UK airports give charged gadget advice

7 July 2014 Last updated at 23:27 By Leo Kelion Technology desk editor

Heathrow and Manchester airports have told passengers to ensure all electronic devices carried as hand baggage are charged before travel if they are flying to the US.

The move follows a request from the US that "certain overseas airports" implement enhanced security measures.

A new rule states that if a "device doesn't switch on, you won't be allowed to bring it on to the aircraft".

Airline staff will carry out checks on the devices at boarding gates.

British Airways has said that its customers face being made to rebook if they are found in possession of an uncharged device.

The Department for Transport declined to say whether other UK airports would enforce similar restrictions on flights to the US.

American officials said last week they were aware of a "credible" terrorist threat, but have not linked the security changes to any specific intelligence.

Analysts, however, have suggested the action could be a response to efforts by Islamic militants in Syria and Yemen to build bombs that evade airport security checks.

Powerless phones

A spokeswoman for Heathrow said that it did not comment on security matters.

But the BBC understands that passengers flying to the US will be advised to remove relevant chargers from their hold luggage at check-in, so that they can top up carried-on gadgets if necessary. Alternatively, they can opt to place any powered-down kit in their stowed luggage.

If they still arrive at the security point with a powerless device, they will be directed to a nearby retailer that might be able to provide a recharging cable, and told of the location of airport charging points.

If the traveller is still unable to power on their machine, it will be suggested they make use of MailandFly - an existing service offered by the firm Bagport, which is based at Heathrow's security control.

It allows passengers to pay for banned hand baggage to either be shipped to them separately or be stored at one of the firm's warehouses for up to 42 days.

"We already deal with perfumes, knives and other prohibited items... and shipping a powered-down device would be possible," said Bagport station manager Liisi Puutsa.

If the traveller rejects this option, it will ultimately be up to the airline to arrange what happens to the device.

British Airways has warned its customers that even newly purchased devices from an airport shop must have power, noting that checks might be carried out at the boarding gate in addition to the earlier security controls.

It noted that passengers using London as a transfer point must also have their devices charged, adding that anyone who failed to meet the requirement faced delays.

"If your device doesn't power up when you are requested to do so, you will not be allowed to fly to the US on your original service. Our customer services team will look after the rebooking of your travel arrangements," it said on its website.

Virgin Atlantic, Delta Air Lines and Air France were all unable to provide details of how they would tackle such a situation when asked by the BBC.

Check list

The authorities are not providing a specific list of the devices now subject to power-on checks.

However, the US Transport Security Administration has singled out mobile phones as one type of device affected, and the UK's hand luggage rules also mention tablets, MP3 players, cameras and electric shavers as other examples.

One expert suggested an ever-growing number of gadgets were likely to be included over the coming years.

"When they first started asking for laptops to be taking out separately, they used to ask that the device be powered up too," said TK Keanini, chief technology officer at the cybersecurity firm Lancope.

"This is nothing new in terms of a requirement, but I do see it as a growing challenge for them as more and more types of devices start to make it through these checkpoints.

"With the 'internet of things' approaching, smart-everything will pose new challenges at these checkpoints."

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Samsung forecasts 25% drop in profit

8 July 2014 Last updated at 02:09

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The BBC's Puneet Pal Singh reports on the challenges facing Samsung

Samsung Electronics has forecast a 25% drop in profit for the second quarter due to a slowdown in the smartphone market and a strong Korean currency.

It expects to make an operating profit of 7.2 trillion won ($7.1bn; £4.2bn) in the April-to-June period, down from 9.5 trillion won a year ago.

Its operating profit has now fallen for three straight quarters.

Samsung is the world's biggest maker of mobile phones and the handset division accounts for the bulk of its profits.

The South Korean firm said it "witnessed a slowdown in the overall smartphone market growth and saw increased competition in the Chinese and some European markets" during the period.

Meanwhile, a stronger Korean currency also hurt Samsung's earnings during the period.

The Korean won rose more than 11% against the US dollar and nearly 7% against the euro between July 2013 and end of June this year.

A strengthening currency hurts profits of firms such as Samsung - which rely heavily on exports - when they repatriate their foreign earnings.

'Golden era'

Continue reading the main story

Now it is all about high-volume and low-margin handsets. And on that front the competition is getting fiercer with each passing day"

End Quote Ajay Sunder Frost & Sullivan

Samsung's growth in recent years has been powered mainly by its mobile phone division.

