A shaggy hog story: Boris, the extinct 'sheep-pig', gains a new trotter-hold in UK

He is a pig... but not as we know it. From those extravagantly insulated shoulders down, he looks for all the world like a sheep.Viewed from a less literal perspective, it would seem, he bears a compelling resemblance to one of our more flamboyant politicians.Which is why keeper Tony York has christened his newest and proudest porcine possession Boris Johnson, after the Tory MP and London mayoral candidate. The four-legged Boris represents what Mr York hopes will be a renaissance for the Lincolnshire Curly Coat pig, often called the sheep-pig, and a breed which became extinct here 37 years ago.In his quest to reintroduce the breed, he discovered British farmers had exported many Curly Coats during the early 20th century to Hungary, where their coat helped them survive harsh winters. There they were cross-bred with the Mangalitza, a similar breed, creating the 'Lincolista'.Mr York found the sub-breed thriving in Austria, and brought 17 of the animals back to his Pigs Paradise farm near Stonehenge, Wiltshire, driving a trailer 2,400 miles across Europe to ensure they had regular food and water stops."It was a mammoth task," said Mr York. "It was no good acquiring just one or two. We drove hundreds of miles from farm to farm in an attempt to round up enough unrelated stock to build a good herd." The British Pig Association has agreed to register his acquisitions as direct descendantsof the Lincolnshire Curly Coat, securing the link with UK farming heritage."It's like a dream come true that the Curly Coat genes live on," said Mr York. "They might be Austro-Hungarian in origin, but they do offer a glimpse of our farming past - and one of our more unusual domestic farm breeds."As for Boris, he is very loveable. We called him that because he shares the same hairstyle as Mr Johnson and he's very interested in the ladies."Mr York remembers the day, in 1971, when the last known pair of Lincolnshire Curly Coats were sent for slaughter."It was a tragedy," he said. "The market was for faster maturing breeds and that was that for the Curly Coats."Hair from the pigs is popular in the U.S. where its ability to retain air bubbles under water makes it ideal for tying fishing flies.

Paris Hilton and Nicky Hilton Do Hawaii

Paris Hilton still smiling while on vacation with her family in Hawaii before she found out about grandpa Hilton giving away her inheritance to charity. Do these two look incredibly silly and overdressed for a day on the beach at a family resort, or is it just us? And who wears ballet flats on the beach?
Someone please just slap her. It’s our dearest Christmas wish.

Suicide Attack on Rally May Have Killed Bhutto

A bomb blast devastated a political rally being held by the Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto near the capital, Islamabad, Thursday, killing several people and seriously injuring Ms. Bhutto, according to witnesses and local television reports. Some reports said she had been killed.Witnesses at the scene said Ms. Bhutto was fired upon before the blast, and an official from her party said Ms. Bhutto had been badly injured by the explosion.A local television channel, Geo-TV, quoting Ms. Bhutto’s husband, said Ms. Bhutto had been injured and hospitalized by the blast, which was apparently caused by a suicide attacker.Hundreds of supporters had gathered at the rally, which was being held at Liaqut Bagh, a park that is a common venue for political rallies and speeches, in Rawalpindi, the garrison city adjacent to the capital.The site was littered with pools of blood. Shoes and caps of party workers were lying on the asphalt, and shards of glass were strewn about the ground.Farah Ispahani, a party official from Ms. Bhutto’s party, said: “It is too soon to confirm the number of dead from the party’s side. Private television channels are reporting 20 dead.” Television channels were also quoting police sources as saying that at least 14 people were dead.The attack immediately raised questions about whether parliamentary elections scheduled for January will go ahead or be postponed.Ms. Bhutto was the target of a suicide attack in October in Karachi when she returned from exile to Pakistan. That attack, caused by two bombs exploding just seconds apart, narrowly missed Ms. Bhutto but killed scores of people.

Lips Forum releases mobile Linux specs

The Linux Phone Standards Forum has released its first complete set of specifications for mobile Linux.Comprising members such as France Telecom, Texas Instruments, ARM, and Freescale, the Lips Forum is only one of several major industry consortia that want to use Linux on handsets in a relatively unified way. Open-source-based technology already powers many consumer mobiles, but there is no agreement on a single standard that suppliers can use. Other such groups include Google's Open Handset Alliance with its Android platform, OpenMoko and the Linux Mobile Foundation. However, these groups are more focused on creating a shared base implementation of mobile Linux, with scope for proprietary technology being added by manufacturers. The Lips Forum, by contrast, is trying to create a fully open-source set of specifications for mobile Linux. The Lips Forum published its first application programming interface (API) set in June, with the prediction that the full Lips specifications would be out by the end of the year. This promise has now been fulfilled. "With this release, Lips enables mobile industry players to achieve basic interoperability for applications and services deployed on Linux-based phones, benefiting Linux-based software stack suppliers, mobile device OEMs and regional and global telecom operators," read a statement from the organization that was published on Monday. The Lips Release 1.0 specifications include the Lips reference model, telephony, messaging, calendaring and scheduling, presence, the user interface service, address book and voice call enabler APIs. "Standards-based interoperability is crucial to the success of the global telecommunications marketplace," said Lips president Haila Wang on Monday. "Lips is following the clear path blazed by GSM, TCP/IP, Wi-Fi and other standards that enable communications among device types and brands, over multiple operator networks and across regional markets." According to the organization, next year will see the release of the LiPS application framework and APIs for advanced services, device management and for enabling multimedia.

Start-up creates flexible sheets of light

Let there be light on the side of municipal buses.That's the motto of CeeLite, a Blue Bell, Pa.-based start-up that has devised a thin, bendable light source that can be integrated into walls or wrapped around poles. The company is in the midst of trials with 32 cities, which are putting signs equipped with CeeLite's light on the sides of its buses.The signs, which require only about 4 watts of power per square foot, can measure up to 12 feet long and 30 inches high, but they are less than an inch thick. The actual light source inside the signs is only about an eighth of an inch thick, but it can reach 6 feet long. (The 12-foot sign contains two light sources.)The bus lights, of course, don't just blare white light at drivers and pedestrians. Transparencies emblazoned with advertisements are placed on top of the sheets, thereby making the ordinary bus advertisement pop. "I want to light surfaces that aren't lit today. I want to light floors. I want to light floorboards," Mike Binder, senior vice president of business development, said during a presentation at the ThinkGreen conference here this week. "I have the ability to light objects with the objects themselves."And there are a lot of surfaces that can be exploited, he asserted. Recently, Binder spent a weekend in Las Vegas, where he visited 120 restaurants by himself to check out the market potential. There's a lot of unadorned real space, he said. "Self-illumination is a massive untapped market."CeeLite's signs are powered by a light-emitting capacitor, or LEC. LECs effectively store energy like standard capacitors, then release it into a substrate sprinkled with phosphors, which emit light when a current is applied. Different researchers and companies have worked on LECs and similar electroluminescent products for years, but the results weren't great. The products wore out over time or were relatively small."We figured out what makes EL (electroluminescence) fail," Binder said.CeeLite's LEC, embedded between two polymer layers, is plugged into a power source. The company currently uses fresh plastic but is working on a way to use recycled plastic. Ideally, companies like Coca-Cola could make signs out of their old bottles.From a functional standpoint, LECs are similar to organic light-emitting diodes. OLEDs, though, tend to be relatively small. Sony has released an 11-inch TV with an OLED screen, but the biggest customers for OLEDs right now are cell phone makers.

OLED makers like Universal Display, however, are also trying to get into the lighting market, where they say they'll be in a few years. They have also worked on the durability of their products, which they claim can last 20,000 hours.One of the more novel OLEDs, from Universal Display, is a transparent piece of plastic that can serve as a window. Humans can see through it, but when a current is applied, it emits light.Binder further added that CeeLite's signs are fairly durable. The signs can endure the pressure of power washers, which can spray water at several hundred pounds per square inch. To demonstrate, he also grabbed one of the company's lights, bent it several times and then jumped on it. It stayed lit.Executives from hedge funds and private-equity firms gathered around to give him their cards.

Air Force base in Nevada goes solar with 15-megawatt array

Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada, the land of lots of sun and plenty of land, will be home to a 70,000 solar-panel installation which, at 15 megawatts, will be the largest in North America.The U.S. Air Force on Tuesday said Nellis and SunPower have finished the first phase of the project, which will save the base $1 million a year and roughly $83,000 a month, when fully commissioned.

