Android apps 'leak' personal data

22 October 2012 Last updated at 06:56 ET

Millions of people are using Android apps that can be tricked into revealing personal data, research indicates.

Scientists tested 13,500 Android apps and found almost 8% failed to protect bank account and social media logins.

These apps failed to implement standard scrambling systems, allowing "man-in-the-middle" attacks to reveal data that passes back and forth when devices communicate with websites.

Google has yet to comment on the research and its findings.

Researchers from the security group at Leibniz University of Hanover and the computer science department at the Philipps University of Marburg tested the most popular apps in Google's Play store.

By creating a fake wi-fi hotspot and using a specially created attack tool to spy on the data the apps sent via that route, the researchers were able to:

• capture login details for online bank accounts, email services, social media sites and corporate networks
• disable security programs or fool them into labelling secure apps as infected
• inject computer code into the data stream that made apps carry out specific commands

An attacker could even re-direct a request to transfer funds, while making it look to the app user like the transaction was proceeding unchanged.

Some of the apps tested had been downloaded millions of times, the researchers said.

And a follow-up survey of 754 people suggests users could struggle to spot when they were at risk.

"About half of the participants could not judge the security state of a browser session correctly," the researchers wrote.

"Most importantly, research is needed to study which counter-measures offer the right combination of usability for developers and users, security benefits and economic incentives to be deployed on a large scale."

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Sexual video taken for porn sites

By Chi Chi Izundu
Newsbeat reporter

There's a warning about the risks of posting sexually explicit content online because it could be stolen and copied onto hardcore porn websites.

Newsbeat has seen exclusive figures which show 88% of 12,000 sexual self-generated photos and video found by The Internet Watch Foundation had been stolen and posted on porn websites.

Some of the images and videos were taken from social networking pages.

Continue reading the main story

• The Foundation spent 47 working hours on the research
• A total of 12,224 images and videos were logged
• The content was on 68 discrete websites
• 7,147 were images
• 5,077 were videos
• 5,001 were both image and video
• Of the 12,224 images/videos, 10,776 were on porn websites
• 88% of content was taken from the original source site

The foundation monitors online child abuse.

They say it is virtually impossible to make anything disappear from the internet once it is uploaded.

After 47 hours of logging, the charity found more than 12,000 sexually explicit images and videos of people they estimated to be aged between 13 and 20 years old.

Theses were across 68 different websites, including social networking sites.

They traced the paths of the footage and images and discovered nearly 90% of them had been stolen and used elsewhere.

Earlier this year, X Factor judge Tulisa Contostavlos took to YouTube to confirm rumours that online footage of someone performing an intimate act with her ex-boyfriend was her.

After suing a number of companies and her ex-boyfriend, her lawyer says it is "very difficult" to find it on the internet.

Footage online

Jonathan Coad says it costs a lot to take out legal action but there are things people can do.

He advises getting in contact with the hosts of the websites your footage or image is featured on.

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He said: "Say, 'This is intimate footage of me, I didn't give consent to it being up there, it's a breach of my rights, please take it down,' and hopefully they should do that."

Mr Coad also had advice for those who posted images and footage online without the consent of those featured in them.

"If you post a series of stills or footage, ie more than one, then you could fall within the protection of harassment act," he advised. "That means it's also a potential criminal offence.

"I think the increase in this being done has started to mean police are taking it a little more seriously than they used to."

There is still ongoing legal action over the Tulisa footage.

Facebook	Tighten up your privacy settings so only certain people, rather than the public, can see your images, videos and posts. You can do this with the inline audience selector drop-down box, which appears on the bottom right when you post anything. You can limit viewing rights to friends, groups, certain people, or just yourself.
Twitter	Think carefully about what you post as your content can easily be retweeted. However, you can delete a tweet if you change your mind by clicking the cross icon. You can also protect your tweets in Account Settings. This means you get to approve every one of your followers - that way only approved people can see any photos you post. It's also possible to block users if you're worried about certain followers.
External website has your picture/video	You can contact the site's owners and ask them to take it down, saying you don't consent to it being there, or that you own the copyright - if you took it yourself. Do this quickly in case others make copies and it spreads. If the site refuses or ignores you, you may be able to take legal action but this is usually expensive.

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EE announces its 4G price plans

22 October 2012 Last updated at 19:04 ET

Mobile operator EE has announced the prices for its 4G service, the first of its kind to be commercially available in the UK.

The firm's cheapest contract will be £36 per month with no limit on domestic calls and texts.

