Google quizzed over deleted links

24 July 2014 Last updated at 19:56 By Dave Lee Technology reporter, BBC News

Google has met data regulators from across the European Union to discuss the implications of the recent "right to be forgotten" ruling.

An EU court ruled in May that links to "irrelevant" and outdated data should be erased from searches on request, leading to censorship concerns.

The decision and Google's handling of the requests have been heavily debated.

The BBC understands that the search firm informed the watchdogs that it had now received more than 91,000 requests.

These in turn covered a total of 328,000 links that applicants wanted taken down.

Continue reading the main story

All this talk about rewriting history and airbrushing embarrassing bits from your past - this is nonsense, that's not going to happen"

End Quote Christopher Graham UK information commissioner

The regulators were told that the greatest number of these came from France, followed by Germany, then Great Britain and Spain.

Across Europe as a whole, the search engine - which has been critical of the court's ruling - has:

• Approved more than 50% of the requests
• Asked for more information in about 15% of the cases
• Rejected more than 30% of the applications

According to a report by Reuters, EU regulators were specifically concerned about the fact that Google had notified the owners of affected websites when it removed their links.

In one case this led the Wall Street Journal to write again about a Netherlands-based investor who had been linked to a sex workshop in 1998, after he had asked for the link to be removed from Google's results.

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Technology reporter Dave Lee explains how the controversial system will work

In another example, the BBC's economics editor Robert Peston brought attention to one of his blog posts that had disappeared from Google's search results.

Furthermore, a website has been set up to log examples of reported erasures.

Speaking to Bloomberg, the Irish data protection commissioner Billy Hawkes expressed concerns about this knock-on effect.

"The more they do so, it means the media organisation republishes the information and so much for the right to be forgotten," Mr Hawkes said.

"There is an issue there."

Reuters also reported that the watchdogs were concerned that the removed results could still be found on the international Google.com site even though they had been taken off local variants such as Google.co.uk.

Working party

The meeting in Brussels also included representatives from other search engines, including Yahoo, and Microsoft's Bing.

They met with a group known as the Article 29 Working Party, a gathering of data commissioners from across Europe concerned about the future direction of the "right to be forgotten" ruling.

Ahead of the meeting, the Society of Editors - a group representing media organisations in the UK - wrote a letter to Prime Minister David Cameron urging him to resist the ruling.

The society warned that a "vital principle" over the free publishing, and archiving, of information was at stake.

But UK information commissioner Christopher Graham said that some of the concerns expressed by newspapers and broadcasters were overblown - and that there may have been some media manipulation on Google's part.

"Google is a massive commercial organisation making millions and millions out of processing people's personal information. They're going to have to do some tidying up," he told Speaking to Radio 5 Live's Wake Up To Money.

He added that the censorship debate should not hide the fact that people should be allowed to move on from some incidents in their past.

"All this talk about rewriting history and airbrushing embarrassing bits from your past - this is nonsense, that's not going to happen," he said.

"There will certainly be occasions when there ought to be less prominence given to things that are done and dusted, over and done with.

"The law would regard that as a spent conviction, but so far as Google is concerned there's no such thing as a spent conviction."

Follow Dave Lee on Twitter @DaveLeeBBC

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Amazon reports $126m quarterly loss

24 July 2014 Last updated at 22:49

Amazon has reported a loss of $126m (£74m) in the second quarter and warned that sales could slow in the current quarter.

Amazon forecast third quarter sales of between $19.7bn and $21.5bn, which could mean sales growth of as little as 15% - well down on previous quarters.

Amazon has traditionally survived on thin profit margins, but investors have been reassured by strong sales growth.

But today's warning over sales has spooked investors.

In after hours trading in the US shares slumped by 6%.

Digital content

Amazon has been investing heavily to build up its business, including the launch last month of its first smartphone - the Fire Phone.

It has been developing digital content including computer games and TV shows.

In its conference call the company said that producing its own TV shows would cost $100m in the third quarter.

Amazon has also been spending money on improving its delivery systems which includes expanding Sunday delivery to 18 cities in the United States.

Web services

Another major cost of Amazon has been the building of its Amazon Web Services business.

It provides computer services and storage for businesses and has been growing very quickly.

To match that growth Amazon has been investing heavily in infrastructure and has hired "thousands" of staff for the web services operation.

All that has contributed to a negative net income of $126m in the second quarter, which compares with a loss of $7m in the same quarter in 2013.

That loss came despite a 23% jump in second quarter sales to $19.3bn.

Analysis

Leo Kelion, BBC Technology Desk Editor

Amazon's enjoyed strong growth in its sales over the past quarter - its 23% revenue rise on last year's figure was bang on target for Wall Street's predictions.