(Credit: U.S. Air Force photo/Airman 1st Class Nadine Y. Barclay)The project, started in July of this year, will bring the final two-thirds of the panels online in the next two months.The SunPower solar panels will be installed on 140 acres of Nellis Air Force base land and use trackers that move the mounted panels to follow the sun during the course of the day. The trackers improve output by 30 percent. The 15-megawatt installation will be one of the biggest solar farms in the world. The Bavaria Solar Park in Germany is a 10-megawatt plant, and the Serpa Power Plant in Portugal is 11 megawatts.But those solar parks act as power plants, whereas the Nellis installation will power only the base, which employs between 12,000 and 14,000 people, according to a representative. By comparison, Hewlett-Packard installed a relatively large corporate solar array in its San Diego facility last month that can generate 1 megawatt of electricity.Under the contract, the base will pay a less expensive rate for electricity over the life of the panels, which typically have a 25-year warranty.

Critics rap Microsoft safety study of IE, Firefox

Internet Explorer is more secure than Firefox, according to a senior Microsoft executive, who compared how many vulnerabilities were found in the two browsers--but critics say his study is flawed.Jeff Jones, security strategy director of Microsoft's Trustworthy Computing Group, released a study last week comparing the flaws in Microsoft's Internet Explorer to Mozilla's Firefox browser; unsurprisingly, he concluded that Microsoft is doing a better job than Mozilla.Challenging early predictions that Mozilla's Firefox browser would experience fewer vulnerabilities than IE, Jones conceded that both companies' browsers have experienced significant flaws.Jones said Mozilla has fixed more flaws in its browser than Microsoft during equivalent periods, which he said renders Firefox more vulnerable than IE.

"Since the release of Firefox 1.0 in November 2004, Mozilla has fixed 199 vulnerabilities in supported Firefox products--75 high severity; 100 medium severity; and 24 low severity. In the same timeframe, Microsoft has fixed 87 total vulnerabilities affecting all supported versions of Internet Explorer--54 high severity, 28 medium severity; and five low severity," Jones said.
Comparing Microsoft's 2004 release, IE 6 (Service Pack 2), with Firefox 1.0, Jones said Microsoft fixed 79 flaws while Mozilla fixed 88.He also compared IE 7 with Firefox 2.0 over a 12-month period, during which he said Mozilla fixed 56 flaws while Microsoft fixed only 17 in IE 7. "While the data trends show that both Internet Explorer and Firefox security quality is improved in the latest version, it also demonstrates that, contrary to popular belief, Internet Explorer has experienced fewer vulnerabilities than Firefox," said Jones.However, Jonathan Oxer, technical director and founder of Web application development company Internet Vision Technology and president of Linux Australia, said the study is flawed because Microsoft tends to bundle its fixes, which leads to a lower count over the period being compared."For example, when fixing a vulnerability there might be several issues being resolved in one go. So it decreases the bug count," he said.Oxer explained that the way in which levels of security are reported is frequently different. "In the case of Firefox there may be issues that (Mozilla) has reported for which there is no known exploit--a theoretical exploit--so it's not necessarily accurate to directly compare fixed exploits without an understating of how the numbering or definition of an exploit is determined," he said.Oxer believes that a more valid way to score software in terms of security is to give each exploit a value depending on the number of days from discovery of a bug to the release of a fix, multiplied by a severity factor."Two products that have a similar number of exploits fixed over a certain period may actually be very different in terms of the number of days of exposure to which users are subjected," Oxer said.Distributor support

The Microsoft data also raises the issue of support for legacy versions of the software. While Mozilla ends support for each version six months after a new release of Firefox, Microsoft maintains support for up to a decade after the version ends, in line with its cycle for operating systems."If Microsoft had this same policy, then support of Internet Explorer 6 would have ended in May 2007, or similarly Internet Explorer 5.01 support would have ended in 2001. In contrast, Microsoft generally releases a browser in conjunction with a new operating system release and commits to supporting that version for the lifecycle of the product--now 10 years for business products," Jones said.

Support issues also affect third-party distributors, Jones said. Despite Mozilla ending support for Firefox 1.5 in May 2007, Ubuntu 6.06 LTS--which integrates that version of Firefox--has committed to providing security support until 2009. Likewise, Novell Suse Linux offers support for Firefox 1.5 until 2013. While Ubuntu and Red Hat released patches for Firefox version 1.5, Jones said: "The vulnerabilities patched by each vendor only overlap partially.""Lifecycle considerations are likely (to be) more important to corporate enterprises, as they sometimes have custom Web applications and are hesitant to upgrade between major releases very often, and even then may have a relatively long transition plan," Jones said.However, Linux Australia's Oxer said this manner of delivering support is a benefit of the open-source model, because it allows customers greater flexibility throughout a contract."One of the major differences between the proprietary and open-source models is when multiple vendors are providing support for a single code base...even though Mozilla may end its support, there are software vendors--such as (Linux) distribution providers--that are committed to providing support to enterprise customers," Oxer said."What it means is that end users get to choose the level of support they want. If you choose a company with long-term support for maintaining a stable operating environment for desktops, that's one option they can take. Or they may want a distributor with more frequent updates," he said.The disadvantage of using a proprietary software company such as Microsoft, said Oxer, is that enterprise customers are shackled to the schedule of a single vendor, which may not fit the organization's timetable.

FAQ: All about coal--a necessary evil

Coal is a major source of air pollution, mining accidents, and environmental damage. Unfortunately, we can't live without it.

The coal question remains perhaps the largest and most difficult issue in the clean-tech and energy world. Proponents of solar, wind, and even nuclear power tout themselves as cleaner and safer alternatives. Environmental activists and many scientists also warn that "clean coal" technologies will only dupe the public into a false sense of security.

On the other hand, coal use continues to climb, particularly in China. Clean coal technologies, along with carbon capture and sequestration, may be the only practical way to adapt to climate change. The profits, moreover, are potentially massive.

"Clean coal is the biggest opportunity" in clean tech, said Stephan Dolezalek, a partner at VantagePoint Venture Partners earlier this year. "If you can solve that problem, it will be bigger than Google."

What are those opportunities? They are mostly on the drawing board now. Here's a primer on the basics of coal:

Q: How much coal is there?
Approximately 998 billion tons of recoverable coal sits underground, according to a 2006 estimate from the International Energy Agency. The U.S. has the most, with 268 billion tons, followed by Russia (173 billion tons), China (126 billion tons) and India (102 billion tons). The four collectively hold 67 percent of the recoverable reserves.

In 2006, 1,438 U.S. mines produced 1.163 billion short tons of coal, according to the U.S. Department of Energy, a 2.8 percent increase from the year before. A short ton is 2,000 pounds.

A ton of coal, depending on the grade, has as much heat energy (25 million BTUs) as 4.5 barrels of oil (PDF). There are probably only 1.9 trillion barrels of conventional oil left for human consumption, and not all of it can be recovered. Thus, there's more than twice as much coal out there than oil.

How fast is demand growing?
Steadily, but ominously. Coal accounted for 26 percent of energy consumed in 2004 worldwide, according to the U.S. Energy Information Agency, and will grow to 28 percent by 2030. Total energy consumption, however, will be going up a few percentage points a year, so in that same period of time, coal consumption will rise a whopping 74 percent, form 114.4 quadrillion BTUs to 199 quadrillion BTUs.

India and China will account for 72 percent of the increase, but coal consumption is expected to also rise in Russia, South Africa, and the U.S. The U.S. is something of a wild card. With carbon taxes and more alternative energy, the growth could decline, but coal will still be a big part of the energy profile.

"Ninety percent of the fossil fuel reserves in the U.S., India, and China are in coal, and China and India are not going to move from this fuel in the future," said Jeremy Carl, a research fellow in the program for Energy and Sustainable Development at Stanford University. "They are not going to turn off the lights."China last year erected 90 gigawatts' worth of coal plants last year alone, Carl noted. That's bigger than the electrical grid of the U.K.

Where does it get used?
Primarily in electrical power plants. In the United States, roughly 1.03 billion tons of the 1.1 billion tons of coal consumed (PDF) in 2006 got gobbled up by power plants. Coal accounted for 49 percent of the electricity generated in the U.S. in 2006, a slight decline from 2005 due in part to warmer temperatures. (Nuclear power was second, with about 20.2 percent, while natural gas clocked in at 18.8 percent. Solar and wind barely account for 2.4 percent.)