However, customers on this plan will only have a data allowance of 500MB, at which point net access is stopped unless a data add-on is bought.

The 4G service will launch on 30 October.

Compared to uses on the slower 3G network, data usage on 4G is expected to be high - potentially leading to increased costs for users who wish to download a lot of data-intensive content such as audio or video.

The announcement follows a frustrating wait for UK consumers who have been unable use 4G capabilities thanks to repeated delays and legal wranglings over the next-gen network's roll out.

An auction, due to take place early next year, will allocate newly-available spectrum space to other operators looking to offer 4G to their customers.

However, those operators were said to be angry at EE's 4G headstart, with O2 and Vodafone only recently agreeing not to take legal action over the matter.

'Months of research'

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EE chief sales officer Marc Allera: "You're paying a 10-20% premium for 4G"

Until today, EE had remained tight-lipped over how it planned to charge customers to use its new service.

Industry observers saw it as a critical announcement if EE was to pull customers away from the other networks - particularly iPhone users.

EE - which until recently was known as Everything Everywhere - told the BBC that it was confident in its pricing.

"We really think we've priced it at the sweet spot," chief executive Olaf Swantee told BBC technology correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones.

"It's all based on months of consumer research."

The top tariff for standard customers will cost £56 per month, and has a data allowance of 8GB.

EE, keen to demonstrate added remote working capabilities, is making a special effort to tempt small businesses with 1GB data allowances on contracts of £35 per month.

Alongside 4G, EE has also launched an on-demand service in which customers can access content directly using 4G but without impacting on their data allowance.

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New swoop to block piracy sites

22 October 2012 Last updated at 19:05 ET By Dave Lee Technology reporter, BBC News

The UK's major internet service providers have been asked to block three more file-sharing websites, the BBC can reveal.

The British Phonographic Industry (BPI), which acts on behalf of rights holders, wants ISPs to prevent access to Fenopy, H33t and Kickass Torrents.

The BPI alleges that the sites are illegally distributing music.

The ISPs told the BBC they would comply with the new demand, but only if a court order is put in place.

It follows a separate court order in April which saw popular file-sharing site The Pirate Bay blocked in the UK.

The biggest ISP, BT, said it was also "currently considering" its options.

The letter, which was not intended to go public, was sent to six ISPs last week, namely BT, Sky, Virgin Media, O2, EE and TalkTalk.

It is understood that the BPI is hoping all three sites will be blocked before Christmas - far more quickly than the process has taken previously.

According to web monitoring firm Nielsen, over a million unique users from the UK visited the three websites in September.

Pirate Bay precedent

In April, the BPI was successful in getting a high court judge to order the same six ISPs to block The Pirate Bay, which was regarded as one of the most visited file-sharing websites on the web.

"Like The Pirate Bay, these websites are profiting illegally from distributing music that isn't theirs, without permission and without paying a penny to the musicians, writers and producers who created it," a spokesman for the BPI told the BBC.

"It is plain wrong. The existence of these sites damages the growth of Britain's burgeoning digital music sector."

Over the following months, all of the ISPs complied with the ruling, blocking access to the site for their customers.

With this latest request, the BPI is looking to avoid such a lengthy process. However, none of the ISPs said they were prepared to block the sites voluntarily, and would only do so if forced by the courts.

Adam Rendle, a copyright specialist with London-based law firm TaylorWessing, said it is possible that the process to block Fenopy, H33t and Kickass Torrents could be quicker than in previous cases thanks to precedents set previously.

"Whether the BPI can do that in time for Christmas is a question of the court's availability," he said.

"Two months to issue the proceedings and get a decision? It's ambitious but it's not impossible - if the court can be convinced that it should be dealt with that quickly."

Loss of traffic

Jim Killock, a campaigner with the Open Rights Group, argued that consumers' interests were not being properly represented.

"Web blocking is an extreme response," he told the BBC.

"If courts are being asked to block websites they need to be taking into consideration the rights of users and any legitimate usage of those sites.

"It isn't clear whether a conversation between a judge, ISPs and rights holders is going to sufficiently represent the needs of users."

Critics of website blocking say it is ineffective.

Days after the Pirate Bay blocking, various other services were set up allowing users to access the site through alternative means.

One ISP, which did not want to be named, revealed that despite an initial dip, illegal download traffic on its network recovered quickly within just a week of the Pirate Bay block.

However, the BPI defended the action, saying that the block had a significant effect on the amount of traffic visiting the Pirate Bay site.

