US military to adopt Android phones

3 May 2013 Last updated at 05:54 ET

Samsung phones running a secure version of Android have been approved for use by the US Department of Defense.

The approval is the start of a process that will see many different types of mobile devices used by US soldiers.

Approval for other Android devices as well as Apple phones and tablets is expected in late May.

Before now, ailing phone maker Blackberry was the only firm whose products were approved for use by US service personnel.

Fast growth

The approval of Samsung phones was the first step of a strategy that would let soldiers use many different types of devices, both smartphones and tablets, during their tours of duty, said DoD spokesman Lt Col Damien Pickart.

The approval would not necessarily result in orders for gadgets, he said, but meant different groups within the DoD could now buy the devices most appropriate to their needs.

The US DoD has about 600,000 smartphone users, said Col Pickart, about 470,000 of whom were using Blackberry handsets. The remainder was split between people using both Google Android and Apple phones in a series of trials to assess whether the devices could be used securely.

According to one report on Federal News Radio, the approval of other handset makers is part of a US DoD plan to more than double the number of secure mobile devices used by its armed forces by 2014. Alongside this will be built a secure system to manage all these devices and their associated app stores. Commercial bids to provide this are currently being assessed.

Blackberry handsets dominate within the US military because, before now, it was the only make to meet the Department's stringent security demands.

Samsung phones were among the first to win approval because of work done on a hardened version of the Android operating system called Knox that also met those security requirements. Gadgets that run Apple's iOS 6 operating system as well as other Android phones are currently undergoing testing by the Defense Information Systems Agency and are expected to be approved by the end of the month.

At the same time Samsung won approval, Blackberry 10 smartphones and Playbook tablets were also ruled safe to use on military networks.

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World's smallest flying robot built

2 May 2013 Last updated at 14:05 ET By Victoria Gill Science reporter, BBC News

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See the tiny robotic flies in action

Scientists in the US have created a robot the size of a fly that is able to perform the agile manoeuvres of the ubiquitous insects.

This "robo-fly", built from carbon fibre, weighs a fraction of a gram and has super-fast electronic "muscles" to power its wings.

Its Harvard University developers say tiny robots like theirs may eventually be used in rescue operations.

It could, for example, navigate through tiny spaces in collapsed buildings.

The development is reported in the journal Science.

Dr Kevin Ma from Harvard University and his team, led by Dr Robert Wood, say they have made the world's smallest flying robot.

It also has the fly-like agility that allows the insects to evade even the swiftest of human efforts to swat them.

This comes largely from very precise wing movements.

By constantly adjusting the effect of lift and thrust acting on its body at an incredibly high speed, the insect's (and the robot's) wings enable it to hover, or to perform sudden evasive manoeuvres.

And just like a real fly, the robot's thin, flexible wings beat approximately 120 times every second.

The researchers achieved this wing speed with special substance called piezoelectric material, which contracts every time a voltage is applied to it.

By very rapidly switching the voltage on and off, the scientists were able to make this material behave like just like the tiny muscles that makes a fly's wings beat so fast.

Continue reading the main story

As an insect's wings move through the air, they are held at a slight angle, deflecting the air downward.

This deflection means the air flows faster over the wing than underneath, causing air pressure to build up beneath the wings, while the pressure above the wings is reduced. It is this difference in pressure that produces lift.

Flapping creates an additional forward and upward force known as thrust, which counteracts the insect's weight and the "drag" of air resistance.

The downstroke or the flap is also called the "power stroke", as it provides the majority of the thrust. During this, the wing is angled downwards even more steeply.

You can imagine this stroke as a very brief downward dive through the air - it momentarily uses the weight of the animal's own weight in order to move forwards. But because the wings continue to generate lift, the creature remains airborne.

In each upstroke, the wing is slightly folded inwards to reduce resistance.

"We get it to contract and relax, like biological muscle," said Dr Ma.

The main goal of this research was to understand how insect flight works, rather than to build a useful robot.

He added though that there could be many uses for such a diminutive flying vehicle.

"We could envision these robots being used for search-and-rescue operations to search for human survivors under collapsed buildings or [in] other hazardous environments," he said.

"They [could] be used for environmental monitoring, to be dispersed into a habitat to sense trace chemicals or other factors.

Dr Ma even suggested that the robots could behave like many real insects and assist with the pollination of crops, "to function as the now-struggling honeybee populations do in supporting agriculture around the world".

The current model of robo-fly is tethered to a small, off-board power source but Dr Ma says the next step will be to miniaturise the other bits of technology that will be needed to create a "fully wireless flying robot".

"It will be a few more years before full integration is possible," he said.

"Until then, this research project continues to be very captivating work because of its similarity to natural insects. It is a demonstration of how far human engineering ingenuity has reached, to be mimicking natural systems."

