mr Kumparak told the BBC.

"Almost shockingly so, really. Doctor Who fans might be some of the nicest people on the internet."

He added that there might be an opportunity to develop the idea further.

"I originally made this just to brush up on a few new skills and to have something fun for my desk - that so many others got excited about it is really just a wonderful surprise.

"I've had more requests than I can count to make it into something others can obtain, be it as a store-bought toy or a printable kit.

"If anyone in the right department at the BBC is reading this and wants to make that happen, I'd love to lend a hand."


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Retailers launch online bargains

24 December 2012 Last updated at 12:20 ET

The battle for the consumer has moved online with retailers bringing forward the start of sales after reports of lacklustre spending on the High Street.

Marks & Spencer and John Lewis are among major names to start discounting online in the hope that shoppers will be browsing sites over Christmas.

Sales online have traditionally begun on Christmas Day or Boxing Day.

Reports that millions of consumers will spend the holiday shopping online prompted a warning from Church leaders.

Former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey said Christmas was a "special time" and should be spent with family and not logging-on. "We are now in danger of the gadgets taking over our lives and we are not in control of them," he said.

And Steve Jenkins, a spokesman for the Church of England, urged people to make time to go to church and "maybe spend a bit of time online spending their new Christmas vouchers".

But with the British Retail Consortium (BRC) warning that Christmas sales generally were likely to be "acceptable" rather than "exceptional", retailers are looking for every opportunity to maximise sales.

M&S began its sales online at midday on Monday, while department store John Lewis said it would cut online prices when its stores close at 1700 GMT.

Debenhams has already started its online sale. Online giant Amazon will start its sale on Christmas morning, a day earlier than usual.

Continue reading the main story

We suspect that people will likely be more careful in buying - or reluctant to buy - items that they don't really want or need in the sales"

End Quote Howard Archer IHS Global Insight

A report from Ofcom, the telecoms regulator, has estimated that shoppers spend an average £1,000 a year online each year. This is more than in any other country, including the US.

The popularity of online retailing contrasts with continued problems for the High Street.

'Modest'

The BRC forecast that £5bn would be spent in the shops on Saturday and Sunday combined, the last weekend before Christmas. But Richard Dodd, the BRC's head of Media and Campaigns, said that was nothing to get excited about, adding: "It's been a very busy weekend which will be crucial to delivering a Christmas that is acceptable, rather than exceptional."

He forecast a modest increase in cash spending on a year go, but not necessarily any significant increase because household finances are under pressure.

Economist analyst Howard Archer at IHS Global Insight said the weakening in household finances could not come at a worse time for retailers, and it highlighted why Christmas spending was so modest.

"The suspicion has to be that consumers will be especially keen to take advantage of genuine major bargains in the sales to acquire items that they cannot otherwise afford or are reluctant to make at the moment," he said.

"However, we suspect that people will likely to be more careful in buying - or reluctant to buy - items that they don't really want or need in the sales."

Nevertheless, some shops reported brisk trading.

Sainsbury's reported its busiest ever hour in terms of customers served from midday to 1pm on Sunday, while 35 branches opened at midnight and traded until 6pm on Monday.

More than a million visitors were expected in London's West End during the three-day period from Saturday to Christmas Eve, during which more than £100m was expected to be spent.

'Critical condition'

Bluewater shopping centre in Kent was also anticipating a surge in sales on Monday as Saturday's footfall was up 14% from the previous week.

And the problems facing retailers was underlined on Monday in a report by business recovery group Begbies Traynor. It estimated that tough Christmas trading conditions had left nearly 140 firms in a "critical" condition.

Book retailers were among those in significant distress, hit by competition from players such as Amazon, while convenience stores have suffered from the rising dominance of supermarkets.

However, online retailers have seen sales figures improve, Begbies said.


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US Johansson hacker gets 10 years

Written By Unknown on Selasa, 18 Desember 2012 | 23.43

17 December 2012 Last updated at 17:35 ET

A US man who hacked into the email accounts of Scarlett Johansson, Christina Aguilera and others has been jailed for 10 years in Los Angeles.

Christopher Chaney, of Jacksonville, Florida, admitted wiretapping and unauthorised access to a computer.

Prosecutors said Chaney had accessed the emails of more than 50 celebrities.

The most notorious incident involved nude photos Johansson had taken of herself for her then-husband that were posted on the internet.

'Operation Hackerazzi'

Chaney, 35, was jailed by US District Judge S James Otero.

"It's hard to fathom the mindset of a person who would accomplish all of this," the judge said, Associated Press reported. "These types of crimes are as pernicious and serious as physical stalking."

Chaney said: "I don't know what else to say other than I'm sorry. I could be sentenced to never use a computer again and I wouldn't care."

Johansson, Aguilera and the Friends With Benefits star, Mila Kunis, agreed to waive protection of their identity in order to highlight the issues surrounding such internet hacking.

Chaney, who initially pleaded not guilty to the charges, was arrested in October 2011 as part of a year-long FBI investigation of celebrity hacking that authorities dubbed "Operation Hackerazzi".

Chaney admitted he hacked into the personal emails of his targets by clicking on the "forgot password" feature of their accounts and answering security questions by using publicly available information about celebrities that he found on the internet.

Once in control of the accounts, he obtained private photos, business contracts, scripts, and other documents.

He also went through contacts lists to find other victims and sometimes posed as friends to request more private photos.

Chaney then forwarded many of the images he found, including nude photos of Johansson, to gossip websites which posted them online.

Johansson told Vanity Fair last December that the photos were meant for her then-husband Ryan Reynolds.


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Fire brigade considers 999 by tweet

17 December 2012 Last updated at 19:03 ET

The London Fire Brigade has said it is considering allowing people to tweet emergencies instead of dialling 999.

It currently advises against using social media to make the service aware of fires as it is not monitored 24 hours a day.

But it has acknowledged that the increasing proliferation of smart phones means they must "improve how we communicate with the public".

It said it would share its experiences with other emergency services.

"With over a billion people now using Facebook and half a billion using Twitter, it's quite clear that social media is here to stay," said Rita Dexter, deputy commissioner of the London Fire Brigade (LFB).

"The London Fire Brigade is the biggest fire service in the country and we think it's important to look into ways to improve how we communicate with the public and how they can get in touch with us."

'Working blind'

Many emergency services around the country are making use of social media to track and monitor fires.

One particular incident, a large blaze in west London in January, had firefighters scouring social media to get as much information about the incident as possible.

Due to the police helicopter not being available, the LFB turned to its Twitter followers who were in the area to take pictures and describe the scene.

Information was relayed back to experts at headquarters who were able to make an assessment as to the severity of the situation.

Smoke coming out of what is thought to be a dairy in west London

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At its height, about 75 firefighters tackled the blaze

Without help from social media, the LFB said, it would have taken longer to control the fire.