But what makes investors nervous is that its net loss was nearly double what had been forecast.

What's more, it has warned that it might sink further into the red during the current period.

In short, Amazon's growing list of investments is hurting its bottom line - at least in the short term.

Developing new products such as its Fire Phone, Fire TV set-top box and Dash grocery scanner haven't come cheap.

The company also pointed to the need to invest in the expansion of its web services division - the behind-the-scenes computing power it rents out to clients including Netflix, Nasa and the CIA, as well as smaller app creators.

On top of that the firm has rolled out Sunday deliveries in the UK and US, commissioned new TV shows for its Prime subscribers and expanded its operations in India and China.

Benefit of the doubt

In the past, shareholders have been willing to give Amazon the benefit of the doubt - foregoing dividends today for the promise of it being in an even stronger position to pay out in the future.

But they may be concerned about how many bets it is taking at once - this week's lacklustre reviews for the Fire Phone can't have helped.

The size of today's sell-off indicates that some at least want more reassurance - particularly since Amazon refuses to break down its numbers to reveal exactly how its different products are performing.

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Mobile test illuminates risk taking

25 July 2014 Last updated at 12:09 By Melissa Hogenboom Science reporter, BBC Radio Science

New research shows that risky behaviour and impulsiveness can be reliably tested with specially designed mobile phone games.

Scientists found that four puzzles in The Great Brain Experiment app can measure several different aspects of cognitive function.

Other games test our visual perception and our ability to remember things.

Scientists hope that results from thousands of participants will help them address population differences.

The research has been published in the journal Plos One.

By playing games participants can compare themselves to the other players while sending data back to the scientists.

"Each of these games is a serious scientific experiment," said Dr Peter Zeidman, a neuroscientist from University College London who was involved with the research.

"By playing the games people can not only have some fun but can contribute to the latest research in psychology and neuroscience," he added.

The "Am I Impulsive?" game, for example, asks participants to smash fruit that is falling from a tree using their fingers, but to refrain from smashing it when it is rotting, indicated by the fruit turning brown.

Harnessing big data

"That ability to hold yourself back from an action - trying to not do something - is a really important human ability and something we want to understand better.

"People with certain psychiatric illnesses or neurological problems have an impaired ability to inhibit their actions, for example ADHD or schizophrenia... If we can better understand just in the healthy population how people inhibit their actions then we'll learn a lot more," Dr Zeidman told the BBC's Science in Action Programme.

The team from the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging questioned whether results from the games could be reliably included as part of scientific experiments and found that they were as good as lab experiments, with the added benefit of a huge sample size.

They compared the scores of 16,000 participants with similar experiments in a lab setting and they found that all four games gave statistically robust results. This was despite many of the distractions people may face while playing games on their mobile phones.

The scientists hope to answer questions about how memory, impulsivity or risk taking change over time, and they can also look at how these relate to each other.

Crucially, the way the app has been designed allows scientists to contact participants with unusually good scores.

Though the app is completely anonymous, it can send a message to a phone asking if a participant would like to come in for a brain scan.

Results from one of the games have already been used in research looking at working memory - when information is held for only a very short time, published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology.

In this work lead author Fiona McNab from Birmingham University found that the brain deals with distraction in different ways.

"Understanding distraction in this way can resolve previous inconsistencies and lead to new discoveries, such as in schizophrenia and healthy ageing where working memory is impaired," said Dr McNab.

Predicting the future

While the initial analyses were based on four games, there are now four new ones available. "Can I predict the future?" is one of these and focuses on how people learn about how much reward is available in the environment and whether it might change over time.

So far 93,000 people have installed the app since it was launched and of those, 65,000 people's data is now being analysed.

The researchers said that over time, data from the games could be combined with medical, genetic or lifestyle information and could be used to learn more about how wellbeing relates to a persons' psychological characteristics.

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Wikipedia blocks US Congress edits

25 July 2014 Last updated at 13:12 By Joe Miller Technology Reporter

Wikipedia administrators have imposed a ban on page edits from computers at the US House of Representatives, following "persistent disruptive editing".

The 10-day block comes after anonymous changes were made to entries on politicians and businesses, as well as events like the Kennedy assassination.

The biography of former US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld was edited to say that he was an "alien lizard".

One staffer said they were being banned for the "actions of two or three".

Edits from computers using the IP address belonging to the House of Representatives have been banned before, following similar acts of vandalism.

Continue reading the main story

Maybe someone at the House of Representatives better think about their IT staff"

End Quote Jimmy Wales Founder of Wikipedia

The latest block comes after rogue edits were brought to light by a Twitter feed, @congressedits, which posts every change made from the government-owned address.