Dr Jon Dyhr, a biologist from the University of Washington who also studies insect flight, said these flying robots were "impressive feats of engineering".

"The physics of flight at such small scales is relatively poorly understood which makes designing small flying systems very difficult," he told BBC News, adding that biological systems provided "critical insights into designing our own artificial flyers".

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Dark web drug site hit by hacker

2 May 2013 Last updated at 14:50 ET

An "underground" website famed for selling drugs and other illegal items has been targeted in a cyberattack.

It appears the site suffered from a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack over the course of Tuesday and Wednesday.

Silk Road is only accessible through Tor, a service which allows users to browse anonymously online.

Several US politicians have called for the marketplace to be shut down, without success.

DDoS attacks involve flooding a website with more traffic than it can handle, therefore knocking it offline.

After two days of intermittent service, Silk Road's administrators told users on Wednesday morning the site was back in action - but said they could not rule out further downtime.

"Silk Road is open and accessible," said the site's administrator, writing under the user name Dread Pirate Roberts.

"As soon as the attacker finds out, he will likely change his tactics and try to take the site down again.

"Hopefully he won't be able to, but time will tell."

Possible motives

Prior to the site's recovery, owners speculated that the attack had exposed deep-rooted vulnerabilities in the Tor network.

"It's looking more and more like a restructuring of the Tor software or even the Tor network will be required to mitigate the kind of attack we are under," one update read.

Tor is a channel for people wanting to route their online communications anonymously.

It has been used by activists to avoid censorship as well as those seeking anonymity for more nefarious reasons - leading it to be known as the "dark web".

Speculation has spread over possible motives for the attack - including the possibility that a competitor is looking to set up a rival site on the network.

Silk Road takes its name from the historic trade routes spanning across Europe, Asia and parts of Africa.

The website has gained a reputation as being an online black market, with illegal goods being sold openly.

Carnegie Mellon University estimated that over $1.22m (£786,183) worth of trading took place on the site every month.

Payments for goods are made with the virtual currency Bitcoin, making it hard to track users buying drugs.

However, one Australian man using the site to sell drugs was arrested in February.

In a statement, local police said the arrest proved they were "one step ahead" of criminals on online networks.

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Phisher pupils hack class computers

3 May 2013 Last updated at 06:54 ET

A group of pupils at a middle school in Alaska took control of their classroom computers after phishing for administrator privileges.

They asked teachers at Schoenbar Middle School, for 12 to 13-year-olds, to enter admin names and passwords to accept a false software update, according to reports.

The pupils used those details to access and control classmates' PCs.

Classmates then complained that their computers were not responding normally.

Associated Press said that at least 18 pupils were involved in the phishing, which gave them control over 300 computers allocated for student use at the school in the Alaskan town of Ketchikan.

Those computers have now been seized.

"I don't believe any hardware issues were compromised," Casey Robinson, the principal, told community radio station Ketchikan FM.

He said: "No software issues were compromised. I don't think there was any personal information compromised. Now that we have all the machines back in our control, nothing new can happen."

Mr Robinson added there would be a review of the way that devices are maintained.

"How we do business is definitely going to have to change when it comes to updating programs and resources that we have on the machines," Mr Robinson said.

"Yes, something new is going to have to happen."

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Warner Bros sued in viral cats row

3 May 2013 Last updated at 08:12 ET

Warner Bros is being sued for the alleged unauthorised use of two cats that have achieved internet fame.

Clips of Nyan Cat and Keyboard Cat have each spurred tens of millions of views since appearing online in 2011 and 2007 respectively.

The complaint alleged that the cats were used without permission in Scribblenauts, a series of games on the Nintendo DS and other platforms.

Neither Warner Bros or 5th Cell, the game's developer, have commented.

Court documents alleged that Warner Bros and 5th Cell "knowingly and intentionally infringed" both claimant's ownership rights.

"Compounding their infringements," court papers said, "defendants have used 'Nyan Cat' and 'Keyboard Cat', even identifying them by name, to promote and market their games, all without plaintiffs' permission and without any compensation to plaintiffs."

Japanese pop

The Keyboard Cat was first partially created in 1984 by Charles Schmidt, who filmed his cat Fatso "playing" a electric keyboard.

More than two decades later it was put to music and uploaded to YouTube in a clip called "Play Him Off, Keyboard Cat" - internet users would often use Keyboard Cat as way of mocking subjects in videos.

Nyan Cat, designed by Christopher Torres, is described in court documents as "a character with a cat's face and a body resembling a horizontal breakfast bar with pink frosting sprinkled with light red dots, flies across the screen, leaving a stream of exhaust in the form of a bright rainbow in its wake".

A YouTube video combining the cat animation with a Japanese pop song was the fifth most-viewed YouTube clip in 2011.

Both Mr Torres and Mr Schmidt own copyrights and trademarks of the characters.