30 million calls

Other activities by fire brigades includes tweeting awareness campaigns around traditionally busy periods - such as a bonfire night.

Now, accounts like @LondonFire have attracted over 30,000 followers.

"When it was first set up in 1935, people said that dialling 999 to report emergencies would never work," said Ms Dexter.

"Today BT handles over 30 million emergency calls each year.

"It's time to look at new ways for people to report emergencies quickly and efficiently and social media could provide the answer in the future."


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Facebook underwriter is fined $5m

17 December 2012 Last updated at 23:16 ET

Morgan Stanley has been fined $5m (£3m) by the Massachusetts securities regulator for "improperly influencing" analysts before Facebook's share sale.

According to the regulator, there was a conflict of interest when a senior banker coached a Facebook official on what to say to analysts.

It also claimed that the two firms failed to tell all investors that revenues may be lower than forecast.

Many investors criticised Facebook as its shares fell following the listing.

The sale, which was over-subscribed and took place in May 2012, was one of the most hotly anticipated stock floatations in recent history and valued the eight-year-old firm at $104bn.

Facebook sold close to 421 million shares, at $38 a share, raising $16bn.

However, the hype surrounding the listing waned shortly after trading started on the New York stock exchange as shares fell below their listing price on concerns about the pace of future profit growth.

Facebook's shares have dipped almost 30% since its listing in May.

Morgan Stanley did not confirm or deny the allegations by the regulator.

However, it said in statement that it was pleased to have reached a settlement and to have put the matter behind it.

"Morgan Stanley is committed to robust compliance with both the letter and the spirit of all applicable regulations and laws," it added.

Mobile ads

The regulator's case focused on events tied to Facebook and its road show, which promoted the share sale to investors.

It alleged that during this period, Facebook informed Morgan Stanley that it expected revenue for the second-quarter of the year to be at the lower end of its forecast of between $1.1bn and $1.2bn.

Analysts had initially forecast that it would either be at the higher end of that range, or above it.

At the same time, Facebook also said that annual revenues for 2012 may miss its initial forecast of $5bn by as much as 3.5%.

The problem affecting Facebook was that an increasing number of people were visiting its website via mobile devices, such as phones or tablet computers.

Facebook warned that because it did not display advertising on the mobile versions of its website, then there may be a decline in revenue from ad sales, its biggest source of income.

According to the Massachusetts investigation, Facebook first filed an amendment to its listing documents on 3 May, in which it warned that revenue growth may be "negatively affected" by this shift from personal computers to mobile devices.

This was followed by a second amendment on 9 May in which it highlighted the weaker revenue trend for the second quarter of the year, running from the start of April to the end of June.

The Massachusetts investigation claims that Facebook told a senior Morgan Stanley investment banker on 8 May about the problem.

The banker then helped orchestrate calls between the company and analysts.

In his order, William Galvin, the Secretary of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, said that the bank helped Facebook give out this information "without creating the appearance of not providing the underlying trend information to all investors".

In this way, Facebook said it would be able to brief analysts covering its stock about the problems, "without someone claiming we are providing any selective disclosure to big accounts only".


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Apple denied Samsung sales ban

18 December 2012 Last updated at 01:45 ET

A US judge has rejected Apple's plea to ban sales of Samsung's smartphones that violate its patents.

Apple had requested the ban after a jury ruled earlier this year that some Samsung products had infringed Apple's patents.

Samsung was also ordered to pay $1.05bn (£650m) in damages, a ruling the South Korean firm has since challenged.

However, the judge said there was not enough evidence that the infringed patents had hurt Apple's US sales.

"The phones at issue in this case contain a broad range of features, only a small fraction of which are covered by Apple's patents," District Judge Lucy Koh said.

"Though Apple does have some interest in retaining certain features as exclusive to Apple, it does not follow that entire products must be forever banned from the market because they incorporate, among their myriad features, a few narrow protected functions."

Losing steam?

Since winning $1.05bn damages in August this year, Apple has suffered setbacks in its various legal clashes with rivals.

Continue reading the main story

The momentum that Apple had gained in the wake of the big billion-dollar judgement seems to be losing its steam"

End Quote Manoj Menon Frost & Sullivan

Last month, Apple was asked to disclose the details of its patent-sharing deal with HTC to Samsung.

It has also lost an appeal against a UK ruling that Samsung had not infringed its design rights.

The US technology firm was also asked by a UK High Court to publish a statement on its website admitting that Samsung had not infringed its designs.

Meanwhile, sales bans sought by Apple against Samsung's Galaxy Nexus phone and Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet computer in the US were also lifted in October.

In November, a judge in the US dismissed a case brought by Apple alleging that Google's Motorola unit was seeking excessive royalty payments for patents.

"The momentum that Apple had gained in the wake of the big billion dollar judgement seems to be losing its steam," Manoj Menon, managing director at consulting firm Frost & Sullivan told the BBC.

"It appears that Apple will find it increasingly difficult to convince courts around the world that it has been hurt by alleged patent infringements."

Patent sharing

The smartphone market has seen tremendous growth over the past few years and Apple and Samsung have emerged as two of the biggest players in the sector.

The success of Apple's iPhone has been a key driver of its growth, while Samsung has reported record quarterly profits helped by the popularity of its Galaxy range of smartphones.

However, as their market share has increased, so has the intensity of their legal battles with each other.

The two firms have filed legal cases against each other in more than 10 countries, each accusing the other of violating its patents.

However, analysts said that it was time the two companies sat down together and agreed on an amicable solution to their tussles - a move that has also been suggested previously by a judge in the US.

Mr Menon of Frost & Sullivan said that as manufacturers look to develop even more advanced phones, they will eventually need to use technologies, the patents for which may not belong to them.

"What we are seeing is a convergence of different technologies into one device," he said.

He explained that for innovation to continue in the sector it was key that various companies agreed to licensing terms for their patents.

Last month, Apple agreed such a deal with Taiwanese phone-maker HTC as it signed a 10-year licence agreement that ended their legal battle over patents.


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Comet stores open for final day

18 December 2012 Last updated at 02:45 ET
Comet customer

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Shoppers at Comet's Lincoln store sought closing down sale bargains

Comet stores are to close their doors for the last time on Tuesday, bringing the failed electrical retailer's 79-year history to an end.

Of the 236 stores the firm presided over when it went into administration last month, only 49 are still open.

On Monday, administrators Deloitte said unsecured creditors would get back less than 1% of the money owed to them.

The chain's collapse will also cost the government £49.4m in redundancy payments and foregone tax revenues.

The redundancy money owed to thousands of former Comet workers totals £23.2m and will be paid by the government's Redundancy Payments Service (RPS).

Meanwhile, £26.2m is owed in taxes to HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC), which is one of dozens of unsecured creditors of the retailer who are owed a total of £233m, none of which will be repaid.