This claim is backed up by Nielsen, who told the BBC that since the April court order, The Pirate Bay has lost three quarters of its visitors.

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Faster data cloud 'can cut bills'

23 October 2012 Last updated at 03:00 ET

Users could cut 30% off their bills for on-demand computer services by working out what sort of chip is on the servers they are renting, research suggests.

On-demand, or cloud, services are built around what are advertised as clusters of generic computer servers.

But analysis reveals that some clusters are 40% faster than supposedly identical groups of machines.

The statistics were gathered by working out which processors were used in the hardware behind the cloud service.

Hardware help

The research was done by computer scientists at the Deutsch Telekom Laboratories in Germany and Finland's Aalto University, who did their analysis on Amazon's EC2 cloud service.

Cloud services let people rent computer power by the hour. A lot of small businesses use such services instead of running their own servers. In addition many others call on them when they have a short-lived need for a burst of computer power.

Amazon promotes its service as using generic hardware that offers the same performance to every customer.

Using tools that can interrogate the software that controls the groups of servers customers rent, the researchers identified the chip at the heart of each server in a group or instance of computers.

By taking measurements for a year, the researchers were able to spot which instances were running newer, faster chips.

Instances built around these newer machines were much faster than the clusters that used older hardware, said the researchers.

"In general, the variation between the fast instances and slow instances can reach 40%," wrote the researchers in a paper detailing their efforts. For some applications the differences were even more stark, with newer clusters working about 60% faster.

By choosing the faster instances, users could cut up to 30% off their server bills, as the newer machines would to crunch through data much faster, they said.

The researchers are now working on tools that can work out the performance characteristics of particular clusters and swap work to more powerful groups.

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Call to expand net surveillance

23 October 2012 Last updated at 06:13 ET

The internet has become a standard tool for terror groups who use it to spread propaganda, recruit members and raise cash, warns a UN report.

Wider surveillance of the net would help combat this growing problem, said the report by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

In addition, it said, more could be done to track mobile phones to help catch members of terror groups.

It would be helpful if more ISPs retained data, it said.

"Just as internet use among regular, lawful citizens has increased in the past few years, terrorist organisations also make extensive use of this indispensable global network for many different purposes," said Yury Fedotov, executive director of UNODC in a statement.

As well as maintaining communications between members of terror groups, the net was also proving useful as it let them incite followers to act on their behalf.

Scrambled signal

The report detailed evidence from successful operations against terror groups and their members showed what sophisticated users of technology they had become.

For instance, it said, while investigating physicist Adlene Hicheur, French police had to find ways to decrypt emails scrambled with four separate encryption systems. They also had to get round encryption tools used to protect instant message chats from eavesdropping and track payments through web-based finance services.

More comprehensive surveillance of the internet would help with investigations, said the report, as it would make it easier to pinpoint and investigate terror groups and their sympathisers who were typically spread around the globe.

Often, it said, investigations were hampered because different nations had different laws governing how much data ISPs and other net services can, and cannot, retain.

The 148 page report was produced with the help of the UN's Counter Terrorism Implementation Task Force to show member states how to make best use of the net when investigating and prosecuting terror groups.

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Skype slashes Windows battery use

23 October 2012 Last updated at 07:22 ET

Skype's video chat software has been re-engineered to radically cut its energy use on the upcoming Windows 8 operating systems.

The application is designed to stop using the computer's central processing unit (CPU) when it is left to run in the background.

It means users can receive calls or instant messages without the risk of exhausting their laptop battery.

The move may help Skype compete against Oovoo, Google Talk and other rivals.

Microsoft bought Skype for $8.5bn (£5.3bn) last year.

Although it has integrated the product into its Outlook.com web email service, it will continue to offer Skype as a separate installable application on its new system, avoiding the risk of anti-competition complaints.

Cloud support

The new software works by suspending Skype's activity on an Windows 8 device within a minute of the user switching to another application.

Before the program stops making use of the processor, it registers its change of activity with Windows Push Notification Services (WNS) - software that runs on Microsoft's remote computer servers.

It then takes advantage of a feature built into modern computer chips, called Connected Standby.

This allows the computer to monitor incoming notifications without using much electricity.

Effectively, the machine is checking for news of an incoming call or message briefly once every 15 milliseconds before powering back down, rather than keeping connections to the user's peers constantly open.

If someone tries to contact the user, their action is recorded by Microsoft's servers, which then send a notification, reactivating Skype so it can handle the activity.

