Warcraft world gets fifth expansion

11 November 2013 Last updated at 06:54 ET

Blizzard has announced the fifth expansion for its flagship World of Warcraft (WoW) online game.

Called the Warlords of Draenor it adds a new world to the game, lets players build settlements and instantly boost a character to high level.

The announcement comes as WoW player numbers hit a five-year low and Blizzard starts to group players on a smaller number of servers.

Blizzard has also unveiled plans for a new game called Heroes of the Storm.

Small audience

Details about Warlords of Draenor were unveiled at the annual Blizzcon gaming convention. The expansion involves a time-travelling storyline that will see players re-enact some of the events from the series of Warcraft strategy games that predated WoW.

The expansion is set on the world of Draenor and gives players a series of new zones, dungeons and instances to play on. Warlords lets characters play at level 100, introduces player settlements called garrisons and updates the look of some of the game's different races.

Blizzard said buyers of Warlords would be able to boost one character to level 90 so they could instantly go adventuring in the world of the expansion. No release date for Warlords has yet been given.

The news comes soon after Blizzard revealed that subscriber numbers for WoW had dropped to about 7.7 million. The last time they were this low was in 2007 and they are significantly down on the 2010 high of 12 million.

To manage this decline, Blizzard has introduced a system that lets people play across servers to ensure the game's economy, Player-versus-Player areas and arena battle systems have enough people participating to keep them functioning.

Writing on the Rock Paper Shotgun game news site, Nathan Grayson described Warlords of Draenor as a "decent expansion" but said the decision to re-visit Warcraft's past was "puzzling".

"This is maintenance, in a sense," he wrote. "Something to keep existing players interested and happy. And who knows? Maybe the focus that a smaller audience allows will be good for WoW in the long run."

Blizzcon also saw the announcement of a new game called Heroes of the Storm. This is an arena-based hero brawling game that lets people take control of key characters from almost every game Blizzard makes including Starcraft and Diablo. The heroes are united in teams and fight rivals for dominance on one of a series of different maps.

A beta test of Heroes is currently under way and Blizzard said the finished game would be released "soonish".

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iPhone maker Pegatron disappoints

11 November 2013 Last updated at 07:30 ET

Pegatron Corporation, the Taiwanese company that assembles Apple's iPhone 5C, has reported lower-than-expected profits.

Analysts have said that Pegatron is experiencing slower orders for the 5C, which is Apple's cheaper smartphone.

Net profits were T$2.48bn ($84m; £53m) for its third quarter, slightly below analyst forecasts, but higher than the T$1.35bn it made last year.

Pegatron also makes laptops for Lenovo and former parent Asustek Computer.

The company's share price hit an all-time high in May on reports that it was winning orders away from rival Hon Hai Precision Industry, another established Apple supplier.

But in a recent research note Nomura said it was downgrading the stock from "buy" to "neutral" blaming "deteriorating orders for 5C and risks of new EMS [Electronics Manufacturing Services] makers taking market share".

The bank added that it saw "a lack of positive catalysts in the near term".

And last week the Wall Street Journal reported that Apple was considering adding another Taiwan-based manufacturer, Wistron, to its roster of iPhone 5C makers, potentially increasing competition for Pegatron and reducing profit margins.

In October, Apple reported falling fourth quarter profits of $7.5bn (£4.6bn), despite iPhone sales rising 26% to 33.8 million.

These were the first earnings to include sales of Apple's new iPhone models: the iPhone 5s and the cheaper iPhone 5C, which is designed to appeal to the Chinese market.

However Apple does not break out sales figures for the iPhone 5C.

Over the summer Pegatron was criticised by human rights group China Labor Watch, which accused the company of workplace violations in three of its factories.

The group said it found evidence of "at least 86 labour rights violations, including 36 legal violations and 50 ethical violations" following an undercover investigation.

Apple is known to be diversifying its list of suppliers and looking increasingly to Chinese manufacturers.

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Smartphone camera reveals PIN

11 November 2013 Last updated at 08:19 ET

The PIN for a smartphone can be revealed by its camera and microphone, researchers have warned.

Using a programme called PIN Skimmer a team from the University of Cambridge found that codes entered on a number-only soft keypad could be identified.