How does coal affect pollution?
Coal accounted for 39 percent of carbon dioxide emissions in 2004 (behind oil) but is expected to pass oil for the No. 1 spot in 2010, according to the EIA. Even if the United States were to replace every incandescent bulb in the country with compact fluorescents, the benefits would be eradicated by the carbon dioxide from two coal-fired plants over a year, said Ed Mazria, founder of Architecture 2030. The nonprofit encourages builders, suppliers, and architects to move toward making carbon neutral buildings by 2030."The only fossil fuel that can fuel global warming is coal. If you stop coal, you stop global warming. End of story," Mazria said.

Other pollutants include nitrogen compounds, sulfur, aluminum, silicon, and even trace amounts of radioactive materials like uranium. China has banned the use of coal burners in homes in cities like Beijing, but coal pollution remains a large health hazard in the country.Environmental and health problems include acid rain, polluted water systems, stripped forests, and mining hazards. Deaths attributed to coal range from several hundred to several thousand a year, depending on who does the counting and which respiratory deaths get attributed to coal.

How much does it cost?
In the early '70s, natural gas was a cheaper source for generating electricity, but coal surpassed it in 1976 and has been at the bottom ever since. In 2005, generating a million BTUs from coal cost $1.54, compared with $8.20 for natural gas. Coal prices are rising, but so is the cost of everything else. Solar thermal plants, which generate electricity with heat from the sun, are approaching the cost of natural gas plants.

Google is watching you! The internet colossus is amassing an awesome amount of information on every one of us

Gazing up at a giant projector screen in Google's futuristic headquarters in Silicon Valley, California, I am being given a unique insight into the collective preoccupations of a billion human brains.By and large, it seems, we are a pretty trivial, celebrity-obsessed lot.For right at this moment, mankind is hungry for facts about: Michael Jackson; golf balls; Spanish words; Captain Nemo; Britney Spears; surfwear; cheese recipes; Kurt Cobain; and, for some reason, Carol Barnes, the former ITN newsreader.

Facing the future: Will too much power be concentrated in Google's hands?
This huge, constantly-scrolling screen, which shows people's online searches as they are happening (but with the lewd ones filtered out), is only one of many amazing peculiarities of the so-called "Googleplex", the sprawling, steel and glass home of the world's favourite source of information.Picture a place that combines the laid-back ambience of an IKEA-designed university campus with a disquieting hint of The Prisoner - the 1960s cult TV series centred around a sinister and secretive commune - and you begin to imagine what it's like inside the rarified preserve of the Googlers, as the company's 16,000 staff call themselves.In Googleland, no one wears a suit and tie, works fixed hours, or sits rigidly at a boring old desk.Instead, shaggy-haired computer geeks play pool or darts as they ponder some unfathomable programming code, and - frighteningly - young executives wearing ripped jeans recline on multi-coloured beanbags while discussing billion-dollar projects.Staff are encouraged to bring their pets and children to work.They ride around the campus on bicycles, and nourish their brains with healthy gourmet meals and a bottomless supply of snacks, all handed out free.Then they burn off the calories with a stress-busting, team-building game of volleyball in the leafy quad or a swim in one of two training pools.Another thing you notice as you stroll around the Googleplex is that almost everyone is smiling in the manner of someone who knows something you don't.This is slightly disconcerting.Perhaps it is simply that working here really is such "incredible fun", as one of the evangelical,oh-so-nice PR team showing me around - and making sure I don't uncover any trade secrets - would have me believe.Then again, maybe everyone is grinning because there are so many millionaires in a company founded less than a decade ago in a rented garage by two nerdy computer students, and which now has a staggering market capitalisation of $216 billion - more than all the other dotcom companies combined.Thanks to a generous share option in their salary package, hundreds of employees have become fabulously wealthy, having seen Google's stock rise by a staggering 900 per cent in just eight years.The newest member of the "Googles of Money" club is Employee Number 41, Bonnie Brown, who was recruited as the company's in-house masseuse on £225 a week back in 1999 and has just pocketed tens of millions by selling her shares.Such is the perceived magic of the firm that David Cameron has visited twice in two years.This week, the Tory leader was revealed to have been flown there, at his host's expense, to deliver a glowing eulogy at the recent Google Zeitgeist conference.But then, Cameron is by no means the only big player to be entranced by Google.This is a corporate colossus so ultra-cool that Richard Branson or U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama are likely to be seen munching tofu in the communal canteen, and Hollywood stars rouknowledgetinely drive 450 miles up the Pacific Coast Highway just to hang out here.Another Google-lover is former U.S. presidential candidate-turned-environment campaigner Al Gore, who will doubtless congratulate the 34-year-old founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin following this week's announcement of a multi-million dollar research programme to find a green energy source to replace fossil fuels.There is no doubting that, like the company's feel-good workplace, attention-catching projects such as these help enhance Google's altruistic image.It's an image that has grown up with Page and Brin since their combined genius came together at Stanford University to devise a unique "algorithm" - or computer formula - which, at a keystroke, dragged the process of computerised searches out of the Dark Ages.From the earliest days of their incredible rise, Page, the son of a computer science pioneer, and Brin, a Moscow-born èmigrè whose father is a maths professor, appear to have regarded the vast profits that have accrued from their remarkable invention as almost incidental to their project.Rather, they proclaimed themselves to be on a "democratic" mission to gather all of the world's in one place (the first time it has been attempted since the library of Alexandria in the 3rd century BC) and make it freely available to everyone.Mindful that information can be used for good or bad, they devised a simple core mantra which, they claim, sums up their philosophy: Do no evil.Among a great many netsurfers, therefore, the brilliant duo behind Google came to be revered as shining New Age heroes of the World Wide Web.This reputation survived largely untarnished even when - having made virtually no profit for the first three years and surviving on investment capital - Google began raking in huge profits by selling advertisements to run alongside its free search results.Disciples even seem prepared to accept inevitable changes in Brin and Page's once-humble lifestyles, now that each is worth in excess of £10 billion, making them, respectively, America's fifth and sixth richest men.They may still own environmentfriendly Toyota Prius cars and dress down to mingle with fellow Googlers, but they stamp their carbon footprint across continents in a Boeing 767 acquired from Quantas.By all accounts, at weekends Brin likes to fly his new wife to Hawaii, where they indulge their newfound passion for kite-surfing. Page's tastes have similarly developed far beyond pizzas and Coke in the college dorm.Celebrity guests invited to his wedding, due to be staged at a mystery location next Saturday, have been warned to bring their passports.And yet, for all this, in recent months there has been a discernible shift in attitude towards a company which was once so universally admired.From privacy campaigners to libertarians to politicians, people have belatedly started to eye Google with suspicion.They fear that now it has become the search engine of choice for 50 per cent of all internet users, it already stores far too much information about us.And they question its motives in wanting to learn a whole lot more.In many ways, the company can only blame itself for creating this climate of distrust.Speaking in London last May, chief executive Eric Schmidt looked forward to a world in which Google would have amassed so much intimate information about its users that it would be able to shape every aspect of their lives.

Unaware that his words would not only spread panic but play into the hands of the civil liberties brigade, Schmidt said that Google was only at an early stage of acquiring the total information it hoped to gather about its users."We cannot even answer the most basic questions about you because we don't know enough about you. The goal is to enable Google users to be able to ask questions such as 'What shall I do tomorrow?' and 'What job should I take?' This is the most important aspect of Google's expansion."Mr Schmidt's reckless comments could barely have come at a worse time.The following month, the human rights watchdog Privacy International ranked the company bottom in a major survey of how securely the leading internet companies handle their users' personal information.Later in the summer, Orkut, a social networking site owned by Google, was heavily criticised for passing a client's confidential internet service provider (ISP) address to the Indian authorities, who wanted to trace him for allegedly posting insulting images of a leading historical figure on the net. The client was later convicted and jailed.Another storm broke over Google's agreement to censor certain "subversive" sites in China, under pressure from the hardline Communist government.This hardly squares with the 'Do no evil' buzz-phrase, but then, a billion potential advertising customers are not easily passed over.Then there are rumblings about Google's policy of rapaciously gobbling up smaller companies, which, some critics suggest, indicates that its ultimate aim is to be the internet, rather than just be a part of it.Its latest and most significant acquisition is DoubleClick, the leading digital marketing company which it has bought, subject to ratification, for $3.1 billion.When the deal is finalised, it will give Google a massive advantage over its nearest (but still distant) competitors, Yahoo and Microsoft."It's a Google world," sighs Chris Tolles, vice-president of marketing at Topix, a news website - service whose revenue comes from running Google ads on its site."We just live in it."Indeed. Yet it is not what Google is doing now, but what it has the potential, and quite possibly the intention, of doing in the foreseeable future that is really spreading alarm.At present, as even the least computer literate person knows, Google is way ahead of its electronic search rivals because its system is so much quicker and more efficient.This is largely down to PageRank, the unfathomably complex computer program which Brin and Page invented.What it does is to prioritise and order the pages of information which web searchers receive when they type a particular search request into Google. Thanks to the way that it operates, it is supposed to send back the most relevant websites first.Indeed, I was assured by Google's vice-president of engineering, Douglas Merrill (who looks more like a rock star than an IT specialist, and works beside his Dalmatian dog) it is quite impossible for individuals or corporations to manipulate Google's search system to their advantage.These days, lying back on their beanbags, company executives are using their imaginations to envision a brave, new, Googledominated future.For, as Merrill says, the company has realised only a tiny percentage-of its capabilities.