Skype's director of program management, Piero Sierra, said the facility would be offered on Windows 8 tablets and laptops first, and the firm's Windows Phone 8 smartphone system "soon", before coming to other platforms.

"Skype evolved on the desktop as a large application that maintains a connection with all of your peers," he told the BBC.

"This architecture was designed in a world where cloud services were not readily available, and it scales very well on desktops.

"But as our users are more and more connected to other mobile devices, battery life becomes a top consideration, and thus a service-based architecture like the one we are introducing makes a lot of sense."

Mr Sierra stressed that other software developers would also have access to Window's Connected Standby feature, meaning Skype's advantage might be short-lived.

Efficient apps

A similar notification-based facility is already used by several smartphone apps to cut power use. The editor of the Pocket-lint tech site said he hoped Skype's move would encourage the practice on larger devices.

"People don't want inefficient apps in the same way as they don't want an inefficient boiler in their house," Stuart Miles said.

"The idea that they have created an app that uses 0% of the CPU will make users more inclined to use it in the background.

"I would hope this becomes the norm because there is nothing worse than getting down to 10% battery life and having to find a power outlet to keep working."

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Apple set to launch smaller iPad

23 October 2012 Last updated at 07:24 ET

Apple is widely expected to launch a smaller version of the iPad later on Tuesday, into what is becoming an increasingly crowded tablet market.

The launch will be watched by fans keen for a cheaper device while detractors will see it as another test for chief executive Tim Cook.

Demand for smaller tablets have been proved by the success of Amazon's Kindle and Google's Nexus 7.

The event in San Jose, US, kicks off at 10:00 local time (17:00 GMT).

Price point

Most analysts agree that the price of the pocket-sized iPad will be key to its success.

Currently Apple's 9.7in iPad 3 has a starting price of $499 (£399 in the UK) while its iPad 2 can be bought for $399 (£329).

To date, Apple has sold more than 84 million iPads, with the device accounting for 26% of Apple's third quarter revenue.

The new mini iPad is expected to shave a couple of inches from its larger cousin with analysts predicting a "sweet spot" price of about £200.

That would make it an "affordable Christmas present", said Maciej Gornicki, an analyst at IDC.

The risk for Apple, said Ovum analyst Adam Leach, will be cannibalising its existing iPad range.

Continue reading the main story

23 Oct: Apple (San Jose)

Expected to unveil a 7-8in iPad

24 Oct: Samsung (New York)

Will give details of US launch of Galaxy Note 2

25 Oct: Microsoft (New York)

Launch event for Windows 8 which goes on sale, alongside Surface tablets, the next day

29 Oct: Google (New York)

Android-themed event, may include new Nexus devices

29 Oct: Microsoft (San Francisco)

Launch of Windows Phone 8 operating system

30 Oct: Arm (London)

Mobile device chip designer and "partners" announce news

"If an iPad customer wants to upgrade will they still go high end?" he asked.

A survey of 1,000 consumers by US firm Baird Equity Research suggested that, on average, consumers would be prepared to pay $242 (£150) for a 7in iPad and $268 (£167) for an 8in model.

Amazon's new 7in Kindle Fire HD costs $199 (£129 in the UK). A slightly larger version, shipping on November 20, will sell for $299 (£159). Google's Nexus 7 has a price tag of $250 (£159).

The launch of the mini iPad will be keenly watched by Apple critics who have questioned whether the firm has lost its edge since the death of Steve Jobs.

The fact that, unlike previous product launches, there is little doubt about what is coming could be significant, thinks Mr Leach.

"It represents a change in the way Apple go to market and the way people perceive Apple. It is a move away from how Steve Jobs did things. It is being headed, dare I say it, more like a normal technology company," he said.

'Sea change'

Two years ago when mini tablets began to hit the market, Steve Jobs famously said that in his opinion they would not succeed because the size was insufficient to "create great tablet apps".

That Apple has changed its mind represents another important "sea change" for the company, thinks Mr Leach.

"Apple is now in the role of following what the market is doing, responding to the threat of the Google Nexus and the Kindle Fire," he said.

While internally Apple may be regretting losing its image as a market leader, it could be good news for consumers, thinks Paddy Smith, editor of Stuff.tv.

"Having buckled under public pressure to increase the size of the iPhone's screen, Apple can now be seen once again creating a product based on listening to its customers, rather than thinking it always knows best.

"We think a smaller iPad - with a lower price tag - is a sure-fire Christmas hit. And Apple knows it, too," he said.