The success of its Galaxy range of smartphones, coupled with a growing global demand for such gadgets, saw it displace Nokia as the world's biggest mobile phone maker in 2012.

However, the pace of growth of the smartphone market has been slowing down and the competition in the sector has also increased, forcing manufacturers to cut costs of their devices in an attempt to attract consumers.

Analysts said that profit margins in the sector are likely to fall even further.

"The golden era of high-end smartphones is clearly over. Those were the handsets that helped firms such as Samsung make healthy profit margins," Ajay Sunder, a vice president specialising in the telecoms sector with consulting firm Frost & Sullivan, told the BBC.

Over-dependence?

"Now it is all about high-volume and low-margin handsets. And on that front the competition is getting fiercer with each passing day."

Various other smartphone makers including China's Xiaomi, Huawei and ZTE have been increasing their market share steadily.

Mr Sunder said that given the slowing growth and increased competition in the smartphone market, Samsung needed to look at boosting its presence in other sectors if it wanted to sustain high growth rates.

"Its over-dependence on the mobile phone division needs to go," he said.

For its part, Samsung has said it "cautiously expects a more positive outlook in the third quarter".

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'Remote control' contraceptive chip

7 July 2014 Last updated at 17:42 By Dave Lee Technology reporter, BBC News

A contraceptive computer chip that can be controlled by remote control has been developed in Massachusetts.

The chip is implanted under a woman's skin, releasing a small dose of levonorgestrel, a hormone.

This will happen every day for 16 years, but can be stopped at any time by using a wireless remote control.

The project has been backed by Bill Gates, and will be submitted for pre-clinical testing in the US next year - and possibly go on sale by 2018.

The device measures 20mm x 20mm x 7mm and will be "competitively priced", its creators said.

Convenience factor

Tiny reservoirs of the hormone are stored on a 1.5cm-wide microchip within the device.

A small electric charge melts an ultra-thin seal around the levonorgestrel, releasing the 30 microgram dose into the body.

There are other types of contraceptive implant available, the researchers noted, but all require a trip to a clinic and an outpatient procedure in order to be deactivated.

Continue reading the main story

Someone across the room cannot re-programme your implant"

End Quote Dr Robert Farra

"The ability to turn the device on and off provides a certain convenience factor for those who are planning their family," said Dr Robert Farra from MIT.

The next challenge for the team is to ensure the absolute security of the device to prevent activation or deactivation by another person without the woman's knowledge.

"Communication with the implant has to occur at skin contact level distance," said Dr Farra.

"Someone across the room cannot re-programme your implant.

"Then we have secure encryption. That prevents someone from trying to interpret or intervene between the communications."

Huge range

The same technology could be used to administer other drugs.

Simon Karger, head of the surgical and interventional business at Cambridge Consultants, said that implanted technology like this faces a range of challenges and risks.

But he added that overall "the value to the patient of these types of implant can be huge and we foresee a future in which a huge range of conditions are treated through smart implanted systems".

The innovation comes at a time when governments and organisations around the world have agreed to try to bring family planning to around 120 million more women by 2020.

This challenge opens the door to this kind of implant technology being used in areas where access to traditional contraceptives is limited - a bigger priority, argued Gavin Corley, a biomedical engineer.

"That's a humanitarian application as opposed to satisfying a first-world need," he told the BBC.

Follow Dave Lee on Twitter @DaveLeeBBC

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UK demo satellites set for launch

7 July 2014 Last updated at 18:20 By Jonathan Amos Science correspondent, BBC News

Two British spacecraft, including the first satellite made in Scotland, are due to go into orbit on Tuesday.

The pair will launch on a Soyuz rocket from Baikonur in Kazakhstan.

TechDemoSat-1 was prepared in Guildford by Surrey Satellite Technology Limited, with the assembly of UKube-1 undertaken at Clyde Space in Glasgow.

Both platforms will trial innovative components, sensors and instruments that their producers hope can go on to win future business.

TDS-1 and UKube-1 have emerged from government-backed programmes designed to spur growth in the British space sector.

Ministers have identified satellites as one of their "eight great technologies" that can help rebalance the economy.

Lift-off for the Soyuz is timed for 21:58 local time (16:58 BST).

The UK missions are actually secondary payloads on the flight; its main purpose is to launch a Russian meteorological satellite, Meteor-M2.

TechDemoSat-1 is the bigger of the British duo at 157kg.