Other unsecured lenders reportedly include landlords owed £135m in rents and other claims, manufacturers unable to reclaim goods delivered to Comet on credit worth £6m, and various other claimants owed £66m, such as ITV and Google, which had reportedly not been paid for advertising.

Big losses

The total hole in Comet's balance sheet by the time it was wound up had reached £311m, according to Deloitte's estimations.

Comet's secured lenders will also be stung by the firm's failure, receiving only £50m of the £145m they are owed, as the assets on which their debts were secured could not be sold off at a high enough price.

The company's main secured lender is Hailey, the company set up by private equity firm OpCapita in order to buy up Comet from Anglo-French retail group Kesa last year for a nominal £1 payment.

Continue reading the main story

Founded in 1933 as a business charging radio batteries

Opened its first store in Hull in 1968

Bought by Woolworths and B&Q owner Kingfisher in 1984, which expanded Comet into one of the UK's best-known retail brands

In 2003 Comet became part of Kesa Electricals, after Kesa was demerged from Kingfisher

It was announced in November 2011 that Comet would be sold to private equity group OpCapita for just £1

OpCapita was also given £50m by Kesa as part of the deal

However, OpCapita failed to turn around Comet's fortunes, as the company continued to suffer from the fall in UK consumer spending during the recession and the big growth in online rivals.

Deloitte also revealed on Monday that Comet's losses in the year to April totalled £95m, while its revenues slumped by £200m.

In the subsequent five months, Comet lost a further £31m.

Towards the end, insurers refused to guarantee suppliers, who in turn refused to extend credit on sales to Comet in the run-up to the crucial Christmas sales period.

Comet's demise is one of the biggest High Street casualties of recent years.

The 236-store business, which at the time employed about 7,000 people, was founded in Hull in 1933 and began life selling batteries and radios.

The closure of the final Comet stores comes after Deloitte failed to find a buyer for the company.

It is unclear what will become of the Comet brand, with one possibility being a sale to an online retailer, similar to the fate of Woolworths.

Kesa Electricals was renamed Darty in July this year.

Despite having its headquarters in London, it focuses on the continental market - especially France, where it has more than 200 stores under the Darty name.


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Facebook real name row in Germany

18 December 2012 Last updated at 05:24 ET

A German data protection body has ordered Facebook to end its policy of making members use their real names.

The policy violates German laws that give people the right to use pseudonyms online, said the data protection agency in Schleswig-Holstein.

The agency has issued a decree demanding that Facebook let people use fake names immediately.

Facebook said it would fight the decree "vigorously" and that its naming policy met European data protection rules.

"It is unacceptable that a US portal like Facebook violates German data protection law unopposed and with no prospect of an end," said Thilo Weichert, head of the regional data protection office in Schleswig Holstein, in a statement.

The ability to use a pseudonym on Facebook was "reasonable" said Mr Weichert and would allow people to use the service "without fear of unpleasant consequences".

Facebook's long-standing policy of making people use their real names did nothing to prevent people using the social network to throw insults or to hamper identity theft, he added.

Schleswig Holstein is piloting the action against Facebook and if it is successful the decision is likely to be adopted by the nation's other data protection agencies, it said, adding that the social network now has two weeks to oppose the decree in a German court.

The decree issued by the Schleswig Holstein office was "without merit" a Facebook spokeswoman told tech news site IT World adding that it planned to fight the order.


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Orange tops broadband complaints

18 December 2012 Last updated at 07:22 ET

Internet service provider Orange has knocked TalkTalk off the top position in Ofcom's broadband complaints chart.

Figures for the third quarter of 2012 show a higher proportion of Orange customers lodged complaints about its broadband services than any other firm.

The spike in complaints is believed to be linked to Orange's withdrawal of a free broadband offer.

TalkTalk, which has topped the list since Ofcom started compiling it in 2010, slipped to second place.

Figures from Ofcom reveal that Orange, now known as Everything Everywhere (EE), generated almost twice as many complaints per thousand customers in 2012's third quarter than in the three months before.

In September, EE said customers would lose its free broadband service unless they signed up for line rental at £14 per month from the firm. Ofcom said this policy change generated a surge of complaints as many people expected to keep the free service until the end of their current monthly mobile contract.

TalkTalk was second in the chart of most complained about broadband ISPs. Ofcom added that the number of complaints it was generating had continued to fall. Despite this, it added, complaints about TalkTalk remained above the industry average at 0.35 for every 1,000 subscribers. On average, fixed broadband services generate 0.24 complaints for every 1,000 customers.

Although it did better on broadband complaints, TalkTalk generated the most negative feedback about its fixed landline phone services.

The report is the seventh that Ofcom has produced and it logs complaints about broadband, fixed telephone services, Pay TV and pay monthly mobile services.


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Instagram seeks right to sell photos

18 December 2012 Last updated at 07:37 ET

Facebook's photo-sharing site Instagram has updated its privacy policy giving it the right to sell users' photos to advertisers without notification.

Unless users delete their Instagram accounts by a deadline of 16 January, they cannot opt out.

The changes also mean Instagram can share information about its users with Facebook, its parent company, as well as other affiliates and advertisers.

The move riled social media users, with one likening it to a "suicide note".

The new policies follow Facebook's record $1bn (£616m; 758 euro) acquisition of Instagram in April.

Facebook's vice-president of global marketing solutions Carolyn Everson earlier this month had said: "Eventually we'll figure out a way to monetise Instagram."

A notice updating the privacy policy on the Instagram site said: "We may share your information as well as information from tools like cookies, log files, and device identifiers and location data with organisations that help us provide the service to you... (and) third-party advertising partners."

"To help us deliver interesting paid or sponsored content or promotions, you agree that a business may pay us to display your username, likeness, photos, in connection with paid or sponsored content or promotions, without any compensation to you," it said in its terms of use.

But Instagram said that its aim was to make it easier to work with Facebook.

"This means we can do things like fight spam more effectively, detect system and reliability problems more quickly, and build better features for everyone by understanding how Instagram is used," it said in a statement.

'Suicide note'

However, the updated policy will not change how it handles photo ownership or who is able to see a user's pictures, it added.

But the new policy has triggered a backlash among social media users, with some threatening to quit.

One user tweeted: "Good bye #instagram. Your new terms of service are totally stupid and nonsense. Good luck playing with the big boys."

New York-based photographer Clayton Cubbit wrote on his account that the new policy was "Instagram's suicide note".

Analysts said that the new policies could deal a blow to Facebook's reputation and alienate some users.

Richard Holway, chairman of TechMarketView, said: "Every time Facebook has altered their privacy policy it has led to a backlash and they've been forced to retreat. They tamper with people's privacy at a cost. People are very upset."

Alan Pelz-Sharpe, research director at 451 Research, added: "It's a barefaced tactic that Facebook and Instagram have taken, and one that will likely meet with many challenges, legally and ethically.