Boosted by its new iPad, Apple will continue to dominate the tablet market, predicts IDC. It said that Apple will hold a 68% share of the market in 2012, compared to 29% for Android tablets.

Both will fall off slightly next year with the launch of Windows 8 tablets, IDC said.

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US Apple patents ruled invalid

23 October 2012 Last updated at 12:10 ET

A handful of Apple patents have been ruled invalid, throwing doubt on a landmark trial that awarded huge damages to the smartphone maker.

The US Patent and Trademark Office has ruled that 20 patents relating to scroll technology "lack novelty".

In August a California court awarded Apple $1.05bn (£652m) in damages, after ruling Samsung had infringed patents.

Samsung has submitted the preliminary ruling from the patent office to judge Lucy Koh, who is considering appeals.

The preliminary ruling follows an anonymous request in May to re-examine some of Apple's patents for touch-screen heuristics.

Some of the patents were rejected because there was not enough of an inventive step between the prior technology and Apple's patent.

Apple will have the chance to appeal against the decision.

Samsung has been calling for a retrial of the patent dispute case, claiming that the jury foreman had "failed to answer [questions] truthfully" and might have been biased.

Bouncing back

Apple had alleged Samsung had infringed its intellectual property in the design of its Galaxy smartphones.

The so-called rubber-banding patents, also known as overscroll bounce, refer to the bouncing animation that takes place when a user scrolls past the end of a page.

Samsung has already found a workaround to the overscroll bounce patent although, if Apple's patents were found to be invalid, it is likely the feature would make a return to handsets sold in the US.

It is one of many ongoing patent disputes between Apple and rival smartphone makers.

The news that some of Apple's patents had been invalidated was first reported by patent consultant Florian Mueller.

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Ceefax ready for final switch-off

23 October 2012 Last updated at 12:12 ET By John Hand BBC News

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Highlights of final pages from Ceefax

BBC Ceefax, the world's first teletext service, is set for a final bow as the UK's digital switchover is completed.

Olympic champion Dame Mary Peters will turn off the last analogue TV signal in Northern Ireland at 23.30 BST. A series of graphics on Ceefax's front page will mark its 38 years on the BBC.

The Plain English Campaign announced a lifetime achievement award for Ceefax's "clarity" and use of "everyday words".

And ex-Prime Minister Sir John Major said Ceefax would be "much missed".

Sir John, who has previously revealed that he regularly checked Ceefax pages between Downing Street meetings to keep up to date with cricket scores, said: "Ceefax will be much missed. At moments of high pressure - with little time for detailed examination of the news - Ceefax headlines offered an instant window on the world.

Continue reading the main story

Fond farewells

• Gary Lineker (via Twitter): I see Ceefax has finally been put to rest. How on earth can we watch Wimbledon now?
• Nicky Byrne (Strictly contestant, via Twitter): When I was named in the Leeds United 1st team squad v Southampton in 1995 aged 16 my mam & dad recorded the story from Ceefax!!!
• Pete Clifton (Ceefax editor 1996-2000, via MSN): I'm mourning the death of an old friend, increasingly slow, creaky and made of Lego blocks - but despite outward appearances, a significant force behind some of the whizziest news services in the UK today.

"From breaking global news to domestic sports news, Ceefax was speedy, accurate and indispensable. It can be proud of its record."

A few weeks after Ceefax provided comprehensive around-the-clock coverage of its 10th and final Olympic Games, Lord Coe added his own tribute by saying: "Ceefax has been an invaluable news service for every sports fan over the last 38 years.

"I have checked in on many a sports news story, track and field triumph and, of course, Chelsea results!"

Ceefax was launched on 23 September 1974 to give BBC viewers the chance to check the latest news headlines, sports scores, weather forecast or TV listings - in a pre-internet era where the only alternative was to wait for the next TV or radio bulletin to be aired.

Its premise was to give viewers free access to the same information that was coming into the BBC newsroom, as soon as the BBC's journalists had received it.

Continue reading the main story

Ceefax in the news

• In 2001, Roy Essandoh (above) became an FA Cup hero thanks to Ceefax. He read a plea from injury-hit Wycombe for players and got the winner in a quarter-final tie against Leicester
• Bruce Rioch found out he had been sacked as QPR assistant manager when he read it on Ceefax
• In 1999, Glenn Hoddle's daughter Zara wrote to Ceefax to back her father when his job as England manager hung in the balance
• Early in his TV career, Gary Lineker said viewers would have been better off watching the first half of a Wimbledon match on Ceefax
• In 1994, a newsflash was briefly broadcast on Ceefax during a rehearsal saying the Queen Mother had died. The BBC apologised to her.