Among its demonstration systems is a suite of instruments to study "space weather" - the storm of charged particles, mostly from our Sun, that envelop the Earth. These particles can prove problematic - and even limit the life of - spacecraft systems.

TDS-1 also carries an innovative approach to monitoring the state of the ocean surface. It works this out by looking at how GPS signals are scattered off the water.

UKube-1 is much smaller than its "English brother". The Scottish platform weighs just 3.5kg. But, again, it holds some smart technologies that their developers want to prove in orbit.

Among them is a new imaging sensor that will be used to take pictures of the planet, and a smart device that aims to generate random numbers by detecting impacts from space particles. Such a device might in the future form the basis of much more secure satellite communications.

Public funding for TDS-1 has come in large part from the government's Technology Strategy Board.

The UKube-1 project has been administered by the UK Space Agency.

But both SSTL and Clyde Space have invested their own cash in the ventures as well.

For Clyde Space, this is already paying dividends.

"This has been important for the development of our company," said sales manager Robin Sampson. "This has helped us mature into a complete satellite platform provider.

"Previously, we've tended to supply mainly spacecraft sub-systems, but this will be the first time we've put an entire satellite together to go into orbit. And already we've got more platform orders on our books," he told BBC News.

The intention is that UKube becomes a repeat programme. There should soon be an announcement on a UKube-2.

SSTL hopes the same will be true for TechDemoSat.

"A lot of people want to see TDS-1 work first, but we will continue to push for an ongoing programme," said the company's Doug Liddle.

"If you could guarantee a series of launches, it would be an extremely powerful tool for R&D and British industry.

"If it were like a timetable, like catching a bus, you could plan your developments much better. It's been shown to work for academia, for research programmes, and for commercial operators.

"To have that for demonstration satellites as a national capability would be a fantastic thing."

Among the seven missions on Tuesday's Soyuz flight is SkySat-2 - the second Earth observer for California's Skybox Imaging. The company, which is making snatches of video of the Earth's surface, hit the headlines last month when it was purchased by Google for $500m.

One satellite not going up is M3M. This Canadian platform was pulled from the manifest in April by the North American country's government amid the row over Russia's actions in Ukraine.

Jonathan.Amos-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk and follow me on Twitter: @BBCAmos

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Uber in fare war with NYC taxis

7 July 2014 Last updated at 20:17

Mobile car hire service Uber has temporarily cut the price of its cheapest service, UberX, by 20% to match the rate of New York City's yellow taxis.

The move follows similar price decreases in San Francisco and Boston.

Most analysts see the move as an effort to undercut competitors like Lyft and Hailo, as well as attracting newcomers.

Uber drivers - who are paid around 80% of the total fare - will be forced to accept lower payments as a result.

In a blog post announcing the fare changes, Uber countered: "What we've seen in cities across the country is that lower fares mean greater demand, lower pickup times and more trips per hour — increasing earning potential and creating better economics for drivers."

In June, Uber raised $1.2bn in capital, in a move which valued the car-sharing service at more than $18bn.

However, it has faced competition from other firms, questions from regulators and angered traditional taxi drivers in cities across the globe, from Berlin to Paris to Madrid.

A protest by cab drivers in London in early June caused widespread gridlock, and France has recently been mulling a ban on GPS for car-sharing apps.

New York City's Taxi and Limousine Commission did not reply to a request for comment.

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Disc awards include streaming data

8 July 2014 Last updated at 02:04

Eighty singles have been given gold, silver or platinum discs after the award rules were changed to include streaming data as well as sales.

Jessie J's Price Tag and Clean Bandit's Rather Be were given double platinum status under the new criteria.

We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together by Taylor Swift and Fix You by Coldplay were upgraded from gold to platinum.

Artists are awarded different levels of certification for their songs based on a series of UK sales milestones.

Until today, a song needed to sell 600,000 copies to be awarded a platinum disc. Under the new system, every time a song is played on a site like Spotify or Deezer, it will count towards that total, even though the listener has not purchased a copy.

Music industry body BPI, which administers the awards, said the audio streaming data had been backdated to the start of the year, and used the same formula as the official UK chart, which began counting music streams in the Top 40 last week.

Continue reading the main story

• So What - Pink
• We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together - Taylor Swift
• Dark Horse - Katy Perry
• Fix You - Coldplay (pictured)

Source: BPI - for singles selling in excess of 600,000

Ariana Grande topped the first combined chart with her single Problem, which included 712,000 streams.

The Official Charts Company says each track must be played for 30 seconds before counting as one stream, with 100 streams the equivalent of one sale.