"The fact is that Facebook has critical mass, and is quite confident that such moves may cause uproar, but not a flight of business.

"Larger firms like Facebook are essentially trailblazing before specific regulations can catch up with them, and as we have seen with Google in the past, regulations and laws have limited real impact on their business operations - so they tend to move forward regardless of opposition."


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Net name .cymru leaps ahead of .scot

18 December 2012 Last updated at 07:42 ET

Proposed net address endings .tattoo, .transformers and .menu are among the first that could go live next year.

A raffle by regulator Icann has placed them near the top of the list of applications it will review.

Of the proposed new geographic suffixes, Wales's .cymru will be one of the first to be evaluated. However, .scot and .irish are likely to have to wait until 2014.

The first domains to go live could enjoy an early-mover advantage.

The list of 1,917 generic top-level domains (gTLDs) applications was determined by the order tickets were randomly pulled out of drums at a hotel in Los Angeles on Monday.

Companies were charged a $100 (£62) fee for each application they they wanted in the draw.

In some cases they decided not to take part. As a result several of Google's submissions will be among those last to be judged.

Same names

An early evaluation is not an absolute guarantee a suffix will go live early.

Governments have lodged "early objections" to more than 250 of them - meaning the proposed address may be rejected.

In addition, several companies are competing for identical gTLDs.

Continue reading the main story

199 .tokyo

200 .paris

220 .swiss

244 .cymru

258 .thai

288 .budapest

194 .okinawa

635 .london

786 .roma

807 .wales

866 .istanbul

881 .moscow

1,005 .africa

1,069 .persiangulf

1,165 .amsterdam

1,345 .madrid

1,491 .irish

1,453 .scot

1,531 .yokohama

1,653 .zuerich

1,738 .barcelona

1,872 .patagonia

So, for example. Amazon's application for .play is near the top of the list. But it faces having to wait for a submission for the same name from Star Registry - which is 1,792nd in order - to be reviewed and a potential auction held if both are approved before the suffix can be activated.

Icann's raffle did not go without glitch. At one point a live feed of the event failed causing the organisers to temporarily halt the process to ensure it remained transparent.

The event ended up lasting more than nine hours - significantly longer than planned.

Tickets for about 100 non-Latin applications were picked from the drums first, placing a submission for the equivalent of .church in Chinese from the Vatican at the top of the list. It was followed by the Japanese for .store by Amazon.

Of the English-language proposals, unique applications set for an early review include .delmonte from the American food company; .mormon from a firm called IRI Domain Management; .fiat from the car company; and .joy from Amazon.

First movers

Businesses and other users will be able to apply to run websites using the new address suffixes in cases where the new owner decides it does not want to restrict its use.

They will be able to do so so by applying to domain name registration services which will act as middle-men, charging a fee which will be shared with the owner.

One UK-based registrar said that the initial new gTLDs to go live would benefit from their early start.

"Those that go first will get a lot more marketing opportunities," Kelly Salter from names.co.uk told the BBC.

"At the moment there are relatively few extensions to choose from that give you global coverage - so there is the opportunity to get great exposure.

"But if you're number 500 to be approved, our customers will have become desensitised by that point. So the impact to domains launching towards the end of the process will be that they have to work harder to make people want to use them."

Icann has said it plans to let the first batch of new gTLDs in May 2013.

Ms Salter said after the launch date she expected about 20 would be released each week with the final ones going live before the end of 2014.


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SpongeBob in hot water over privacy

18 December 2012 Last updated at 08:41 ET

A SpongeBob app became the latest game to be pulled following a complaint it had violated children's privacy rights.

Nickelodeon removed SpongeBob Diner Dash from Apple's iTunes app store after a US advocacy group contacted the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

The Center for Digital Democracy said children's email addresses had been collected without parental consent.

Last week another children's app, Mobbles, was temporarily pulled after the CDD filed a similar complaint.

The Washington DC-based group urged the FTC to investigate Nickelodeon and mobile game-maker PlayFirst's privacy practices.

It said their "deceptive" mobile marketing technologies had violated the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).

"The SpongeBob Diner Dash game asks children to provide a wide range of personal information, including full name, email address, and other online contact information, without providing notice to parents or obtaining prior parental consent, as required by the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act," a statement said.

"Nor does the app provide an adequate description of the personal information it collects or how it is used".

The advocacy group said the app's use of technologies such as unique device identifiers (UDIDs) allowed companies to send customised messages to individual children in the form of "push notifications" that required online contact information - considered personal information under the COPPA rules.

Nickelodeon was unable to be reached for comment.

The app is free to download, but is designed to encourage users to buy virtual "coins" that can be spent on items for SpongeBob like shoes or a frying pan, or to buy upgraded versions of the game.

Need for informed choices

Laura Moy, a lawyer at Georgetown Law's Institute for Public Representation, which prepared the complaint on behalf of the Center for Digitial Democracy (CDD), said: "It is disturbing to learn that a well known children's brand such as Nickelodeon is flouting basic privacy protections for children. Even more troubling, Nickelodeon tells parents that it complies with the law protecting children's privacy when it does not."

Last week the game Mobbles, in which children collect and care for virtual pets, was temporarily pulled from the Apple App store and Google Android Play store.

The FTC last week published a report on mobile apps for children that showed parents were not being provided with information about what data an app collected, who would have access to that data, and how it would be used.

The report said that nearly 60% of the apps examined by the FTC were transmitting information about a user to an advertiser or other third party.

FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz said: "While we think most companies have the best intentions when it comes to protecting kids' privacy, we haven't seen any progress when it comes to making sure parents have the information they need to make informed choices about apps for their kids."

"In fact, our study shows that kids' apps siphon an alarming amount of information from mobile devices without disclosing this fact to parents," he added.

"All of the companies in the mobile app space, especially the gatekeepers of the app stores, need to do a better job. We'll do another survey in the future and we will expect to see improvement."


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US Johansson hacker gets 10 years

17 December 2012 Last updated at 17:35 ET

A US man who hacked into the email accounts of Scarlett Johansson, Christina Aguilera and others has been jailed for 10 years in Los Angeles.

Christopher Chaney, of Jacksonville, Florida, admitted wiretapping and unauthorised access to a computer.

Prosecutors said Chaney had accessed the emails of more than 50 celebrities.

The most notorious incident involved nude photos Johansson had taken of herself for her then-husband that were posted on the internet.

'Operation Hackerazzi'

Chaney, 35, was jailed by US District Judge S James Otero.

"It's hard to fathom the mindset of a person who would accomplish all of this," the judge said, Associated Press reported. "These types of crimes are as pernicious and serious as physical stalking."

Chaney said: "I don't know what else to say other than I'm sorry. I could be sentenced to never use a computer again and I wouldn't care."