'Russian puppet'

One of the acts highlighted was an alteration to the page on the assassination of John F Kennedy, which was changed to say that Lee Harvey Oswald was acting "on behalf of the regime of Fidel Castro".

An entry on the moon landing conspiracy theories was changed to say they were "promoted by the Cuban government".

Another entry, on the Ukrainian politician Nataliya Vitrenko, was edited to claim that she was a "Russian puppet".

The biography of former US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld was revised, describing him as an "alien lizard who eats Mexican babies".

However the edit that finally brought administrators to ban anonymous edits from the House IP address was made on the entry for media news site Mediaite, describing the blog as "sexist transphobic" and saying that it "automatically assumes that someone is male without any evidence".

Mediaite had previously run a story on the rogue edits from congressional computers.

Counter productive?

Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, told the BBC that the incident did not surprise him, and vandalism has "always gone on and it always will".

But he said that the @congressedits Twitter feed may have been counter-productive.

"There is a belief from some of the [Wikipedia] community that it only provoked someone - some prankster there in the office - to have an audience now for the pranks, and actually encouraged them rather than discouraged them."

He added: "Maybe someone at the House of Representatives better think about their IT staff - they might be hunting them down this very moment."

UK government edits

Earlier this year, the BBC discovered that the phrase "all Muslims are terrorists" was added to a page about veils by users of UK government computers.

That followed a report by the Liverpool Echo which found that insults had been added to the entry for the Hillsborough disaster.

Wikipedia allows any user to make changes to a page, even anonymously.

However, the changes are policed by volunteers, known as Wikipedians, who can reverse false edits, and even impose bans on users who continually flout the site's editing rules.

Collective punishment

Wikipedians have been warning editors from the House of Representatives since March 2012, and moved to block the address for one day earlier this month.

On Thursday, the IP address was blocked for 10 days, but one staffer protested that they were being punished for the actions of a few.

"Out of over 9,000 staffers in the House, should we really be banning this whole IP range based on the actions of two or three?

"Some of us here are just making grammatical edits, adding information about birds in Omsk, or showing how one can patch KDE2 under FreeBSD."

Another user from the Hill was quick to dismiss suggestions that the rogue edits were made by elected officials.

"I think the probability is near zero that these disruptive edits are being done by a member of Congress."

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Google Glass rival has neck battery

25 July 2014 Last updated at 14:05

Chinese computing giant Lenovo has shown off what it hopes will be a rival to Google Glass.

The device, as yet unnamed, hopes to eliminate Glass's problem of short battery life by adding a separate power device around the wearer's neck.

The company has created NBD - a system for connected devices - to encourage other companies to make devices on its platform.

In 2013, Lenovo overtook HP as the world's biggest seller of PCs.

But the company acknowledged it needed help from other companies if the future of having an "internet of things" was to be realised.

"Right now there are too many kinds of devices you can develop for the Internet of Things. It's too rich. Not one company can do it all," said Chen Xudong, Lenovo's senior vice president, as quoted by PCWorld magazine.

Big challenge

The internet of things is the idea that objects all around us - be it smartphones, fridges, toasters or thermostats - are connected to the internet.

It paves the way for connected homes, where appliances can be controlled by apps, and devices can react smartly to their surroundings, such as the heating coming on when it knows you're almost home.

However, the big challenge facing the growth of the internet of things is a lack of compatibility.

Companies are making devices that connect to the internet, but due to a range of different systems and standards, the devices are unable to talk to each other.

The NBD system is Lenovo's attempt to solve that issue. As well as its own smart glasses, it is also working on another device with Vuzix. Another product being worked on is an air purifier that can be controlled via a mobile app.

Any attempt to create a new system would come up against efforts from Google, who recently purchased Nest, a smart thermostat device.

Apple has also invested in the internet of things - it announced HomeKit, a system for developers to write programmes that can control devices around the house.

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Absent fans get robot to do cheering

25 July 2014 Last updated at 16:31 By Dave Lee Technology reporter, BBC News

A struggling Korean baseball team have invented a novel way to improve atmosphere at their matches - by bringing in a crowd of robot fans.

Hanwha Eagles supporters not able to get to the stadium can control the robot over the internet.

The bots can cheer, chant and perform a Mexican wave - but presumably not invade the pitch.

One expert said giving more fans a chance to "attend" was important for professional clubs.

This was especially the case with top football teams, Matt Cutler, editor of SportBusiness International, told the BBC.

"If you look at all the big clubs, you can't just get a season ticket - you have to sit on a waiting list.