Streaming has increasingly become key to the music industry, with 7.4 billion streams in 2013, a figure which is expected to double over the course of this year.

Other songs to benefit from the BPI's adjustments included Dolly Parton's Jolene and Champagne Supernova by Oasis, which were awarded silver discs for sales of 200,000.

Beyonce's Drunk in Love and Best Song Ever by One Direction achieved gold status, representing 400,000 units.

Songs are awarded platinum status for 600,000 sales and over, while a track which shifts 1.2 million units is given double platinum status under the awards scheme, which was introduced in 1973.

Geoff Taylor, chief executive of the BPI, said: "The BPI's certified awards and Platinum, Gold and Silver discs form part of our country's music heritage, so including audio streams in the sales data for singles represents an important landmark.

"It will ensure that our awards remain relevant and up to date in measuring the popularity of our favourite recordings."

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Digital banking 'reaches £1bn a day'

8 July 2014 Last updated at 09:10

Mobile phone and internet banking transactions now total almost £1bn a day, a study has suggested.

The technology is used for transactions worth £6.4bn a week, up from £5.8bn last year, the study by the British Bankers' Association and EY found.

They did not reveal the proportion of transactions made on mobile phones, but said the amount had risen sharply.

The research found that, on average, 15,000 banking apps had been downloaded each day this year.

In total, 14.7 million banking apps have now been downloaded - a 2.3 million rise since January.

However, the report found many customers still preferred internet banking to mobile phones for large transactions.

"While customers like the ease of checking their balance with an app on their phone or tablet, they often use a PC to transfer larger amounts or apply for a mortgage," it said.

And despite the popularity of internet and phone banking resulting in a sharp fall in day-to-day use of bank branches, the study said they remained important for "big moments" such as when customers took out mortgages, or wanted to assess their financial options.

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Sniffer dog finds child abuse images

8 July 2014 Last updated at 09:36

A suspect has been arrested after a dog trained to detect electronic circuitry found a memory stick containing images of child sexual abuse hidden in a tin box inside a metal cabinet.

Rhode Island police received Thoreau from Connecticut police after the dog completed 22 weeks of training, which involved detecting gadgets for food.

The only other US gadget-sniffing dog remains stationed in Connecticut.

But some UK experts have questioned the efficacy of the training methods.

Thoreau's handler, Det Adam Houston, told the Providence Journal: "If it has a memory card, he'll sniff it out."

The food-based reward system was how the dog ate "every day", he added.

But Maggie Gwynne, of Sniffer Dogs UK & International, told the BBC this was "completely contrary" to the UK police and prison service's training methods.

"Offering a sniffer dog food in exchange for a 'find' opens the way for an abuse of the system - if its hungry enough it will take food from anybody, not just its handler and therefore defeats the object of the search," she said.

"It would be interesting to research their success rate, however.

"I don't believe this is a field that any UK police dog would be trained in, and I personally have never heard of such a thing," .

"[Sniffer dogs] are concerned with the detection of drugs, cash, firearms, explosives, and are used for conflict management and tracking criminals who have legged it, or missing and vulnerable people."

It is unclear whether the dog can distinguish between a memory stick and other electrical equipment likely to be around a suspect's house, such as TV remotes, radios and computers.

Ms Gwynne said she had no doubt dogs could be trained to locate hard drives and/or memory sticks, in the same way firearms dogs were trained to find metallic objects but the idea "that it could make a distinction as to what it has found, seems unrealistic".

In 2008, dogs Lucky and Flo, were trained to sniff out pirated DVDs, with Wired noting: "The dogs cannot decipher the difference between pirated and authentic DVDs."

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Nasa equips robots with smartphones

8 July 2014 Last updated at 12:55

Nasa plans to send Google's 3D smartphones into space to function as the "eyes and brains" of free-flying robots inside the Space Station.

The robots, known as Spheres (Synchronised Position Hold, Engage, Reorient, Experimental satellites), currently have limited capabilities.

It is hoped the smartphones, powered by Google's Project Tango, will equip the robots with more functionality.

The robots have been described by experts as "incredibly clever".

When Nasa's robots first arrived at the International Space Station in 2006, they were only capable of precise movements using small jets of CO2, which propelled the devices forwards at around an inch per second.

"We wanted to add communication, a camera, increase the processing capability, accelerometers and other sensors," Spheres project manager Chris Provencher told Reuters.