The software watches your face via the camera and listens to clicks through the microphone as you type.

The tests were carried out on the Google Nexus-S and the Galaxy S3 smartphones.

"We demonstrated that the camera, usually used for conferencing or face recognition, can be used maliciously," say the report's authors Prof Ross Anderson and Laurent Simon.

According to the research, the microphone is used to detect "touch-events" as a user enters their PIN. In effect, it can "hear" the clicks that the phone makes as a user presses the virtual number keys.

The camera then estimates the orientation of the phone as the user is doing this and "correlates it to the position of the digit tapped by the user".

"We watch how your face appears to move as you jiggle your phone by typing," said Ross Anderson, professor of security engineering at Cambridge University.

"It did surprise us how well it worked," he told the BBC.

When trying to work out four-digit PINs the programme was successful more than 50% of the time after five attempts. With eight-digit PINs the success rate was 60% after 10 attempts.

Many smartphone users have a pincode to lock their phone but they are increasingly used to access other types of applications on a smartphone, including banking apps.

This raises the question of which resources should remain accessible on a phone when someone is entering a sensitive PIN, say the report's authors.

Randomise keys

"For instance when a call comes in, the user needs to hear the ring tone while unlocking his phone; otherwise he may assume the caller has hung up."

One suggestion to prevent a PIN being identified is to use a longer number but the researchers warn this affects "memorability and usability".

"Randomising" the position of numbers on the keypad is also suggested but the researchers believe this would "cripple usability on phones".

Getting rid of passwords altogether and using fingerprints or face recognition are offered as more drastic solutions.

"If you're developing payment apps, you'd better be aware that these risks exist," warns Prof Anderson.

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Switch on for 4G service in Cumbria

11 November 2013 Last updated at 08:41 ET

Mobile operator EE has turned on its 4G service in Cumbria, offering superfast broadband to more than 2,000 homes and businesses in the northern fells.

The move follows trials in the Threlkeld area, where users experienced average download speeds of 24Mbps.

The company plans to roll out 4G across the rest of Cumbria (another 100 sq-miles) by March next year.

Experts said the cost of delivering superfast broadband wirelessly was much less than using fibre cables.

Welcoming the switch on, Rural Affairs Minister Dan Rogerson said: "Nothing will have a more spectacular effect on the rural economy than the roll out of superfast broadband and high speed mobile access.

'Frustrating time'

"I don't believe any rural business should be held back because of its location, so it's great that 2,600 Cumbrian homes and businesses are now covered by a superfast network."

EE chief executive Olaf Swantee said: "There is a lot of work to do in 2014 to reach more people and businesses in rural areas.

"But today we have proved that 4G has the capability to connect this country's unconnected [premises], and we intend to continue to be at the forefront of that."

Mal Hilton, chairman of the Northern Fells Broadband Group: "We have been working for the past three years to ensure rural parishes in this area of Cumbria do not miss out on the high speed broadband developments that are taking place across the UK.

"It has been a frustrating time and most commercial companies have demonstrated a complete lack of interest.

"For the residents of the northern fells this is a significant milestone in the journey towards a complete superfast broadband service and one we welcome wholeheartedly."

Packages starting from £25 a month will be available from 6 December.

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Microwave signals turned into power

11 November 2013 Last updated at 10:18 ET

An electrical current capable of charging a mobile phone has been created from microwave signals.

A team from Duke University said the technology they had used had been as efficient as using solar panels.

The device they created used metamaterials, which capture various forms of wave energy and convert them for other applications.

In the future, satellite, sound or wi-fi signals could be "harvested", according to the US researchers.

"We're showing... these materials can be useful for consumer applications," said engineering student Alexander Katko.

Using fibreglass and copper conductors on a circuit board, the researchers converted microwaves into 7.3 volts of electricity. A USB charger, which is often used to recharge mobile phone batteries and cameras, provides about five volts.

"We were aiming for the highest energy efficiency we could achieve," said team member Allen Hawkes.

"We had been getting energy efficiency around 6-10%, but with this design we were able to dramatically improve energy conversion to 37%, which is comparable to what is achieved in solar cells."

Metamaterials are artificial materials that display properties not usually found in nature.