Johansson, Aguilera and the Friends With Benefits star, Mila Kunis, agreed to waive protection of their identity in order to highlight the issues surrounding such internet hacking.

Chaney, who initially pleaded not guilty to the charges, was arrested in October 2011 as part of a year-long FBI investigation of celebrity hacking that authorities dubbed "Operation Hackerazzi".

Chaney admitted he hacked into the personal emails of his targets by clicking on the "forgot password" feature of their accounts and answering security questions by using publicly available information about celebrities that he found on the internet.

Once in control of the accounts, he obtained private photos, business contracts, scripts, and other documents.

He also went through contacts lists to find other victims and sometimes posed as friends to request more private photos.

Chaney then forwarded many of the images he found, including nude photos of Johansson, to gossip websites which posted them online.

Johansson told Vanity Fair last December that the photos were meant for her then-husband Ryan Reynolds.


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Fire brigade considers 999 by tweet

17 December 2012 Last updated at 19:03 ET

The London Fire Brigade has said it is considering allowing people to tweet emergencies instead of dialling 999.

It currently advises against using social media to make the service aware of fires as it is not monitored 24 hours a day.

But it has acknowledged that the increasing proliferation of smart phones means they must "improve how we communicate with the public".

It said it would share its experiences with other emergency services.

"With over a billion people now using Facebook and half a billion using Twitter, it's quite clear that social media is here to stay," said Rita Dexter, deputy commissioner of the London Fire Brigade (LFB).

"The London Fire Brigade is the biggest fire service in the country and we think it's important to look into ways to improve how we communicate with the public and how they can get in touch with us."

'Working blind'

Many emergency services around the country are making use of social media to track and monitor fires.

One particular incident, a large blaze in west London in January, had firefighters scouring social media to get as much information about the incident as possible.

Due to the police helicopter not being available, the LFB turned to its Twitter followers who were in the area to take pictures and describe the scene.

Information was relayed back to experts at headquarters who were able to make an assessment as to the severity of the situation.

Smoke coming out of what is thought to be a dairy in west London

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At its height, about 75 firefighters tackled the blaze

Without help from social media, the LFB said, it would have taken longer to control the fire.

30 million calls

Other activities by fire brigades includes tweeting awareness campaigns around traditionally busy periods - such as a bonfire night.

Now, accounts like @LondonFire have attracted over 30,000 followers.

"When it was first set up in 1935, people said that dialling 999 to report emergencies would never work," said Ms Dexter.

"Today BT handles over 30 million emergency calls each year.

"It's time to look at new ways for people to report emergencies quickly and efficiently and social media could provide the answer in the future."


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Apple denied Samsung sales ban

18 December 2012 Last updated at 01:45 ET

A US judge has rejected Apple's plea to ban sales of Samsung's smartphones that violate its patents.

Apple had requested the ban after a jury ruled earlier this year that some Samsung products had infringed Apple's patents.

Samsung was also ordered to pay $1.05bn (£650m) in damages, a ruling the South Korean firm has since challenged.

However, the judge said there was not enough evidence that the infringed patents had hurt Apple's US sales.

"The phones at issue in this case contain a broad range of features, only a small fraction of which are covered by Apple's patents," District Judge Lucy Koh said.

"Though Apple does have some interest in retaining certain features as exclusive to Apple, it does not follow that entire products must be forever banned from the market because they incorporate, among their myriad features, a few narrow protected functions."

Losing steam?

Since winning $1.05bn damages in August this year, Apple has suffered setbacks in its various legal clashes with rivals.

Continue reading the main story

The momentum that Apple had gained in the wake of the big billion-dollar judgement seems to be losing its steam"

End Quote Manoj Menon Frost & Sullivan

Last month, Apple was asked to disclose the details of its patent-sharing deal with HTC to Samsung.

It has also lost an appeal against a UK ruling that Samsung had not infringed its design rights.

The US technology firm was also asked by a UK High Court to publish a statement on its website admitting that Samsung had not infringed its designs.

Meanwhile, sales bans sought by Apple against Samsung's Galaxy Nexus phone and Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet computer in the US were also lifted in October.

In November, a judge in the US dismissed a case brought by Apple alleging that Google's Motorola unit was seeking excessive royalty payments for patents.

"The momentum that Apple had gained in the wake of the big billion dollar judgement seems to be losing its steam," Manoj Menon, managing director at consulting firm Frost & Sullivan told the BBC.

"It appears that Apple will find it increasingly difficult to convince courts around the world that it has been hurt by alleged patent infringements."

Patent sharing

The smartphone market has seen tremendous growth over the past few years and Apple and Samsung have emerged as two of the biggest players in the sector.

The success of Apple's iPhone has been a key driver of its growth, while Samsung has reported record quarterly profits helped by the popularity of its Galaxy range of smartphones.

However, as their market share has increased, so has the intensity of their legal battles with each other.

The two firms have filed legal cases against each other in more than 10 countries, each accusing the other of violating its patents.

However, analysts said that it was time the two companies sat down together and agreed on an amicable solution to their tussles - a move that has also been suggested previously by a judge in the US.

Mr Menon of Frost & Sullivan said that as manufacturers look to develop even more advanced phones, they will eventually need to use technologies, the patents for which may not belong to them.

"What we are seeing is a convergence of different technologies into one device," he said.

He explained that for innovation to continue in the sector it was key that various companies agreed to licensing terms for their patents.

Last month, Apple agreed such a deal with Taiwanese phone-maker HTC as it signed a 10-year licence agreement that ended their legal battle over patents.


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Facebook underwriter is fined $5m

17 December 2012 Last updated at 23:16 ET

Morgan Stanley has been fined $5m (£3m) by the Massachusetts securities regulator for "improperly influencing" analysts before Facebook's share sale.

According to the regulator, there was a conflict of interest when a senior banker coached a Facebook official on what to say to analysts.

It also claimed that the two firms failed to tell all investors that revenues may be lower than forecast.

Many investors criticised Facebook as its shares fell following the listing.

The sale, which was over-subscribed and took place in May 2012, was one of the most hotly anticipated stock floatations in recent history and valued the eight-year-old firm at $104bn.

Facebook sold close to 421 million shares, at $38 a share, raising $16bn.

However, the hype surrounding the listing waned shortly after trading started on the New York stock exchange as shares fell below their listing price on concerns about the pace of future profit growth.

Facebook's shares have dipped almost 30% since its listing in May.

Morgan Stanley did not confirm or deny the allegations by the regulator.

However, it said in statement that it was pleased to have reached a settlement and to have put the matter behind it.

"Morgan Stanley is committed to robust compliance with both the letter and the spirit of all applicable regulations and laws," it added.

Mobile ads

The regulator's case focused on events tied to Facebook and its road show, which promoted the share sale to investors.

It alleged that during this period, Facebook informed Morgan Stanley that it expected revenue for the second-quarter of the year to be at the lower end of its forecast of between $1.1bn and $1.2bn.