They have called for an injunction preventing the sale of Scribblenauts until the matter has been resolved.

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Google edition adopts 'Palestine'

3 May 2013 Last updated at 08:34 ET

Internet giant Google has changed the tagline on the homepage of its Palestinian edition from "Palestinian Territories" to "Palestine".

The change, introduced on 1 May, means google.ps now displays "Palestine" in Arabic and English under Google's logo.

Using the word Palestine is controversial for some. Israeli policy is that the borders of a Palestinian state are yet to be agreed.

In November, the UN gave Palestine the status of "non-member observer state".

The decision by the General Assembly was strongly opposed by Israel and the United States. Previously, Palestine only had "observer entity" status.

It followed an unsuccessful Palestinian bid to join the international body as a full member state in 2011 because of a lack of support in the UN Security Council.

Palestinians in general seek recognition for the state they are trying to establish and the adoption of the name Palestine.

Israel considers any formal use of the word Palestine as pre-judging the outcome of currently stalled peace talks. In much of Israel's official terminology the West Bank is referred to as Judea and Samaria.

'Right direction'

In a statement given to the BBC on Friday, Google spokesman Nathan Tyler said: "We're changing the name 'Palestinian Territories' to 'Palestine' across our products. We consult a number of sources and authorities when naming countries.

"In this case, we are following the lead of the UN, Icann [the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers], ISO [International Organisation for Standardisation] and other international organisations."

The Palestinian Authority (PA) welcomed Google's decision.

"This is a step in the right direction, a timely step and one that encourages others to join in and give the right definition and name for Palestine instead of Palestinian territories," Dr Sabri Saidam, advisor to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, told the BBC.

"Most of the traffic that happens now happens in the virtual world and this means putting Palestine on the virtual map as well as on the geographic maps," he added.

Dr Saidam said that since the UN vote on 29 November, the PA had written to international companies, including Google, asking them to replace their usage of "Palestinian Territories" with "Palestine".

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Planning changes to boost mobile web

3 May 2013 Last updated at 13:00 ET

Mobile firms could find it easier to put up masts and antennas under suggested changes to planning rules.

The changes would let operators fix more antennas to walls and promote use of tiny "microcells" that help boost network capacity.

Operators would also be encouraged to share masts to limit the need for new base station sites.

The UK government has proposed the changes to help accelerate the roll-out of high-speed mobile networks.

Government figures suggest that the demand for the use of the mobile web is due to increase 80 fold in the next 17 years. However, said the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), regulations governing how quickly operators can deploy masts threatened to slow efforts to add capacity.

The government has proposed a series of measures that, it claims, would let operators expand networks quickly but avoid the need to install new masts as much as possible.

"Demand for mobile broadband in particular is increasing at a phenomenal rate," said communications minister Ed Vaizey in a statement announcing the consultation. "We need to ensure that businesses and individuals can access this as soon as possible, if its full potential as a driver for growth is to be realised."

Under the proposed changes to planning permissions, operators would be able put masts further back from the edge of a building to make them less visible from the ground, and it would be more straightforward to mount antennas on walls to avoid the need for new mast sites. The proposals also keep in place safeguards that stop masts being put up in protected areas, said the government.

The consultation, which is being run in conjunction with the Department for Communities, begins on 3 May and runs until 14 June. The DCMS said anyone with comments could email them to the department.

In February, the UK government concluded an auction for spectrum that can support fourth-generation mobile services. So far, only Everything Everywhere has launched 4G services but other operators are expected to launch rival services in late 2013.

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World’s first 3D-printer gun fired

6 May 2013 Last updated at 02:38 ET By Rebecca Morelle Science reporter, BBC World Service, Texas

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The BBC's Rebecca Morelle saw the 3D-printed gun's first test in Austin, Texas

The world's first gun made with 3D printer technology has been successfully fired in the US.

The controversial group which created the firearm, Defense Distributed, plans to make the blueprints available online.

The group has spent a year trying to create the firearm, which was successfully tested on Saturday at a firing range south of Austin, Texas.

Anti-gun campaigners have criticised the project.

Europe's law enforcement agency said it was monitoring developments.

Victoria Baines, from Europol's cybercrime centre, said that at present criminals were more likely to pursue traditional routes to obtain firearms.

She added, however: "But as time goes on and as this technology becomes more user friendly and more cost effective, it is possible that some of these risks will emerge."

Defense Distributed is headed by Cody Wilson, a 25-year-old law student at the University of Texas.

Mr Wilson said: "I think a lot of people weren't expecting that this could be done."

3D printing has been hailed as the future of manufacturing.

The technology works by building up layer upon layer of material - typically plastic - to build complex solid objects.

The idea is that as the printers become cheaper, instead of buying goods from shops, consumers will instead be able to download designs and print out the items at home.