In future, the two students and their colleague Steven Cummer hope that the technology can be built in to mobile phones. This would allow the handsets to recharge wirelessly when not being used.

They also believe that it could help users living in remote areas without access to the power grid. They would be able to "harvest" the energy from signals generated by mobile phone towers.

"Our work demonstrates a simple and inexpensive approach to electromagnetic power harvesting," said Mr Cummer.

"The beauty of the design is that the basic building blocks are self-contained and additive. One can simply assemble more blocks to increase the scavenged power."

The full report will be published in the journal Applied Physics Letters in December.

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Apple and Samsung back in court

11 November 2013 Last updated at 19:11 ET

Apple and Samsung are returning to court in one of the most high-profile patent battles of recent times.

In August 2012, a jury found Samsung guilty of infringing six Apple patents and awarded one of the largest payouts of its kind on record.

The verdict and $1bn (£626m) awarded in damages were seen as a massive victory for Apple.

This is just one of many patent cases the two companies are fighting in courtrooms across the world.

In March 2013, a judge re-examined the $1bn awarded to Apple and reduced the amount saying the damages would need to be assessed at a new trial.

Judge Lucy Koh said the original jury in the court in California had incorrectly calculated part of the damages.

The judge said that $550m of the award had been worked out in the proper manner but she ordered that the remaining $450m be reassessed.

That $450m could be increased or lowered meaning that Apple could conceivably end up with more than the original $1bn awarded at the first trial.

Apple had originally sought $2.5bn in damages from Samsung.

It argued that the South Korean company had copied its designs for the bodies of the original iPhone and iPad as well as user-interface elements such as the bounce-back response when a person scrolls beyond the end of list and tap-to-zoom.

Samsung argued it was already working on rounded rectangular handsets dominated by a screen and a single button months before the iPhone was revealed. It sought $519m in damages from Apple.

Stealing isn't right

At the time of the original ruling Samsung said the decision was bad news for consumers and would "lead to fewer choices, less innovation, and potentially higher prices".

Continue reading the main story

I do kind of wish they were more compatible"

End Quote Steve Wozniack Apple co-founder

Apple said it applauded the court "for finding Samsung's behaviour wilful and for sending a loud clear message that stealing isn't right".

Even after this latest trial, which will involve a new jury, both companies could appeal.

"I think they will appeal unless they settle," intellectual property consultant Florian Mueller told the BBC.

"But at this point neither party has enough leverage to force someone into settling if they don't want to. And we're not there yet," he said.

Apple has asked for a sales ban to be imposed on the Samsung products that had been found to infringe the patents. But the judge ruled that Apple could adequately be compensated financially.

"Between these types of big players a $1bn damages award is not as bad as a sales ban," said Mr Mueller.

Apple appealed against that ruling and the result of the appeal is due before the end of the year.

Samsung and Apple are currently locked in a battle in the courts of more than 10 countries across Europe.

Sharing good technology

But some senior technology experts believes the legal conflict is bad for consumers.

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak told the BBC recently that: "There are good things I see on Samsung phones that I wish were in my iPhone; I wish Apple would use them, and could use them, and I don't know if Samsung would stop us.

"I wish everybody just did a lot of cross-licensing and sharing the good technology; all our products would be better, we'd go further.

"I do kind of wish they were more compatible."

In October, Samsung offered to stop taking rivals to court in Europe over alleged infringements of certain types of patents for a period of five years.

The European Union authorities have taken the "preliminary view" that the South Korean company's litigious actions were stifling competition. Samsung faces a potential £11.3bn ($18.3bn) fine if found guilty of breaching European anti-trust laws.

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70,000 cards at risk in data breach

12 November 2013 Last updated at 06:28 ET

Up to 70,000 people in Ireland who took advantage of a customer loyalty offer could have been victims of a "sophisticated criminal attack".

The company, Loyaltybuild, said it had suffered a security data breach.

Supermarket chain Supervalu has asked 62,500 people involved in its Getaway Breaks scheme to contact their banks - 6,800 of those are in Northern Ireland.

AXA Ireland has said up to 8,000 of its customers may have been affected.

Loyaltybuild has advised the Data Protection Commissioner of Ireland and the police.