Analysts had initially forecast that it would either be at the higher end of that range, or above it.

At the same time, Facebook also said that annual revenues for 2012 may miss its initial forecast of $5bn by as much as 3.5%.

The problem affecting Facebook was that an increasing number of people were visiting its website via mobile devices, such as phones or tablet computers.

Facebook warned that because it did not display advertising on the mobile versions of its website, then there may be a decline in revenue from ad sales, its biggest source of income.

According to the Massachusetts investigation, Facebook first filed an amendment to its listing documents on 3 May, in which it warned that revenue growth may be "negatively affected" by this shift from personal computers to mobile devices.

This was followed by a second amendment on 9 May in which it highlighted the weaker revenue trend for the second quarter of the year, running from the start of April to the end of June.

The Massachusetts investigation claims that Facebook told a senior Morgan Stanley investment banker on 8 May about the problem.

The banker then helped orchestrate calls between the company and analysts.

In his order, William Galvin, the Secretary of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, said that the bank helped Facebook give out this information "without creating the appearance of not providing the underlying trend information to all investors".

In this way, Facebook said it would be able to brief analysts covering its stock about the problems, "without someone claiming we are providing any selective disclosure to big accounts only".


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Comet stores open for final day

18 December 2012 Last updated at 02:45 ET
Comet customer

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Shoppers at Comet's Lincoln store sought closing down sale bargains

Comet stores are to close their doors for the last time on Tuesday, bringing the failed electrical retailer's 79-year history to an end.

Of the 236 stores the firm presided over when it went into administration last month, only 49 are still open.

On Monday, administrators Deloitte said unsecured creditors would get back less than 1% of the money owed to them.

The chain's collapse will also cost the government £49.4m in redundancy payments and foregone tax revenues.

The redundancy money owed to thousands of former Comet workers totals £23.2m and will be paid by the government's Redundancy Payments Service (RPS).

Meanwhile, £26.2m is owed in taxes to HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC), which is one of dozens of unsecured creditors of the retailer who are owed a total of £233m, none of which will be repaid.

Other unsecured lenders reportedly include landlords owed £135m in rents and other claims, manufacturers unable to reclaim goods delivered to Comet on credit worth £6m, and various other claimants owed £66m, such as ITV and Google, which had reportedly not been paid for advertising.

Big losses

The total hole in Comet's balance sheet by the time it was wound up had reached £311m, according to Deloitte's estimations.

Comet's secured lenders will also be stung by the firm's failure, receiving only £50m of the £145m they are owed, as the assets on which their debts were secured could not be sold off at a high enough price.

The company's main secured lender is Hailey, the company set up by private equity firm OpCapita in order to buy up Comet from Anglo-French retail group Kesa last year for a nominal £1 payment.

Continue reading the main story

Founded in 1933 as a business charging radio batteries

Opened its first store in Hull in 1968

Bought by Woolworths and B&Q owner Kingfisher in 1984, which expanded Comet into one of the UK's best-known retail brands

In 2003 Comet became part of Kesa Electricals, after Kesa was demerged from Kingfisher

It was announced in November 2011 that Comet would be sold to private equity group OpCapita for just £1

OpCapita was also given £50m by Kesa as part of the deal

However, OpCapita failed to turn around Comet's fortunes, as the company continued to suffer from the fall in UK consumer spending during the recession and the big growth in online rivals.

Deloitte also revealed on Monday that Comet's losses in the year to April totalled £95m, while its revenues slumped by £200m.

In the subsequent five months, Comet lost a further £31m.

Towards the end, insurers refused to guarantee suppliers, who in turn refused to extend credit on sales to Comet in the run-up to the crucial Christmas sales period.

Comet's demise is one of the biggest High Street casualties of recent years.

The 236-store business, which at the time employed about 7,000 people, was founded in Hull in 1933 and began life selling batteries and radios.

The closure of the final Comet stores comes after Deloitte failed to find a buyer for the company.

It is unclear what will become of the Comet brand, with one possibility being a sale to an online retailer, similar to the fate of Woolworths.

Kesa Electricals was renamed Darty in July this year.

Despite having its headquarters in London, it focuses on the continental market - especially France, where it has more than 200 stores under the Darty name.


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Facebook real name row in Germany

18 December 2012 Last updated at 05:24 ET

A German data protection body has ordered Facebook to end its policy of making members use their real names.

The policy violates German laws that give people the right to use pseudonyms online, said the data protection agency in Schleswig-Holstein.

The agency has issued a decree demanding that Facebook let people use fake names immediately.

Facebook said it would fight the decree "vigorously" and that its naming policy met European data protection rules.

"It is unacceptable that a US portal like Facebook violates German data protection law unopposed and with no prospect of an end," said Thilo Weichert, head of the regional data protection office in Schleswig Holstein, in a statement.

The ability to use a pseudonym on Facebook was "reasonable" said Mr Weichert and would allow people to use the service "without fear of unpleasant consequences".

Facebook's long-standing policy of making people use their real names did nothing to prevent people using the social network to throw insults or to hamper identity theft, he added.

Schleswig Holstein is piloting the action against Facebook and if it is successful the decision is likely to be adopted by the nation's other data protection agencies, it said, adding that the social network now has two weeks to oppose the decree in a German court.

The decree issued by the Schleswig Holstein office was "without merit" a Facebook spokeswoman told tech news site IT World adding that it planned to fight the order.


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Orange tops broadband complaints

18 December 2012 Last updated at 07:22 ET

Internet service provider Orange has knocked TalkTalk off the top position in Ofcom's broadband complaints chart.

Figures for the third quarter of 2012 show a higher proportion of Orange customers lodged complaints about its broadband services than any other firm.

The spike in complaints is believed to be linked to Orange's withdrawal of a free broadband offer.

TalkTalk, which has topped the list since Ofcom started compiling it in 2010, slipped to second place.

Figures from Ofcom reveal that Orange, now known as Everything Everywhere (EE), generated almost twice as many complaints per thousand customers in 2012's third quarter than in the three months before.

In September, EE said customers would lose its free broadband service unless they signed up for line rental at £14 per month from the firm. Ofcom said this policy change generated a surge of complaints as many people expected to keep the free service until the end of their current monthly mobile contract.

TalkTalk was second in the chart of most complained about broadband ISPs. Ofcom added that the number of complaints it was generating had continued to fall. Despite this, it added, complaints about TalkTalk remained above the industry average at 0.35 for every 1,000 subscribers. On average, fixed broadband services generate 0.24 complaints for every 1,000 customers.

Although it did better on broadband complaints, TalkTalk generated the most negative feedback about its fixed landline phone services.

The report is the seventh that Ofcom has produced and it logs complaints about broadband, fixed telephone services, Pay TV and pay monthly mobile services.