One plan, which has already tentatively started, entails making literally everything in the world accessible at the click of a button. For now, this means every book, piece of music, film, TV and radio broadcast, official document and photograph.But eventually, far-fetched as it sounds, Google boffins believe it can be extended to people and their personal belongings.The idea is that we, and our treasured possessions, will be fitted with minute microchips which could be linked to the internet, via computers, by a digital radio frequency.In this way, you would only have to type "Where is my watch" or "Find Joe Bloggs" into your PC or handheld computer, and Google could assist you.The theory, at least, is that we will never lose anything and never be out of contact with oneanother - fine for parents wishing to check up on little Johnny at nursery, perhaps, but an unpalatable prospect for those who fear the temptation such a network would present to criminals or totalitarian regimes.More immediately, Google is switching its main focus from PCs and laptops to mobile phones.For while we may not spend all day in front of a computer screen, the firm's latest research shows that 95 per cent of users keep their phone within 3ft of their person at all times.So, coming to a store near you, Google phones with all manner of weird and wonderful accessories will soon be available.But the development that most alarms privacy watchdogs is known as "personalised search".Under this Big Brother-ish concept, the details of every web search we launch and every e-mail we send could be stored to build up a worryingly detailed personal profile - age, interests, family, hobbies, tastes in food and so on.This could then be passed to advertisers, who would bombard us with suitable adverts.This sort of service is already available, strictly on request, though the company has agreed to delete personal data after 18 months. The danger is that could eventually be kept in perpetuity, and be misused - or fall into the wrong hands.John Batelle, the author of the definitive book on Google, highlighted the possible ramifications recently in a controversial article which imagines what might happen if a psychologically disturbed Google employee was able to tap into sensitive information about his girlfriend, then use it to stalk and murder her.Less melodramatically, he questions whether any single company should bear the enormous responsibility of safeguarding such a bottomless ocean of information as Google possesses."I think, at present, Google are good guys with their basic values intact and our best interests at heart," Battelle told me."I also think they have a tremendous capacity to change our world for the better. That said, I do think they have too much power."Dr Gus Hussein, a senior fellow at Privacy International, agrees."We don't actually know how much personal information they are holding, but they probably know more about you than you know yourself," he says.Disturbingly, he adds: "It's all very Borg-like" - a reference to the Cyber race in Star Trek who synthesised the thoughts and feelings of other species into one big, centralised brain.Meanwhile, back in the Googleplex, Douglas Merrill is at pains to dismiss such doomsday scenarios as alarmist poppycock."Privacy is at the very core of our DNA," he says, stroking his Dalmatian."We believe privacy and our users' trust are intrinsically linked. If people don't trust us, they won't use us."To emphasise his point, Merrill reassures me that, even with his elevated powers of access, he would be unable to tap into Google's own databanks to find out one solitary fact about me.Perhaps so.But who would bet on that remaining the case for ever, or that America's security services have not found a way to hack into the system? If Google did ever face a security breach, it would make our Inland Revenue's loss of 25 million people's personal details look trivial.It is truly terrifying to think that in under a decade, the Googlers at this HQ in San Francisco have achieved the sort of power and global influence beyond the dreams of any tyrant in history.The trouble is, they look at you with such misty-eyed sincerity, and they are all so unfailingly nice, that - against every instinct - you find yourself believing their protestations about fail-safe systems and benign intent.And that may yet prove the most dangerous mistake of all.

Rough seas nearly sink Facebook's Beacon

Facebook's "Beacon" advertising program nearly ran aground this week.First, the liberal activist group MoveOn.org tore into the strategy, which shares members' activity from third-party sites on their Facebook "news feeds," as an invasion of privacy. Then MoveOn upped the ante earlier this week over the program's lack of an opt-out control. Then, on Thursday, reports began to surface that the program was close to being heavily altered or even cut altogether. The advertising program continues to be scrutinized by legal experts, and several advocacy groups have already filed complaints to the Federal Trade Commission.Welcome to the big time, Facebook. The site, which grew fast and was considered a cultural curio in the wake of its pioneering developer platform launch now must justify a stunning $15 billion valuation and prove that its reported 50-plus million users can be mined for major dollars.

Now the company has received a harsh lesson on what it means to be in the spotlight, and just how tricky it is to use the demographic and behavior information about its readers for targeted advertising. As social media companies ranging from MySpace to Digg have learned, it's the users, as much as the executives, who are in charge.And just three weeks after announcing the Beacon advertising effort with fanfare in New York, those users along with some very noisy advocacy groups like MoveOn, spoke loudly: they weren't happy.

On Thursday, Facebook customer service representative Paul Janzer posted a note of reassurance to supporters of MoveOn's protest group, hinting that alterations was on the way. That evening, Facebook officially responded with a press release announcing some changes to the advertisements that require users to click an "OK" button before any story is published to their News Feeds.It's an improvement for sure. MoveOn representatives cited "victory" in an e-mail on Thursday evening, but in a sense, they still didn't get everything they lobbied for. Spokesman Adam Green had told CNET News.com in an e-mail earlier on Thursday that the organization intended to pose two major questions to Facebook about Beacon. "Is it still possible for private transactions made on other Web sites to be displayed publicly on Facebook without explicit permission?" he explained in the e-mail, adding "Is there now a way for users to permanently block Beacon, so they can have peace of mind that the problem is dealt with? (The) answer needs to be yes."The first question, Green said, was answered with Facebook's press release and the changes to Beacon. "That pretty much was done tonight," Green said in an interview with CNET News.com on Thursday evening. "If it's true, and no private information will be shared without explicit permission, that is definitely a huge step."

Green was hesitant to make a judgment call on the fact that Facebook did not institute a way for users to permanently block Beacon ads. "We're kind of going to wait and see exactly what it looks like when they implement tonight's policy," he said, adding that MoveOn wanted to gauge users' reactions first. It goes without saying that it's good news for Facebook that the activist group isn't making a stink about the Beacon changes not being sufficient--for now, at least.
Either way, there are still some loose ends to clean up.Social media strategist Oz Sultan said that Facebook may have some image repair to do, primarily because a group as prominent and vocal as MoveOn had attached itself to the cause. "I think there's a bit of damage control that they have to do, more so around the act that it's almost Christmas," he explained, referring to Facebook users who had complained that the entire contents of their holiday shopping lists were published to the site, spoiling many a surprise. "The shopping implications of what people are doing and what they don't want people to know because they want to surprise people, that's definitely going to provide some reason for damage control."

Admitting error, too, may be an embarrassment for the company in the face of its advertising clients, given the confident debut that Facebook Ads made earlier this month. "They basically sat down and said this is the holy grail of advertising," Sultan observed.On the other hand, while a number of Facebook users were ticked off, others might not have noticed Beacon much at all--or even cared. The controversy over Beacon advertisements didn't reach the fever pitch of user outrage and exposure on the site that the once-controversial News Feed did when it debuted in 2006. The News Feed, which many users saw initially as a flagrant violation of user privacy, was a much more prominent addition to the site than the Beacon ads, which some users still have yet to see.In response to the News Feed snafu, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg posted a public apology on the site, acknowledging that "we really messed this one up." The privacy controls for the News Feed were heavily bolstered thereafter.