In a statement on its website, it added: "As part of our ongoing investigation, into a system breach identified last month, Loyaltybuild has discovered that it has been the victim of a sophisticated criminal attack.

"We are working around the clock with our security experts to get to the bottom of this and to further enhance our security in order to protect our valued customers, who are of paramount importance to us."

Continue reading the main story

We are working around the clock with our security experts to get to the bottom of this"

End Quote Loyaltybuild statement

Customers are advised to check their payment cards for suspicious activity.

The breach was discovered on 25 October and a third party firm has been running forensic tests.

Supervalu said the incident was more extensive than initially thought. Customers who made Getaway Break bookings between January 2011 and February 2012 have been advised to contact their financial institutions.

Customers are also being warned to treat any unsolicited communication claiming to represent Supervalu Getaway Breaks or Loyaltybuild with "extreme caution".

Supervalu said it was continuing to work with Loyaltybuild to resolve the issue as quickly as possible but had also engaged its own IT security consultants to investigate the Loyaltybuild system.

It also emphasised that the breach of security was in data collected and held by Loyaltybuild on Getaway Breaks customers only and did not involve other customers of Supervalu.

AXA Ireland confirmed its customers' data may also have been compromised by the Loyaltybuild breach. Up to 8,000 customers may have been affected.

In a statement, the company said: "Loyaltybuild's forensic team has now advised that there is a high risk that an unauthorised third party accessed details of payment cards used to pay for AXA Leisure Breaks between January 2011 and February 2012.

"This investigation is still ongoing in relation to whether other personal data of customers has been compromised," it added.

AXA said all other customer transactions by payment card were unaffected.

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Vodafone profits in 'tough' trading

12 November 2013 Last updated at 06:53 ET

Vodafone has reported a half-year pre-tax profit of £1.5bn ($2.4bn) as it said trading in Europe remained "very tough at present".

Chief executive Vittorio Colao said he had seen "intense macroeconomic, regulatory and competitive pressures during the period" there.

But he was "encouraged" by forecasts that Europe would return to growth.

Mr Colao said the emerging markets businesses were doing well thanks to the smartphone.

He said he hoped for a shift in regulation to support industry investment and consolidation.

Mr Colao said mature markets were "challenging", but that focusing on cost efficiency was helping.

The figure marks a big fall from its £3.9bn half-year pre-tax profit in 2012.

Richard Hunter, head of equities at Hargreaves Lansdown Stockbrokers, said the fall in profits was mainly due to Vodafone's difficulties in Europe.

He said there were some "issues under the bonnet", such as regulatory concerns and Vodafone's performance in India, as well as the "famously" competitive mobile phone industry.

But he added: "Nonetheless, the outlook over the horizon is bright."

TalkTalk cheers investors

Vodafone's results came at the same time as fellow UK telecoms firm TalkTalk revealed a £9m pre-tax loss for the six months to the end of September.

The drop compared with a £46m profit for the same period last year.

Despite the swing into loss, shares in TalkTalk rose over 10%, buoyed by the company's higher forecast for revenue growth.

It said this would be at least 3%, up from 2% for the full financial year.

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TalkTalk, which offers broadband, fixed line and mobile telecoms and TV services, said the pre-tax loss reflected the investments it had made, mainly in its TV service, during the period.

The firm said it had signed up 167,000 new customers for its TV service in the three months to the end of September, putting it on track to have nearly a million viewers by the end of next year.

"We are delighted with the progress we have made in the first half," said Dido Harding, TalkTalk chief executive.

'Project Spring'

Meanwhile, Vodafone, the world's second-largest mobile operator said it plans to spend £7bn on improving its networks by March 2016.

The move follows Vodafone's deal in September to sell its US business to Verizon Communications for $130bn.

The US arm made up 45% of Vodafone's business, and the deal marked one of the largest to date in corporate history.

As part of its growth plan, "Project Spring", the introduction of 4G networks, will be accelerated and investment for laying fibre optic cables increased, to allow Vodafone to offer faster broadband to its customers.

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Virgin Media cost and speed increase

12 November 2013 Last updated at 07:51 ET

Virgin Media broadband customers will see bills rise by 6.7% from February.

The company said the price rise would allow it to remain competitive and provide value for its customers.