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Instagram seeks right to sell photos

18 December 2012 Last updated at 07:37 ET

Facebook's photo-sharing site Instagram has updated its privacy policy giving it the right to sell users' photos to advertisers without notification.

Unless users delete their Instagram accounts by a deadline of 16 January, they cannot opt out.

The changes also mean Instagram can share information about its users with Facebook, its parent company, as well as other affiliates and advertisers.

The move riled social media users, with one likening it to a "suicide note".

The new policies follow Facebook's record $1bn (£616m; 758 euro) acquisition of Instagram in April.

Facebook's vice-president of global marketing solutions Carolyn Everson earlier this month had said: "Eventually we'll figure out a way to monetise Instagram."

A notice updating the privacy policy on the Instagram site said: "We may share your information as well as information from tools like cookies, log files, and device identifiers and location data with organisations that help us provide the service to you... (and) third-party advertising partners."

"To help us deliver interesting paid or sponsored content or promotions, you agree that a business may pay us to display your username, likeness, photos, in connection with paid or sponsored content or promotions, without any compensation to you," it said in its terms of use.

But Instagram said that its aim was to make it easier to work with Facebook.

"This means we can do things like fight spam more effectively, detect system and reliability problems more quickly, and build better features for everyone by understanding how Instagram is used," it said in a statement.

'Suicide note'

However, the updated policy will not change how it handles photo ownership or who is able to see a user's pictures, it added.

But the new policy has triggered a backlash among social media users, with some threatening to quit.

One user tweeted: "Good bye #instagram. Your new terms of service are totally stupid and nonsense. Good luck playing with the big boys."

New York-based photographer Clayton Cubbit wrote on his account that the new policy was "Instagram's suicide note".

Analysts said that the new policies could deal a blow to Facebook's reputation and alienate some users.

Richard Holway, chairman of TechMarketView, said: "Every time Facebook has altered their privacy policy it has led to a backlash and they've been forced to retreat. They tamper with people's privacy at a cost. People are very upset."

Alan Pelz-Sharpe, research director at 451 Research, added: "It's a barefaced tactic that Facebook and Instagram have taken, and one that will likely meet with many challenges, legally and ethically.

"The fact is that Facebook has critical mass, and is quite confident that such moves may cause uproar, but not a flight of business.

"Larger firms like Facebook are essentially trailblazing before specific regulations can catch up with them, and as we have seen with Google in the past, regulations and laws have limited real impact on their business operations - so they tend to move forward regardless of opposition."


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Net name .cymru leaps ahead of .scot

18 December 2012 Last updated at 07:42 ET

Proposed net address endings .tattoo, .transformers and .menu are among the first that could go live next year.

A raffle by regulator Icann has placed them near the top of the list of applications it will review.

Of the proposed new geographic suffixes, Wales's .cymru will be one of the first to be evaluated. However, .scot and .irish are likely to have to wait until 2014.

The first domains to go live could enjoy an early-mover advantage.

The list of 1,917 generic top-level domains (gTLDs) applications was determined by the order tickets were randomly pulled out of drums at a hotel in Los Angeles on Monday.

Companies were charged a $100 (£62) fee for each application they they wanted in the draw.

In some cases they decided not to take part. As a result several of Google's submissions will be among those last to be judged.

Same names

An early evaluation is not an absolute guarantee a suffix will go live early.

Governments have lodged "early objections" to more than 250 of them - meaning the proposed address may be rejected.

In addition, several companies are competing for identical gTLDs.

Continue reading the main story

199 .tokyo

200 .paris

220 .swiss

244 .cymru

258 .thai

288 .budapest

194 .okinawa

635 .london

786 .roma

807 .wales

866 .istanbul

881 .moscow

1,005 .africa

1,069 .persiangulf

1,165 .amsterdam

1,345 .madrid

1,491 .irish

1,453 .scot

1,531 .yokohama

1,653 .zuerich

1,738 .barcelona

1,872 .patagonia

So, for example. Amazon's application for .play is near the top of the list. But it faces having to wait for a submission for the same name from Star Registry - which is 1,792nd in order - to be reviewed and a potential auction held if both are approved before the suffix can be activated.

Icann's raffle did not go without glitch. At one point a live feed of the event failed causing the organisers to temporarily halt the process to ensure it remained transparent.

The event ended up lasting more than nine hours - significantly longer than planned.

Tickets for about 100 non-Latin applications were picked from the drums first, placing a submission for the equivalent of .church in Chinese from the Vatican at the top of the list. It was followed by the Japanese for .store by Amazon.

Of the English-language proposals, unique applications set for an early review include .delmonte from the American food company; .mormon from a firm called IRI Domain Management; .fiat from the car company; and .joy from Amazon.

First movers

Businesses and other users will be able to apply to run websites using the new address suffixes in cases where the new owner decides it does not want to restrict its use.

They will be able to do so so by applying to domain name registration services which will act as middle-men, charging a fee which will be shared with the owner.

One UK-based registrar said that the initial new gTLDs to go live would benefit from their early start.

"Those that go first will get a lot more marketing opportunities," Kelly Salter from names.co.uk told the BBC.

"At the moment there are relatively few extensions to choose from that give you global coverage - so there is the opportunity to get great exposure.

"But if you're number 500 to be approved, our customers will have become desensitised by that point. So the impact to domains launching towards the end of the process will be that they have to work harder to make people want to use them."

Icann has said it plans to let the first batch of new gTLDs in May 2013.

Ms Salter said after the launch date she expected about 20 would be released each week with the final ones going live before the end of 2014.


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SpongeBob in hot water over privacy

18 December 2012 Last updated at 08:41 ET

A SpongeBob app became the latest game to be pulled following a complaint it had violated children's privacy rights.

Nickelodeon removed SpongeBob Diner Dash from Apple's iTunes app store after a US advocacy group contacted the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

The Center for Digital Democracy said children's email addresses had been collected without parental consent.

Last week another children's app, Mobbles, was temporarily pulled after the CDD filed a similar complaint.

The Washington DC-based group urged the FTC to investigate Nickelodeon and mobile game-maker PlayFirst's privacy practices.

It said their "deceptive" mobile marketing technologies had violated the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).

"The SpongeBob Diner Dash game asks children to provide a wide range of personal information, including full name, email address, and other online contact information, without providing notice to parents or obtaining prior parental consent, as required by the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act," a statement said.

"Nor does the app provide an adequate description of the personal information it collects or how it is used".

The advocacy group said the app's use of technologies such as unique device identifiers (UDIDs) allowed companies to send customised messages to individual children in the form of "push notifications" that required online contact information - considered personal information under the COPPA rules.

Nickelodeon was unable to be reached for comment.

The app is free to download, but is designed to encourage users to buy virtual "coins" that can be spent on items for SpongeBob like shoes or a frying pan, or to buy upgraded versions of the game.