"As we were scratching our heads thinking about what to do, we realised the answer was in our hands. Let's just use smartphones."

In an attempt to make the robots smarter and of more use to astronauts, engineers at Nasa's Ames Research Centre sent cheap smartphones to the space station, which they had purchased from Best Buy, an American electronics shop.

Astronauts then attached the phones to the Spheres, giving them more visual and sensing capabilities.

Helping astronauts

Looking to further improve the robots, Nasa turned to Google's Project Tango.

Tango uses the 3D cameras embedded in Google's latest smartphones to give the handset a human-scale understanding of space and motion.

Once at the space station and attached to the Spheres, the phones will use their onboard motion-tracking cameras and infrared depth sensors to safely navigate around the ISS.

These more advanced phones will be launched into space on 11 July and are intended to replace the earlier models.

Noel Sharkey, professor of artificial intelligence and robotics at the University of Sheffield, told the BBC: "This is an incredibly clever way to unite different technologies in an unexpected way.

"It will be interesting to see how much this inspires Google to use this technology for its own robotics development following on the several world-class robot companies it has purchased in the last year."

Dr Fumiya Iida, lecturer at the department of engineering at the University of Cambridge, praised Nasa's ingenuity.

"Robots were and still are usually very expensive and complex, thus they often don't match to a cost-benefit balance. By using consumer electronics such as smartphones, we can significantly reduce down the development cost for robots with high-performance capabilities which were not possible 10 years ago."

Nasa envisions a future in which its spatially-aware Spheres can help astronauts with daily chores and risky tasks.

Dr Walterio Mayol of Bristol University's Robotics Lab told the BBC that the basic idea behind the mapping system, a technique known as Slam (simultaneous localisation and mapping), was developed substantially in the UK ten years ago.

He said that while the robots are an impressive start, they currently have no arms, which could limit their potential.

The Spheres' creators are said to have been inspired by Luke Skywalker's training droid, from the film Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, although it is unlikely lasers will be fitted to the device.

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Experts hack smart LED light bulbs

8 July 2014 Last updated at 13:52 By Jane Wakefield Technology reporter

Security experts have demonstrated how easy it is to hack network-enabled LED light bulbs.

Context Security released details about how it was able to hack into the wi-fi network of one brand of network-enabled bulb, and control the lights remotely.

The LIFX light bulb, which is available to buy in the UK, has network connectivity to let people turn it on and off with their smartphones.

The firm behind the bulbs has since fixed the vulnerability.

Michael Jordon, research director at Context, explained how he was able to obtain the wi-fi username and password of the household the lights were connected to.

"We bought some light bulbs and examined how they talked to each other and saw that one of the messages was about the username and password," he told the BBC.

"By posing as a new bulb joining the network we were able to get that information," he added.

"We were able to steal credentials for the wireless network, which in turn meant we could control the lights."

The LIFX project started off on crowd-funding website Kickstarter. Billing itself as the "light bulb reinvented", it brought in over 13 times its original funding target.

The master bulb receives commands from the smartphone applications and broadcasts them to all the other bulbs over a wireless mesh network.

While it had taken two experts two weeks to crack the system, the equipment they had used was cheap and readily available, said Mr Jordon.

LIFX said that it had updated its software since being notified of the vulnerability.

In a blog post, the firm said: "There was a potential security issue regarding the distribution of network configuration details on the mesh radio but no LIFX users have been affected that were are aware of.

"As always we recommend that all users stay up-to-date with the latest firmware and app updates."

Smart cities

Increasingly everyday objects are being connected to the network, a phenomenon known as the internet of things.

The number of objects that can potentially be hacked is set to rise exponentially, according to research firm Gartner.

It estimates that there will be 26.5 billion physical objects embedded with technology by 2020. It believes the industry will be worth $1.9tn (£1.1tn) by that time.

"Whereas phones and laptops have had a longer time to sort out security issues, these newer devices haven't learnt and are therefore easy gateways into hacking," said Mr Jordon.

"Security costs time and money and some manufacturers are not putting in the right level of security."

Brian McGuigan, commercial director at Silver Spring Networks, a firm providing networks for smart cities and smart lighting, said the issue of security was not limited to devices for the home as more and more of the furniture in cities was also connected to the network.

"The buyers in cities have a low understanding of security, and they need to be encouraged to leverage the security standards that have been widely used in other industries."

"The internet of things is a building block for cities but a lot of companies offering products are start-ups and under pressure to get to market quickly."

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