But with regard to Beacon, Oz Sultan said, "I don't think a lot of people know this exists." To add to that, many Facebook users probably don't have an issue with it, either, even in its previous incarnation. "A lot of (young people) are totally willing to give up tons of privacy information for like, free crap." In fact, he added, if it had been any time other than the holidays, the reaction might've been far more subdued.Some retailers who have partnered with Facebook on Beacon ads approve of the change. Among them is Bill Hildebolt, president of Beacon partner ExpoTV.com, who said that while he isn't sure what Facebook has in store, he's optimistic. "I think it's great that they're evaluating the market feedback that they've gotten and that they're thinking about how to evolve the program," he said in an interview. "We totally support them in innovating what they think is best for our mutual users, for themselves, and for the partners."
When asked if he was concerned that new controls on Beacon might make the ads less effective, Hildebolt said he couldn't make that call. "It will become less frequent," he said of users opting not to post Beacon notifications on their News Feeds, "(but) I'm not sure that that will make it less effective." Retailers have good reason to welcome change; as other Beacon partners have hinted before, if users aren't happy with the program there's a good chance they'll blame the retailer rather than Facebook.

Users who still aren't satisfied can rest assured that there's a Firefox plugin that can block Beacon completely, easily returning them to their regularly scheduled Facebook programming.
The challenges are not over for Facebook and its advertising program--after months of Silicon Valley fawning over Facebook's potential, all eyes are still on the young company, and those observers have begun to turn cynical. Neither blocking Beacon nor putting privacy controls on it answers the biggest question, Oz Sultan said, and it's a question that even MoveOn didn't raise. "Facebook's getting all this data, so what are they doing with all this data?" he asked. "This is complete behavioral data on everything you do? It's legally very questionable long term."
He added that the real end result may be that groups like MoveOn, with their fat D.C. Rolodexes, could push lawmakers to address the issue. This is a vague legal area, and this is an area which the laws that are written right now aren't designed to cover," he said. "I think they will push some sort of litigation. What that is, I could not even tell you right now."But for now, MoveOn's aims are loftier. "We hope this has a ripple effect throughout the industry," spokesman Green said, "and sets a precedent that it's unacceptable to assume that it's OK to share private information publicly without permission."

Qualcomm Chief Welcomes iPhone’s Spread

Paul E. Jacobs, chief executive of Qualcomm, the maker of chips for mobile phones, insisted it was pure coincidence that he found himself within a few blocks of where the iPhone was introduced to France on Wednesday.But though the iPhone, the cellphone-media player from Apple, has no Qualcomm components, Mr. Jacobs generously gave it credit for making consumers more eager for third-generation cellphone networks.The 3G technology — which Qualcomm designs and licenses — allows cellphone Internet browsing that is comparable in speed to broadband on a desktop computer. But the iPhone, which the French operator Orange put on sale Wednesday, does not support 3G.The current version, now available in Britain, Germany, France and the United States, uses a technology called Edge that speeds second-generation network data transfers. Apple has already said it intends to offer a 3G iPhone in the future.
“There’s no doubt in my mind that a really positive effect of the iPhone was to focus mainstream people on the idea of using their device for data,” Mr. Jacobs, who is based in San Diego, said during a visit to Paris to see customers and government officials. “But it also caused mainstream consciousness that 3G is really a good thing to have because it will make your experience better.
“Qualcomm could have spent huge amounts of money advertising 3G and not gotten the point across as well as the iPhone has,” he said.Although Orange had said that its iPhone plans would offer unlimited Internet access, the company disclosed clear limits Wednesday. The iPhone cannot be used with Internet phone services like Skype; it cannot be used as a modem for a personal computer and it cannot be used to connect to peer-to-peer networks.

Orange also reserved the right to limit subscribers who download more than 500 megabytes of data a month. It said it would sell an unlocked version of the iPhone for 649 euros ($950), with an additional 100-euro unlocking fee, along with a 399-euro model with a two-year Orange contract.Simon Treille, the first to buy an iPhone in France at the Champs-Élysées Orange store, said it would change the mobile Internet. “It’s like a PC screen but you always have it in your pocket,” said Mr. Treille, who works at jechange.fr, a Web site for comparison shopping.

Despite the hundreds of billions of euros that European companies and governments invested in 3G at the turn of the century, it is only now beginning to attract wide use, a situation that has led some to call the transition from GSM, the 2G technology, a failure.But Mr. Jacobs pointed to many signs of success for 3G. Some operators, like Orange and Telstra, in Australia, are reporting that for the first time, the revenue they generate from data use is more than that from text messaging, for instance.Worldwide, the company says, 60 million 3G phones were sold last year, and it estimates that the number will grow to 90 million by the end of this year.

Hewlett-Packard recently signed on to offer Gobi, a new Qualcomm design that puts two kinds of 3G networking into one for use in laptops. Mr. Jacobs said to expect a series of similar announcements from other computer makers.Mr. Jacobs also said that he felt “pretty good” about the progress of the company’s legal battles with Nokia over royalty payments and was confident about Qualcomm’s antitrust case before the European Commission.In October, the European Commission opened a formal investigation into whether Qualcomm was overcharging its business partners for using patents that are essential to 3G.

Google in energy: Imitator or innovator?

Google announced on Tuesday plans to put hundreds of millions of dollars into alternative energy. The question now is whether the company is advancing the state of the art or just imitating everyone else who is dumping loads of money into the field.The answer is some of both.One of the first companies to get funding from Google will be eSolar, which will make solar thermal plants based on the heliostat design. In this concept, an array of flat mirrors gathers and directs sunlight onto a water tower. The water boils into steam, which turns a turbine to make electricity.

The heliostat system is superior to other solar-thermal projects because the mirrors cost less, construction is easier, and more of the heat gathered by the mirrors ultimately gets used to make electricity.The only problem for eSolar is that it hasn't, exactly, been an innovator during the past couple of years. Oakland's BrightSource Energy has been touting the heliostat system for a while. It is currently building a prototype plant in Israel and has already cleared many of the regulatory hurdles to build a 400-megawatt station in California.BrightSource also has experience on its side. It was founded by Arnold Goldman, who founded Luz more than 20 years ago. Luz built some of the world's largest solar-thermal plants. In fact, plants churning more than 300 megawatts of power built by Luz years ago in the Mojave are still cranking out power.
Many of the engineers who worked on the Luz projects are at BrightSource. In a recent interview, Goldman said the company's researchers have been examining the pros and cons of heliostat systems for more than a decade.Who is at eSolar? The chairman is Bill Gross, who founded eToys, Overture Services, and Idealab. While he has created a company for residential solar energy, most of his experience is in the Internet. Other members of the executive team have experience in solar, but it doesn't appear that they have a lot of experience in building large-scale thermal plants. It is also unclear whether the company has plans for prototypes or large-scale plants under way.

It's not like eSolar can't pull this off, but it's clear that it isn't exactly doing something original. This is really more of a venture capital-type deal than a way to push the frontiers of science. And let's not forget that there are other solar-thermal companies out there, such as Ausra, that have built prototypes and signed large scale contracts already.On the other hand, Google is putting money into Makani Power, which wants to harvest power from high-flying kites. A few companies have experimented with this, but it's in the very early research stage. Here, Google can clearly be an innovator.Google also wants to get into advanced geothermal energy. Geothermal already exists, but it also could use a lot more research-and-development support. Alexander Karsner, the assistant secretary for energy efficiency at the Department of Energy, says geothermal cannot provide 20 percent of the United States' electricity need,s as some advocates claim.You can look at this in two ways: geothermal doesn't have much hope, or that it's a field ripe for turning over conventional wisdom. Thus, depending on what occurs here, Google could push the state of innovation forward.

Nokia increases market share in mobile phone business

Nokia sold 110 milliion phones in the latest quarter, and business is booming
"Worldwide sales of mobile phones to end users in the third quarter of 2007 reached 289 million units, a 15% increase from the same period last year," says Gartner, Inc.Nokia's mobile phone sales to end users totaled 110.2 million units reaching a market share of 38.1% in the third quarter of 2007. This quarter, Nokia not only exhibited the highest year-on-year market share increase, but also raised operating margins thanks to effective cost management and global distribution strategy. This was achieved despite the average price of its phones falling from €90 to €82.
Other points to note are the success of the Korean manufacturers, Samsung and LG, and the sad decline of America's Motorola. Gartner says:Motorola's sales into the channel remained weak and, with limited surplus stock, sales to end users were not enough to maintain its No. 2 position. Motorola's market share dropped 7.6 percentage points from the third quarter of 2006, relegating the vendor to the No. 3 position. "Motorola today is a pale version of the company it was a year ago," [Carolina Milanesi, research director for mobile devices research at Gartner] added. Although the Razr2 was well received and accounted for 900,000 of the overall sales, Motorola needs a much stronger portfolio to return to its former market share.
Gartner reckons sales of mobile phones in Western Europe reached 47.2 million units, with 45m sold in North America, 24.5m in India and 13.1m in Japan. Average penetration in Western Europe is 115%: everywhere except France, there are more mobile phones than people.