Need for informed choices

Laura Moy, a lawyer at Georgetown Law's Institute for Public Representation, which prepared the complaint on behalf of the Center for Digitial Democracy (CDD), said: "It is disturbing to learn that a well known children's brand such as Nickelodeon is flouting basic privacy protections for children. Even more troubling, Nickelodeon tells parents that it complies with the law protecting children's privacy when it does not."

Last week the game Mobbles, in which children collect and care for virtual pets, was temporarily pulled from the Apple App store and Google Android Play store.

The FTC last week published a report on mobile apps for children that showed parents were not being provided with information about what data an app collected, who would have access to that data, and how it would be used.

The report said that nearly 60% of the apps examined by the FTC were transmitting information about a user to an advertiser or other third party.

FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz said: "While we think most companies have the best intentions when it comes to protecting kids' privacy, we haven't seen any progress when it comes to making sure parents have the information they need to make informed choices about apps for their kids."

"In fact, our study shows that kids' apps siphon an alarming amount of information from mobile devices without disclosing this fact to parents," he added.

"All of the companies in the mobile app space, especially the gatekeepers of the app stores, need to do a better job. We'll do another survey in the future and we will expect to see improvement."


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Russia backtracks on net proposal

Written By Unknown on Selasa, 11 Desember 2012 | 23.43

11 December 2012 Last updated at 06:44 ET

Russian-backed proposals calling for 193 countries to be given "equal rights to manage the internet" have been pulled at a UN conference in Dubai.

The US had threatened to block the suggested additions to an international communications treaty.

It wants the treaty to make minimal reference to the internet, warning to do otherwise risks state interference.

Russia and its partners are now redrafting their document and are expected to submit it later.

Attendees at the World Conference on International Telecommunications (Wcit) have until Friday to renegotiate the 24-year-old treaty.

Continue reading the main story

Regulators and other delegates have until 14 December to agree which proposals to adopt.

More than 900 changes to the International Telecommunication Regulations have been put forward.

The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) highlights proposals to block spam messages, cut mobile roaming fees and prioritise emergency calls as some of the event's key topics.

There have been accusations of "secrecy" because the ITU had left it to individual countries to publish proposals rather than release them itself.

Two sites - Wcitleaks and .nxt - have gathered together related documents from a variety of sources but many are still unpublished.

The resulting treaty will become part of international law, however the ITU itself recognises that there is no legal mechanism to force countries to comply.

The UN agency hosting the event - the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) - had earlier pledged not to put any disputed changes to a majority vote, saying there had to be full consensus.

Internet addresses

Russia had first put forward its net governance proposal ahead of the conference, but it emerged on Friday that it had found support from other countries.

The United Arab Emirates announced the details would be submitted to the ITU at the beginning of this week. But before that could happen a draft of the proposals was published by website Wcitleaks.

It revealed that the UAE, China, Saudi Arabia, Algeria and Sudan were the other countries signed up to the so-called "compromise document".

Wcitleaks also named Egypt, but it issued a statement to say that it did not support the proposals.

One of the most controversial suggestions was a call for member states to be given equal rights to manage "internet numbering, naming, addressing and identification resources".

This would mark potentially mark a shift from the current system in which the US government decides who runs the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (Iana) - the body responsible for regulating the net's address system.

It has this power as a legacy of its funding for Arpanet - a precursor to the internet which helped form its technical core.

While some other countries see this as an anachronism, the US says it allows it to ensure that technical experts can make "agile, rapid-fire decisions" about the net's development as part of multi-stakeholder organisations, and to change this would risk the process getting slowed down by bureaucracy.

It also makes a wider point that attempts to add sections to the treaty about the internet could later by used by governments to legitimise interference into the operations of internet service providers (ISPs) and cloud-based operations such as Google or Facebook, "opening the door to censorship".

However, others says the references are needed to help countries co-ordinate cybersecurity and anti-spam efforts.

Revised proposals

After the US made clear that it would oppose the document's proposals its backers subsequently decided not to file it in its current state.

The ITU says it expects an amended version will be delivered later, but adds that it will not released it for public view until it has been translated into a range of other languages.

The US gave a guarded response to the news.

"While this is a welcome development, these issues will continue to be on the table for discussion in other forms during the remainder of the conference," said the US ambassador to Wcit, Terry Kramer.

"The United States will continue to make the case that Wcit should maintain the scope of the international telecommunication regulations and resist proposals to extent that scope into internet governance or content."

The Russia-backed group has not issued a statement at this time, however the ITU stresses that if the revised document is still opposed by the US, it will not be adopted.

"If it contains text that doesn't have majority support it won't be acceptable to the conference," a spokeswoman told the BBC.

"So they're trying to remove the bits that people won't agree to and see where people might be prepared to bend a little bit."


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Police warn over Apple Maps error

10 December 2012 Last updated at 07:13 ET

Inaccuracies in Apple Maps could be "life-threatening" to motorists in Australia's searing heat, police have warned.

Officers in Mildura, Victoria, say they have had to assist drivers stranded after following the software's directions.

Some of the drivers had been without food or water for 24 hours.

Apple's software was heavily criticised by users when it was released in September.

Last week, chief executive Tim Cook admitted Apple had "screwed up" and was working to improve the program.

'No water supply'

In a press release, Victoria police's acting senior sergeant Sharon Darcy made her force's concerns clear.

"Tests on the mapping system by police confirm the mapping systems lists Mildura in the middle of the Murray Sunset National Park, approximately 70km [45 miles] away from the actual location of Mildura," she said.

"Police are extremely concerned as there is no water supply within the park and temperatures can reach as high as 46[C], making this a potentially life-threatening issue."

The force advised travellers to use an alternative mapping service until the issues had been fixed.

In September, Apple dropped Google Maps from its iOS software in favour of its own mapping program. However, users were quick to complain it contained many inaccuracies, poor imagery and unreliable directions.

The company defended the software at first, telling users it was "confident about our map quality".

However, Apple soon backtracked, posting an apology notice on its website.

"We are extremely sorry for the frustration this has caused our customers and we are doing everything we can to make Maps better," said Mr Cook.

A specially created section on the App Store highlighted alternative mapping software. However, an app for Google Maps has yet to be made available - although some reports suggest one is in its testing phase.

The fall-out from Apple Maps saw high-profile senior executives leave the company.

GPS vulnerability

Apple's mapping woes come as researchers at Carnegie Mellon University warned about newly discovered vulnerabilities in the world's Global Positioning System (GPS).

The research paper suggested that just $2,500 (£1,500) of equipment could be used to knock out 30% of systems supporting "safety and life-critical applications".

The researchers proposed "defences such as hardening GPS software against RF [radio frequency] and network attacks, as well as an attack detection system".

They added: "Until GPS is secured, life and safety-critical applications that depend upon it are likely vulnerable to attack."


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