Ceefax had initially been developed when BBC engineers, exploring ways to provide subtitles to enable viewers with hearing problems to enjoy BBC TV programmes, found it was possible to transmit full pages of text information in the "spare lines" transmitted on the analogue TV signal.

The BBC then appointed veteran journalist Colin McIntyre, its former UN correspondent and chief publicity officer, as the first editor of a news and information service which was broadcast using the same method.

It was called Ceefax, simply because viewers would be able to quickly "see the facts" of any story of the day.

McIntyre initially updated 24 news pages on his own, feeding punch tape into machines, before recruiting Ceefax's first eight journalists.

Initially the service was a minority interest, with just a handful of Ceefax-capable TVs in the UK, but it slowly started to gain popularity and the engineering team that developed the service was honoured with a Queen's Award for innovation.

But the real impetus for viewers came when BBC Television decided to use a selection of Ceefax pages, accompanied by music, before the start of programming each day. Initially called Ceefax AM and Ceefax In Vision, the Pages From Ceefax "programme" continued for 30 years, being broadcast overnight on BBC Two until this week.

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The BBC's Points of View programme looks back at Ceefax's 38 years on air

As viewers got a small taste of what Ceefax had to offer, millions of Britons during the 1980s invested in new teletext-enabled TV sets which gave them access to the full Ceefax service, which by now included recipe details for dishes prepared on BBC cookery shows, share prices, music reviews and an annual advent calendar.

Its audience peaked in the 1990s when it had 20 million viewers who checked the service at least once a week. Since the launch of the National Lottery in 1994, dozens of jackpot winners have revealed that they first learned their life had been changed when they checked their numbers on Ceefax.

But the launch of the UK's TV digital signal, and the announcement that the analogue TV signal would disappear in a staged switch-off over five years, meant a slow withdrawal of Ceefax, ending with the final broadcast in Northern Ireland.

Continue reading the main story

At the very start

Mort Smith Original Ceefax staff member

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The early days of the service proved anything but hi-tech.

Ceefax journalists would monitor incoming wire copy and when a story was to be updated they would type at one of two production terminals and create a Ceefax page.

Then, they had to produce a punched tape - approximately a yard long - and take it down two flights of stairs to the Central Apparatus Room, load it into a tape reader and watch as it was read into an anonymous metal box called a core store which actually transmitted the pages.

A walk back up to the sixth floor followed and if, at that point, it was discovered that a spelling mistake had been made, the journalist had to go through the whole process again.

It ensured close attention to detail when writing!

BBC Northern Ireland and UTV are to screen a simulcast reviewing the era of analogue TV, and then Dame Mary Peters - 1972 Olympic gold medallist in the pentathlon - will press the button to change the television landscape.

Viewers who check Ceefax during the evening will see a special graphics countdown on page 100.

And weather presenters on the BBC during the day will pay their own tribute by incorporating Ceefax's Legoblock-style maps into their forecasts.

Ceefax's commitment to getting information to viewers as quickly and clearly as possible has been marked by the lifetime achievement award from the Plain English Campaign, the pressure group that calls for the use of concise and clear language in all public communication.

Founder Chrissie Maher said: "Ceefax helped everyday people with everyday words and I will be giving it a Chrissie Maher Award for its 30 years of commitment to using plain English. It was my first port of call."

She added: "It helped the public keep in touch with world affairs and everyday information with its crystal-clear communications. I will miss its clarity."

Steve Herrmann, editor of the BBC News website, said in response: "Throughout its distinguished years of service to audiences, Ceefax has always aimed to provide news which is clear, concise and simply expressed.

"It is an honour for us to receive this lifetime achievement award, and it stands as a tribute to all the journalists who have worked on the service over the years, and the care they have taken in writing every story."

Culture Minister Ed Vaizey said: "Ceefax revolutionised the way in which the public accessed information. Its peak audience of 20 million viewers is testament to the regard in which it was held - its cessation a reminder of how quickly technology is now progressing."

Harriet Harman, Labour's deputy leader and shadow culture secretary, said: "Ceefax is a great national institution, and it's sad to bid goodbye to a service which gave so many access to news, sport, TV listings and much else besides.

"But with the end of one era comes the start of another as the digital switchover is completed - people can access more channels, and interactive services which are the successors of Ceefax."

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