And it would at the same time begin a rollout to 12.5 million homes served by its fibre-optic broadband service of speeds up to 152Mbps.

That rise, from 120Mbps, would allow users to download a high-definition (HD) film in less than four minutes and a music album in four seconds, it said.

The company said it was also working to increase the speed of other broadband services by up to 20Mbps.

"This is probably the last time that customers will have to take this kind of price hike on the chin," said Dominic Baliszewski, from website broadbandchoices.co.uk.

"New rules from Ofcom governing mid-contract price rises will come into effect from early 2014, forcing providers to give customers the opportunity to cancel their contract without financial penalty if they increase prices during their contract term."

Virgin Media's chief executive officer Tom Mockridge said: "As people connect more things simultaneously to the internet more often, they need powerful broadband with the bandwidth to deliver a great experience for everyone in the home."

Mr Baliszewski added: "For example, 10 people could all be watching HD video content separately without experiencing any buffering."

According to Ofcom, the industry regulator, the average residential broadband speed across the UK is 14.7Mbps. But this increases to 43.6Mbps where the user is connected to the fibre-based network.

The latest figures show 19% of homes have taken up a superfast service, with speeds of 30Mbps.

BT has previously announced their broadband customers will face a price rise of 6.5% from January 2014.

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US file-sharing traffic in decline

12 November 2013 Last updated at 08:24 ET

BitTorrent traffic is in decline in the US for the first time, according to a new study.

The protocol, used by many pirate sites as well as legal services, allows people to download files bit by bit.

It saw its share of total internet traffic fall to 7%, a drop of 20% in the past six months. However, in Europe traffic continues to grow.

Meanwhile, other video content is riding high - with NetFlix and YouTube accounting for 50% of all net traffic.

The report, from broadband measurement firm Sandvine, shows a sharp decrease in the bandwidth taken up by BitTorrent traffic, some of which is associated with the downloading of illegal music and movies.

Ten years ago, when Sandvine began compiling its twice-yearly Global Internet Phenomena Report, BitTorrent traffic accounted for 60% of the total.

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BitTorrent's inventor Bram Cohen weighs up its impact on the media industry

The latest figures suggest that, as well as its share falling, there could be less overall BitTorrent traffic on the network.

But in Europe, BitTorrent remains popular, with half of all uploaded traffic still attributed to the protocol.

Torrent-based peer-to-peer file sharing is on the decrease, partly because people are turning to other ways to swap material.

The use of "dark nets" such as Tor and encrypted digital lockers is growing in popularity.

These can be harder to track.

But also people are simply turning to legitimate services.

"If this trend continues I think it can most likely be explained by the increase in legal alternatives people have in the United States. In Europe and other parts of the world, it's much harder to watch recent films and TV shows on demand so unauthorised BitTorrent users continue to grow there," said Ernesto Van Der Dar, founder of news site TorrentFreak.

Mark Mulligan, an independent analyst, agrees. "We are finally at the start of having enough compelling legitimate services that the reasons for piracy begin to fade," he said.

"That doesn't mean that a hardcore of users won't continue to use these sites because they will."

Six strikes

Copyright holders in both the US and Europe have taken a tough stance on internet piracy in recent months.

In the UK about 28 sites, including many that use the BitTorrent protocol, have been blocked by ISPs following court orders from rights holders.

In the US, the government launched the US Copyright Alert in March. The system is also known as Six Strikes because it allows users six chances to stop infringing copyright.

It involves sending a series of warnings - the first two tell consumers that they have been spotted downloading illegal content and suggest alternatives sources.

The next two warnings pop up as a message on users' browsers, which people must acknowledge before they can continue.

After that the ISP will begin to throttle bandwidth or block websites.

In July, France put an end to a similar policy that threatened persistent offenders with internet bans.

The culture minister said that the penalty - fines of up to 1,500 euros ($2,000; £1,250) - was disproportionate.

Copyright holders continue to pursue piracy in all its forms on the web, and websites that publish song lyrics have become the latest target.

The US National Music Publishers' Association, an organisation set up to protect the copyright of songwriters, said that it had sent takedown notices to 50 sites that it claimed profited from advertising around lyrics "without compensating songwriters".

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