But as with all new technologies, there are risks as well as benefits.

Personal liberties

The gun was made on a 3D printer that cost $8,000 (£5,140) from the online auction site eBay.

It was assembled from separate printed components made from ABS plastic - only the firing pin was made from metal.

Mr Wilson, who describes himself as a crypto-anarchist, said his plans to make the design available were "about liberty".

He told the BBC: "There is a demand of guns - there just is. There are states all over the world that say you can't own firearms - and that's not true anymore.

"I'm seeing a world where technology says you can pretty much be able to have whatever you want. It's not up to the political players any more."

Asked if he felt any sense of responsibility about whose hands the gun might fall into, he told the BBC: "I recognise the tool might be used to harm other people - that's what the tool is - it's a gun.

"But I don't think that's a reason to not do it - or a reason not to put it out there."

Gun control

To make the gun, Mr Wilson received a manufacturing and seller's licence from the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).

Donna Sellers, from the ATF, told BBC News that the 3D-printed gun, as long as it was not a National Firearms Act weapon (an automatic gun, for example), was legal in the US.

She said: "[In the US] a person can manufacture a firearm for their own use. However, if they engage in the business of manufacture to sell a gun, they need a licence."

Amid America's ongoing gun debate in the wake of the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, US congressman Steve Israel recently called for a ban on 3D guns under the Undetectable Firearms Act.

Groups looking to tighten US gun laws have also expressed concern.

Leah Gunn Barrett, from New Yorkers Against Gun Violence, has said: "These guns could fall into the hands of people who should not have guns - criminals, people who are seriously mentally ill, people who are convicted of domestic violence, even children."

3D printing technology has already been used by some criminal organisations to create card readers - "skimmers" - that are inserted into bank machines.

Many law enforcement agencies around the world now have people dedicated to monitoring cybercrime and emerging technologies such as 3D printers.

Ms Baines from Europol said: "What we know is that technology proceeds much more quickly than we expect it to. So by getting one step ahead of the technological developments, we hope and believe we will be able to get one step ahead of the criminals as well."

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Amazon beats Google with China apps

6 May 2013 Last updated at 07:31 ET

Amazon has become the first Western technology firm to offer paid-for Android apps in China - beating Google to the lucrative market.

Google's Chinese store for its mobile operating system - the most popular globally - only offers free apps.

Amazon's move paves the way for it to launch its Kindle e-reader devices in the country, analysts predict.

Other locally-based services already offer paid apps to China which is the world's largest mobile phone market.

But many of the home-grown services face issues with malicious software contained within apps, some of which are pirated versions.

In contrast, the Amazon store, which launched over the weekend, promises "quality and safety testing".

Massive market

As well as curating existing apps, Amazon said it will work with local developers to create programs specifically for local users.

The move is part of Amazon's strategy to dig deeper into the Chinese mobile phone market.

Compared to its dominant position in other countries such as the US and UK, Amazon controlled less than 3% of China's massive 169bn yuan (£17.6bn) business-to-consumer e-commerce market in the fourth quarter last year.

In December last year, the retailer launched its Kindle web store, but is yet to sell the actual e-reader devices.

However, China, like many countries in the region, has a thriving market in counterfeit electronics - meaning many consumers are already likely familiar with Amazon's product.

Apple apology

Key competitor Apple already has a significant presence in the country.

China is currently Apple's second-largest market, with more than 17,000 outlets selling its products.

The company says it has eight stores in mainland China, with another three in Greater China, which includes Hong Kong.

However, Apple's reputation among Chinese consumers has taken a hit recently after chief executive Tim Cook was forced to apologise to customers over "misunderstandings" surrounding its repair policies.

"We are aware that a lack of communications... led to the perception Apple's attitude was arrogant and that we do not care and attach importance to consumer feedback," Mr Cook wrote.

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Poster 'only fully visible to kids'

6 May 2013 Last updated at 11:18 ET

A poster than can only be fully seen when looked at from a child's point of view has been used in an anti-child abuse campaign.

Spanish organisation the Anar Foundation used lenticular printing - a technique which means those looking at different angles see a different image.

On the poster, a "secret" message showing a child helpline would show up when seen from a child's height.

The foundation said it helped children gain confidence to call the number.

The campaign was designed get the information about where to find help to children who may be accompanied by their abuser.

Seeking help

The foundation worried that if a poster containing a phone number that both adult and child could see, the adult may possibly say things to dissuade the child from considering seeking help.

The "secret" message on the campaign poster reads (translated from Spanish): "If somebody hurts you, phone us and we'll help you."

Lenticular printing is a concept which has existed for several decades - and has been used for various purposes, perhaps most memorably as "animated" stickers found on children's lunchboxes, stationery and other items.

But recent developments mean a greater illusion of depth can be achieved - meaning the technique is also used to create a 3D effect that does not require glasses.

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