Mission for James Bond's Q: Seek venture capital

"Now pay attention, 007!" In the James Bond novels and films, it fell to technical expert Q to invent the gizmos and cunningly concealed weapons that helped the British spy cheat death and save the world.From a biometric keyboard to blast-proof curtains, the inventions on display in the real world this month came from five technology firms in the final round of the Global Security Challenge, a competition to identify the world's most promising security start-up."I'm sorry that Q wasn't at the judging table," said Sir Richard Dearlove, who from 1999 to 2004 was the real-life C--the code-name given to the head of British spy service MI6.But on a more somber note, he told participants: "We are faced with complex new threats to society...We must also contend with the possibility that many new technologies have a dark side and may be used against us."According to Venture Business Research, which provides intelligence and research on private companies in high-growth sectors, more than $6 billion of investment has flowed into private security and defense businesses in the United States and Europe so far this year, up from some $3.5 billion in the whole of 2006.Spotting that potential, MBA students at London Business School staged the inaugural security challenge last year, when British start-up Ingenia Technology took the $10,000 first prize for an anti-counterfeit laser-scanning device.

Such was interest in the competition that the U.S. government's Technical Support Working Group raised this year's prize to $500,000.Industry players, private equity groups and venture capital firms all listened closely to the entrants' pitches, in an event highlighting the challenges facing young companies in turning bright ideas into commercial ventures.The winning entry was from NoblePeak Vision Corporation, based in Wakefield, Mass., and founded in 2002 as a spinoff from Bell Laboratories: its night-vision camera can pick up short-wave infrared (SWIR) light invisible to the eye.The black-and-white nighttime images are much sharper than those generated by thermal video cameras, and applications include battlefield vision, protecting buildings, and helping car drivers avoid collisions at night.Other finalists included biometric technology to recognize keyboard users by their typing behavior--sparing users from memorizing dozens of passwords--and a handheld device for testing exposure to nerve agents.By scanning the eye, it can also detect carbon monoxide or cyanide poisoning, or identify trauma to the brain.Another company offered new high-strength fibers that get fatter when stretched and are highly resistant to blast damage, offering potential as special curtains to catch flying window glass in an explosion.Also in contention was a 'face synthesis' device to create up to thousands of images from one photo, predicting how the subject will look in different lighting conditions, from different angles and with varying expressions or facial hair.

A poll of investors, experts and industry players at the event identified biometrics and protection of critical infrastructure as key growth areas in coming years.But Lee Buchanan, a former assistant U.S. navy secretary who now advises U.S. private equity group Paladin on investments, said the crucial point was to deliver more than just security."Typically a company or an organization is going to be much more interested in a security technology which also has a non-security yield--an increase in productivity, an increase in the distinction of its own product," he said.Competition judges praised the caliber of the entries but found some of them lacking in key areas.The keyboard developer was targeting an "incredibly crowded area" of the IT security market and had not undertaken much peer review--a criticism shared by the face recognition system.The fiber-maker was praised for its innovation, but found wanting in its delivery strategy. The eye scanner's makers had underestimated regulatory challenges and the difficulty of building a robust product.Security companies need a good business model. "I don't see very many of those out there," said Buchanan, who identified sensor technologies for explosives, bioweapons, and nuclear materials as one of the biggest gaps in the market.While this year's $6 billion investment in the sector has been swollen by some big one-off deals, Venture Business Research director Douglas Lloyd said European interest had markedly increased, and a series of dedicated security funds had started to emerge."I expect investment activity in this sector to remain buoyant. And I also see this as a more attractive sector, as many do, than clean energy," Lloyd said."The failure rate of security businesses is much lower than clean-tech ones and, as importantly, the capital investment required to build a successful security business is also much lower."With politicians and intelligence chiefs warning of a decades-long struggle to come against al-Qaida, security looks set to remain a growth industry. Paladin's Buchanan rejected the charge often leveled by critics that the defense and industrial establishment has a vested interest in talking up the dangers.

"I'm not sure we can over-emphasize the threat. It's going to be with us a very long time. It is very deep and abiding. I don't think we're nearly at the point where the hype exceeds the need," he said.Phil Davies, marketing vice president for winning entrant NoblePeak Vision, said the company--funded by Matrix Partners and North Bridge Venture Partners--would use the kudos and cash to help it grow."The primary focus has been on the U.S., just to get things moving, but we've got enormous interest from the commercial security guys in Japan and well-known camera manufacturers," said Davies, who is also selecting a representative company to target British and European markets.The camera core is priced at just under $3,000. Davies said a nuclear power station might typically require at least 50 of these, and an airport or university campus up to 100. The company's revenue is projected to rise to $70.6 million in 2010 from $559,000 in 2006.With NoblePeak now on its second round of financing, he said winning the Global Security Challenge couldn't have come at a better time: "It's great bragging rights."Memo to Q: no need to retire just yet.

France unveils anti-piracy plan

French web users caught pirating movies or music could soon be thrown offline.Those illegally sharing files will face the loss of their net access thanks to a newly-created anti-piracy body granted the wide-ranging powers.The anti-piracy body comes out of a deal agreed by France's music and movie makers and its net firms.The group who brokered the deal said the measures were intended to curb casual piracy rather than tackle large scale pirate groups.French President Nicolas Sarkozy said the deal was a "decisive moment for the future of a civilised internet".

Net firms will monitor what their customers are doing and pass on information about persistent pirates to the new independent body. Those identified will get a warning and then be threatened with either being cut off or suspended if they do not stop illegal file-sharing.The agreement between net firms, record companies, film-makers and government was drawn up by a special committee created to look at the problem of the net and cultural protection.Denis Olivennes, head of the French chain store FNAC, who chaired the committee said current penalties for piracy - large fines and years in jail - were "totally disproportionate" for those young people who do file-share illegally.

In return for agreeing to monitor net use, film-makers agreed to speed up the transfer of movies to DVD and music firms pledged to support DRM-free tracks on music stores.The deal was hailed by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), which represents the global interests of the music business."This is the single most important initiative to help win the war on online piracy that we have seen so far," it said in a statement.

French consumer group UFC Que Choisir was more cautious.It said the agreement was "very tough, potentially destructive of freedom, anti-economic and against digital history".

Dork talk

I was mean to the Philips Streamium Player the other week. Some of you might have thought, "Well, that was a PC product and Fry is a Mac man to his boots, so what can we expect?" I can hardly express therefore the pleasure with which I am able to rave about another, in many ways, similar device, and one that is even more emphatically PC-oriented.

Trevor Baylis leapt to fame 10 years ago with his wind-up radio. Now comes his Eco Media Player (around £170). There is something about this adorable device that makes me smile, and keep smiling. The difference between it and the Streamium says a lot about the crucial emotional reciprocity between manufacturer and consumer of which one is aware the moment one opens the packaging. One product gives off an air of corporate indifference and separation from the human world, the other a sense of wanting to please, of wanting to love and be loved.

Chunky, rubber-skinned and round-cornered, the Eco Player's dimensions make it thicker than the mainstream generation of players, but then it has to house the famous Baylis crank. For all that, it feels lighter than a packet of cigarettes. My version has 2GB of internal flash memory, but models up to 8GB are (or will be) available. All that you'd hope to find is present and correct: mini USB connector with which it can be charged via your PC or Mac's USB (2.0) port, slot for a mini-SD memory card and sockets for headphones and line-in. Plus FM radio (great quality), a music player in all the usual formats (if you like volume, this blasts the iPod out of the water), video (using the asv codec: boo), a voice recorder, a self-styled ebook reader and a startlingly bright torch. Yes, torch.

Granted, the video is no better than on the Philips and the resolution and icon design on its 1.8-inch screen is never going to make Apple quake in their boots, but this device has got that thing, you know?

Its most obviously innovative feature is that whatever you have eaten that morning will power it - calorie-fuelled charge of one minute via the wind-up handle provides 40 minutes of audio play.

The details are so right, too. Both the mobile phone and the PC-to-device mini-USB cables come in sprung recoil housing. Good - really good - bud earphones. The torch simply makes one grin. And there's more under the bonnet. A kind of cheerful openness pervades the Eco. Audio recording is fine for "voice memos", whatever the hell they are, but the Eco goes one step farther with a software switch that lets you record via line-in, too. Cassettes, minidisks, DATs and vinyl are welcomed through a minijack for conversion into MP3. There are plenty of dedicated little boxes that do this, but Baylis has thrown this into an already function-rich object that has already more than justified its asking price.