"There is also potential monetisation. You can charge, even if it's a small amount, to give fans a different kind of viewpoint."

Football fan John Hemmingham, who runs the famous England supporters brass band, saw the funny side.

"What happens if a robotic fan misbehaves?" he joked.

"Gets aggressive, abusive, spills a drink... I can see it being fraught with danger. What if it sits in the wrong section? A robotic hooligan!"

Chickens

It is not easy being a Hanwha Eagles fan. In the past five years, they have suffered more than 400 losses - so many that fans of the team are regarded with a degree of sympathy, and have earned the nickname Buddhist Saints.

Less friendly opposition fans describe them as the Hanwha Chickens.

But those who cannot make it to the stadium now have the option of having a robot stand in for them.

As well as being able to control some robot movements, fans can upload their own face to the machine.

Sport for all

While the robots supporting Hanwha will be dismissed as a gimmick by most diehard fans of any sport, there are other, more serious attempts to help more people experience matches.

Continue reading the main story

The days have gone where people are completely engrossed in the match"

End Quote Matt Cutler SportBusiness International

As part of Japan's unsuccessful bid for the 2022 World Cup, the country said it hoped to re-create live matches using holographic technology in other locations. It would mean, in theory, that several stadiums full of fans could be watching the same match at once.

Development on the technology was halted when Japan lost its bid, with Fifa instead choosing Qatar to host the 2022 tournament.

Independent experts were sceptical the virtual reality plan could have ever worked - but praised the ambition.

In the nearer term, simple technology additions to stadiums and arenas are already changing how we enjoy sport.

"Within a short amount of time, nearly every Premier League stadium will have wi-fi," said Mr Cutler.

"Everyone's got a phone with them, checking other things. The days have gone where people are completely engrossed in the match."

Follow Dave Lee on Twitter @DaveLeeBBC

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Gecko sex satellite 'not responding'

25 July 2014 Last updated at 16:48 By Jonathan Webb Science reporter, BBC News

A Russian satellite containing geckos, fruit flies and mushrooms could plummet to earth if control is not regained, according to reports.

The engine of the Foton-M4 satellite, with several experiments on board, has stopped responding to ground control.

All other systems are intact, the Progress space centre stated, including "one-way" transmission of information.

The five geckos are in space for a study of the effect of weightlessness on their sex lives and development.

The Russian Space Agency, Roscosmos, said the six tonne satellite could continue to operate on its own "for a long time".

A space expert cited by Interfax said it could stay in space for as long as four months.

The satellite was launched on July 19 but yesterday failed to respond to a command to lift into a higher orbit.

Russian news agency ITAR-TASS reported that "specialists are restoring stable connection with Foton and are providing for fulfilment of [the] planned orbital mission program".

"The equipment which is working in automatic mode, and in particular the experiment with the geckos is working according to the programme," Oleg Voloshin from Russia's Institute of Medico-Biological Problems (IMBP) told AFP.

The two-month experiment involving the geckos included video-cameras and was a "study of the effect of microgravity on sexual behaviour, the body of adult animals and embryonic development" according to the IMBP website.

The lizard sex investigation was among several planned experiments, including other biological studies of plant seeds and Drosophila fruit flies.

There was also a special vacuum furnace designed to examine the melting and solidification of metal alloys in low-gravity conditions.

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Hacker McKinnon turns search expert

Gary McKinnon, the computer hacker who was the subject of a 10-year legal battle over US extradition, has reinvented himself as a search expert.

Mr McKinnon launched Small SEO, a site where he charges £40 an hour to help businesses get mentioned in search results.

On his site, he says he has more than 20 years' experience in IT services.

He had hacked US government computers but his extradition to face charges there was blocked.

The story was first reported in the Sunday Times. Search engine optimisation, or SEO, is a strategy to make sure a website or web page appears prominently in Google and other search engine results.

Home Secretary Theresa May said in October 2012 that the Briton should be permitted to stay in the UK on human rights grounds after medical reports said he was very likely to try to kill himself if extradited. Mr McKinnon, who had been fighting extradition since 2002, has Asperger's syndrome.

The following month, Mr McKinnon was told he would not face any charges in the UK and that he could start to work with computers again.

'High-quality SEO'

The Free Gary website is still up and running and the site now links to Mr McKinnon's new services. On his website, he says: "My aim is to provide high-quality SEO to small businesses and individuals. All of my clients have so far reached the first page of Google search results for their primary keywords."

Some of the clients in his portfolio include law firm Kaim Todner, tutoring service GMAT Tutor London, and Jamm, "home of the egg roller and the child-safety door stop".

Mr McKinnon was contacted by the BBC, but declined to speak because of a prior agreement with the Daily Mail. He confirmed there were no restrictions on his ability to use computers.

Mr McKinnon was arrested in 2002 and again in 2005 before an order for his extradition was made in July 2006 under the 2003 Extradition Act.

The US authorities tried to extradite Mr McKinnon to face charges of causing $800,000 (£471,000) worth of damage to military computer systems and he would have faced up to 60 years in prison if convicted. Mr McKinnon said he was looking for evidence of UFOs.

US authorities at the time described Glasgow-born Mr McKinnon's actions as the "biggest military computer hack of all time" that was "calculated to influence and affect the US government by intimidation and coercion".

An extradition warrant for Mr McKinnon is still outstanding, preventing his travel outside the UK.

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Beats sued for noise-cancelling tech

28 July 2014 Last updated at 13:10

Headphones-maker Beats Electronics is being sued by rival Bose over its range of noise-cancelling audio gear.

Massachusetts-based Bose claims that Beats has infringed five of its patents.

Bose alleges it has lost sales to its competitor as a consequence. Beats declined to comment.

The legal action comes two months after Apple announced it was buying Beats for $3bn (£1.8bn) - its largest acquisition to date.

One expert said it was not unusual for takeovers to prompt such litigation.

"It's not uncommon, because when companies are in the process of being taken over they don't want the uncertainty of litigation," said Ilya Kazi from the UK's Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys.

"So, they are more likely to be inclined to settle. It's a good time to apply leverage."

The European Union's competition watchdog approved the deal this Monday.

Active noise reduction

The disputed patents have been listed on the Prior Smart patent news site.

Bose was granted the rights to the inventions over a nine-year period ranging from 2004 to 2013.

They all centre on the privately-owned company's development of a technique called active noise reduction (ANR).

"ANR is a technique to reduce unwanted noise by introducing a second sound source that destructively interferes with the unwanted noise," explained Bose's lawyers, Shaw Keller, in documents filed with Delaware District Court.

"ANR headphones typically use at least one microphone to detect unwanted ambient noise, and the headphone speaker produces soundwaves of reverse phase to destructively interfere with the unwanted sound."

They go on to explain that the company originally developed the tech for the US Air Force and US Army, before launching its first noise-cancelling headphones for consumers in 2000.

The lawyers added that Beats had failed to license Bose's tech despite being informed that it was infringing its intellectual property.

"Bose's continued success depends in substantial part on its ability to establish, maintain, and protect its proprietary technology through enforcement of its patent rights," they state.

Beats' site markets its adaptive noise-cancelling feature as the ability to "put the world on mute" on the web pages of its Studio range of headphones.

The feature is fairly common among premium earbuds and headphones with JVC, Sennheiser, Sony and Harman Kardon among other companies to offer the facility.

The BBC has asked Bose whether these other companies had licensed the patents in question, but has yet to receive a response.

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Russia offers $110,000 Tor bounty

28 July 2014 Last updated at 13:15

Russia has offered 3.9m roubles ($110,000; £65,000) in a contest seeking a way to crack the identities of users of the Tor network.

Tor hides internet users' locations and identities by sending data on random paths through machines on its network, adding encryption at each stage.

The Russian interior ministry made the offer, saying the aim was "to ensure the country's defence and security".

The contest is only open to Russians and proposals are due by 13 August.

Applicants must pay 195,000 roubles to enter the competition, which was posted online on 11 July and later reported by the tech news site Ars Technica.

Earlier this month, Russia's lower house of parliament passed a law requiring internet companies to store Russian citizens' personal data inside the country.

Russia has the fifth-largest number of Tor users with more than 210,000 people making use of it, according to the Guardian.

US-funded network

Tor was thrust into the spotlight in the wake of controversy resulting from leaks about the National Security Agency and other cyberspy agencies. Edward Snowden, the whistleblower who revealed the internal memos and who now has asylum in Russia, uses a version of Tor software to communicate.

Documents released by Mr Snowden allege that the NSA and the UK's GCHQ had repeatedly tried to crack anonymity on the Tor network.

Tor was originally set up by the US Naval Research Laboratory and is used be people who want to send information over the internet without being tracked.

It is used by journalists and law enforcement officers, but has also been linked to illegal activity including drug deals and the sale of child abuse images.

In its 2013 financial statements, the Tor Project - a group of developers that maintain tools used to access Tor - confirmed that the US Department of Defense remained one its biggest backers.

The DoD sent $830,000 (£489,000) to the group through SRI International, which describes itself as an independent non-profit research centre, last year.

Other parts of the US government contributed a further $1m.

Those amounts are roughly the same as in 2012.

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