There is also a switch that allows the crank to discharge its power not internally to the device's own Lithium Ion battery but out through the mini-USB into a mobile phone, charging it with up to two minutes of talk time. A selection of popular phone connections is included. Very handy in an emergency, though I found it couldn't deliver enough kick to start up a phone whose battery was drained. Still, it's yet another pleasing extra. And did I mention that there's a speaker so you can listen, in mono admittedly, without earphones? Eat Trevor's dust, Apple. Only the iPhone can match that. No iPod can.

But yes, this is truly a PC-only device. The asv video codec is not available on the Mac. So far as I am aware, there isn't any Mac software to allow you to convert into it. The Eco's utility CD can't even play on a Windows Virtualised or Bootcamped Mac, for it is a tiny disk and the slot-loading Mac accepts only the standard CD size. Well, that's Apple's fault, not Baylis's, though the device works well enough with a Mac, mounting itself as a disc when connected.

For all its quirkiness, perhaps because of it, I love this little thing. It could have just traded on the "eco" aspect of its power generation and Baylis's name. But it offers more than that. It is robust, clever without being pleased with itself, useful and appealing. And, as with people, I like it because it likes me.

A brief history of stealth aircraft

Just a generation ago, it was a hush-hush military project, a futuristic aircraft that fit right into the shadowy cloak-and-dagger atmosphere of the Cold War. Nowadays the F-117A Nighthawk stealth aircraft--the first of its kind--is making a high-profile circuit of the world's air shows, from New Mexico to Dubai, as it heads into retirement.

But even today, the plane is still as startling a sight as it was in the late 1980s when the Pentagon first revealed it to the public, all triangles and trapezoids. Those long edges and slopes, along with smaller serrations spread across the airframe, are key elements of how the F-117A hides in plain sight--they scatter and redirect radar signals away from the radar detector that sent them skyward.

Stealth design has taken a more streamlined turn in subsequent aircraft, from the B-2 Spirit bomber to the F-22 Raptor that the Air Force has designated as the Nighthawk's successor.

Six things to be thankful for in technology, 2007

Today is Thanksgiving in the US. Typically, that means gathering with friends and loved ones, eating prodigious amounts of turkey, mashed potatoes, and stuffing, and watching the Detroit Lions and Dallas Cowboys play football. Hopefully, people also take time to reflect on the things in their lives that they're thankful for. In that spirit, Ars is offering up a list of events and developments in 2007 that we think fellow geeks should be thankful for.
Finally, DRM is dying

Ken Fisher: 2007 is the year of the infamous Steve Jobs open letter on DRM, the year that EMI got brave enough to kick DRM to the curb, and even Universal is considering the idea. I've long argued that DRM isn't about piracy, it's about selling your rights back to you. With the growing backlash against DRM, smart players are realizing that their customers don't want to be treated like thieves, even if the MPAA has the gall to suggest that they do. Yet, even the MPAA knows that customers are tired of seeing their fair use rights trampled, coming out earlier this year to call for a change in the industry.

DRM isn't dead yet, but the writing is on the wall. DRM for music will likely not last another year. DRM for video is another matter, as those players remain convinced that their products need protection. Once DRM dies in the music scene, however, the pressure will be on Hollywood to explain why it continues to trample on fair use.
Gaming went mainstream in a big way

Ben Kuchera: What am I thankful for this holiday season? While it may annoy the more hardcore gaming audience, I'm going to have to say the new mainstream acceptance of gaming. With the Wii selling to every demographic and games like Guitar Hero bringing games to people who never tried the hobby before, it's a great time to be in the industry. While some people are scared that the hardcore gamers are being forgotten, there isn't much evidence of that yet; this year was chock full of wonderful games for the hardcore market as well as games that broke through to a wider audience. Just take a look at the features titles we reviewed, as well as the heap of mini-reviews this year.

I love the fact that I have plenty of games to play with my friends and family, even if they've never picked up a game controller before, they can play many Wii games, and the rhythm game genre is turning many parties into Guitar Hero gatherings. Gaming is now reaching out to more people, and that's good news for everyone.
The big disrupter: the iPhone

Eric Bangeman: I admire many of Apple's products—and I've been a Mac user for 22 years—but I also find myself irritated by some of the things the company does. But this year, I'm truly thankful for a game-changing product from Apple, the iPhone.

I've been a smartphone-PDA junkie for close to a decade and have used just about every mobile OS known to humankind during that time. The iPhone has truly made my life easier with its innovative UI, ease of use, and incredibly tight integration with Mac OS X (something no other smartphone has ever achieved). It makes me more productive (NewsGator's iPhone RSS interface is simply amazing), entertains me when I want to be entertained, and in its jailbroken form allows me to add extra functionality as I wait for official third-party apps to be released early next year.

The iPhone is significant not just because it is such a compelling product, however.The iPhone is sending a message to people at Apple and indeed everywhere that phone lock-ins aren't cool, and that the product can and will be made better by its community. In just a few short years, we'll look back and see how the iPhone caused a mobile revolution much like the BlackBerry did in the Enterprise.
Yes, we're even thankful for "Web 2.0"

Jacqui Cheng: I'm grateful for the mass proliferation of Web 2.0. Don't laugh! While some (okay, a lot) of Web 2.0 services serve little purpose, many others have done wonders to connect our online lives with our offline lives—that's what the Internet is for, after all.

Social networking sites like Facebook have exploded and brought in a huge number of users online who wouldn't have used the 'Net so much otherwise, helping them get back in touch with old classmates and friends as well as make new ones. Services like Twitter may seem like a niche catering to stream of consciousness fans, but it also serves to let me know what everyone's up to when I'm out and about, on devices ranging from laptops to just regular old mobile phones. I'm now a faithful worshipper of GrandCentral—having voicemails accessible through the web or sent to me in MP3 format is almost as good as Visual Voicemail on the iPhone. (Almost.) Flickr now serves as a photodocumentary for my life, and the numerous ways I can send photos directly to it (through my phone is my favorite) mean that everything is there.

There are numerous others that I haven't listed, and there are a lot of other technologies that tie into making these services useful (wireless broadband, near-ubiquitous WiFi, more feature-rich handhelds). Overall, the new(ish) wave of services that connect our real lives to each other through the 'Net have made both my online and offline lives more enjoyable. With the proliferation of powerful handheld devices like the iPhone and the N800, we'll be able to do even more online while enjoying life offline.
Volunteerism is at an all time high

Ryan Paul: The principle of volunteerism has elevated open source software into the public awareness and transformed the software industry. The growing importance of open source software is a poignant reminder that everyone who participates has the capacity to make a difference. Every participant, regardless of the scope or nature of their contribution, is helping to bring better software to all of us. That doesn't just mean programmers. It also includes unsung heroes, like documentation writers, artists, beta testers, bug reporters, and users who teach and support other users. Without the principled commitment of all of those people, I wouldn't be who I am today.

I feel compelled to express my gratitude for the open source software community and all of the hard-working volunteers who contribute their precious time and effort. The collective labor of the open source community has delivered technological liberty to myself and countless others. I'm grateful for the culture of volunteerism and collaboration that makes the community such a powerful and compelling medium for ideological interchange and technological progress.

I'm also thankful for the Creative Commons, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and other tireless defenders of freedom who work every day to ensure that our future will not be locked down and encumbered by increasingly draconian intellectual property laws. You can see our coverage of the EFF's battles here.

I would also like to extend my appreciation to companies like Red Hat, Novell, Canonical, Google, Nokia, Collabora, Fluendo, and so many others that are coming to the table, motivated by enlightened self interest, to collaborate with the open source software community and spread freedom for our mutual benefit.


OLED and E Ink: the future is now

Jon Stokes: The earliest mention that I can find of E-Ink's technology on Ars is a post that I made way back in 2002, when the technology was "three to five years away" from commercialization. I was excited about it then, and I'm excited about it now, in spite of some of its teething problems (i.e., the slow refresh time). I've also been covering organic LED (OLED) technology for at least this long, also as part of the "three to five years away" beat. So I'm thankful that in 2007, both of these technologies began to enter the market in a meaningful, high-profile way. Sure, there were products based on E-Ink and OLED before 2007, but 2007 feels like the year that both have rounded some kind of corner and are poised to become truly mainstream. Now if we could just see some action on the Moller Aircar front...
In all, a great 2007

2007 has been a great year for tech, but of course there's one other thing we must give thanks for. You! Ars Technica readers are some of the smartest on the 'Net, and it's for you that we're here working tirelessly day-in, day-out. Although there is much work to be done before we can close the books on 2007, we're already looking forward to a great 2008.

Bloggers beware: You're liable to commit libel

These days, everybody and his dog has a blog. Unfortunately, almost nobody has a clue about their responsibility under defamation law. And if the dog has a clue, he ain't talkin'.Most professional writers and members of the media are familiar with this stuff, but chances are, you're not. If you write, host, or even comment on a blog, you need to be. That's because, according to the U.S. Supreme Court, we all have the same rights and responsibilities under defamation law.

Now, I confess to not being a lawyer. But I am a blogger who would like to stay out of court. I've also run marketing for a few companies and have spent way too much time with lawyers, so I do know a fair amount about this stuff.Since legalese can be intimidating, I thought I'd attempt a plain-English overview of the subject. I'd also like to invite those more knowledgeable than me to comment. Keep in mind that this is intended to open your eyes, not provide legal advice, which I'm certainly not qualified to do. First, people usually ask the wrong question: "Can a blogger be sued for defamation?" The sad truth is that almost anybody can sue you for almost anything these days. So, don't ask that question; it's dumb. What you want to know is your responsibility under the law, and therefore, how best to protect yourself from successful litigation.To prove libel, which is the same thing as written defamation, the plaintiff has to prove that the blogger published a false statement of fact about the plaintiff that harmed the plaintiff's reputation. Let's break that down."Published" means that at least one other person may have read the blog. That's right, just one.A "false statement of fact" is a statement about the plaintiff that is not true. Truth is the best defense against libel. An opinion is also a defense against libel. But, depending on the context, the difference between an opinion and a statement of fact can be remarkably gray. Context is a big deal in determining defamation.

One thing to watch out for: simply inserting the words "in my opinion" in front of a statement of fact doesn't magically make it an opinion.Satire and hyperbole can also be defenses against libel, but again, very gray.Then there's the matter of "harming the plaintiff's reputation." It's one thing to say that a false statement harmed your reputation, but if you can't demonstrate damages, the suit may be effectively worthless. Damages would include, for example, losing X customers that represent Y income, suffering emotional distress and so on. Also, if your damages are minimal, you may have a hard time finding a lawyer to take the case. They're a greedy lot. (That's an opinion, not a statement of fact.)If the plaintiff is your average, everyday, run-of-the-mill person or company, then negligence is sufficient to prove libel. That means that a reasonable person would not have published the defamatory statement. If the plaintiff is a "public figure," however, then the plaintiff must prove actual malice--a higher burden of proof. That means that the blogger knew that the statement wasn't true or didn't care.Then there's the question of who's responsible for comments on a blog. Whoever publishes the Web site is responsible for content on the site. That includes comments. However, many bloggers have independent agreements to indemnify the site that publishes their blog. That may or may not include comments.

Plaintiffs can certainly sue everybody in the chain and see what sticks, though they will likely go after those with the deepest pockets. You can avoid the entire question by turning comments off.To make matters worse, this is the Internet, so there are individual state and national laws to consider. I'm going to stick with California and U.S. law, and hope for the best.You may be able to get insurance for this sort of thing. I was able to get a quote for what's called media liability insurance, but it was expensive and had a high deductible. It also took lots of time and and paperwork just to get the quote. In any case, a business insurance broker should be able to quote you a policy from one of their carriers.Well, those are the basics. Check out this EFF site on defamation for FAQs and examples. You can probably spend a lifetime understanding different scenarios and studying case law.As for me, I'm planning to play it safe. I mean, how hard can it be to say nice things about people?

Is this bike made from spider webs?

Some people weave baskets by hand. But Delta 7 Sports is weaving bikes that way.The Payson, Utah-based company on Monday unveiled the Arantix, a mountain bike made out of hollow tubes spun from carbon fibers. The unusual design of the so-called IsoTruss tubes, based on technology from Brigham Young University, allows Delta 7 to cut down weight. A standard hard-tail mountain bike frame (without shock absorbers) made from the stuff weighs about 2.7 pounds, but it's as strong or stronger as a conventional carbon or aluminum frame, according to the company.

In 2009, Delta 7 will come out with a lightweight road bike too, said Lester Muranaka, who runs marketing and sales for the company. Delta 7's road bike will likely weigh around the same as other elite road bikes, but early tests indicate that it could be more aerodynamic and, thus, potentially give a rider an edge. "We think the strength and aerodynamics are going to be big sellers," Muranaka said.

If anything, you'll get noticed. Delta 7 has taken its prototype out to nearby Moab, the epicenter of dirt riding in North America. There are a lot of fancy bikes in Moab, but the Arantix gets stares. Test riders must invariably answer a lot of questions.A fully equipped bike costs $11,995--way more than any bike out there that isn't encrusted with jewels--but each one takes 300 hours to build. Volume manufacturing will lead to lower prices, according to the company. Consumers also can order the frame separately, without components, for $6,995.

The IsoTruss tubing relies on a combination of chemistry and geometry. Delta 7 takes carbon fiber, which has one of the better weight-to-strength ratios in industrial material science, and weaves it into an intricate pattern with a spool-like loom. The overall pattern consists of isosceles triangles, which are triangles with two equal sides connected to each other to form pyramids.The weaving is done by hand. In essence, making the tubes is sort of like making a giant cat's cradle or a lanyard. One piece of carbon fiber is used for each tube. In all, a finished bike frame from Delta 7 will contain 1,672 linear feet of carbon fiber.

Kevlar is then used to fix the carbon fiber in place. The Kevlar-coated tube is inserted into an oven, where it gets baked for four hours at 255 degrees Fahrenheit.
Delta 7, which is a subsidiary of Advanced Composite Solutions, is hoping to have a machine ready in 18 months to two years that can automate the weaving process. Two other companies have licensed the IsoTruss technology for things like cell phone towers, but the hand weaving made the products uneconomical.

Delta 7 went with bikes because, well, there are always guys out there who will pay money to get something cutting-edge. CNET News.com also has written stories about an Internet-enabled exercise bike from Daum and two-wheel drive motorcycles and mountain bikes from Christini.Delta 7 will produce 200 of the Arantix mountain bikes in 2008 and will grow production to 1,000 bikes in 2010. The first bikes will be released in the first quarter. Delta 7 is taking deposits for them now.

The wooden car with a split personality

When Vasily Lazarenko began tinkering, he had a vision: build a wooden car. And apparently, it was a case of double vision. The resident of Chernovtsy, Ukraine, fashioned one half of the body with a retro look, and the other half with more modern styling. (Or at least, "modern" as it seems to be understood in the aftermath of the notoriously unstylish Soviet empire.)

Amazon.com's Kindle to go wireless

Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos believes the Kindle will be to reading what the iPod was to music, according to report published Sunday in the online edition of Newsweek magazine. In what appears to be the Bezos' first interview about the company's upcoming electronic reader, Amazon's chief told the magazine that the Kindle can store up to 200 books and connect to the Web with the help of a system called Whispernet. Amazon, a company that has become synonymous with buying books online, will also offer Kindle owners a selection of more than 88,000 digital books at launch time, according to Newsweek. Last week, CNET News.com reported that Bezos will unveil the Kindle at a media event in New York on Monday. An industry source said that the device will retail for $399 and receive automatic downloads from major newspapers and publications. The source also said that Kindle features e-mail. The e-mail service enables owners to receive word documents or PDF files that can be stored in the device's library just like a book, Newsweek reported. But what makes the handheld truly unique is that it downloads books off the Web--and it can do that "in less than a minute," Bezos told the magazine. E-readers used to confine e-book buyers to wherever their computers were located. Digital books had to be first downloaded to a PC and then synced to an e-reader. Amazon is freeing them to buy wherever they can connect to the Web and this could lead to more impulse purchases. Amazon is banking a lot on the e-reader. The retailer held up the release for more than a year in an attempt to deliver a superior product than predecessors, a source told CNET News.com. Previous attempts to convince the public to switch to digital books have largely failed. To help spur demand, Amazon is pricing Kindle editions of New York Times best sellers as well as new releases for $9.99. Price is important because in the past, e-books have often cost the same as the paper kind and that stifled demand. Newsweek offered few details about the Whispernet system, but did say that its based on the EVDO. A source told CNET that Sprint will provide the EVDO access. EVDO will enable Kindle owners to hook up to the Web via a cellular network. That means way more coverage than having to look for a Wi-Fi hotspot.