Nokia backs 3D printing for phones

18 January 2013 Last updated at 08:22 ET

Nokia is releasing design files that will let owners use 3D printers to make their own cases for its Lumia phones

Files containing mechanical drawings, case measurements and recommended materials have already been released by the phone maker.

Those using the files will be able to create a custom-designed case for the flagship Lumia 820 handset.

The project makes Nokia one of the first big electronics firms to seriously back 3D printing.

In a blogpost, John Kneeland, one of Nokia's community managers, revealed the Finnish phone maker's decision to release the 3D drawings.

Printing in 3D involves sending a design file to a printer that then forms a solid version of that object by slowly building it up in layers of plastic. Early 3D printers could only work in one colour but the latest versions can produce intricate, multicoloured objects.

Industrial sequel

Mr Kneeland said Nokia was releasing what he called a "3D printing development kit" to help people produce the cases. The files are already available on the site Nokia maintains for its developers.

He said 3D printing was another way that the firm wanted to build links to that vast community of software and hardware engineers. To get the files, users must have registered with Nokia.

He said Nokia already used 3D printing internally to do rapid prototyping, but decided to back it more publicly to help the nascent technology realise its "incredible potential".

In the future, he said, 3D printing was likely to bring about phones that were "wildly more modular and customisable".

Nokia might just end up selling a phone template, he said, allowing entrepreneurs to use that to produce handsets that satisfy the particular needs of their locale.

"You want a waterproof, glow-in-the-dark phone with a bottle-opener and a solar charger? Someone can build it for you - or you can print it yourself," he wrote.

He added that, in his view, 3D printing was a technology that justified its hype and said it was "the sequel to the Industrial Revolution".

"However, it's going to take somewhat longer to arrive than some people anticipate, and that may disappoint people," he said.

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Facebook allows free calling on iPhone

17 January 2013 Last updated at 06:41 ET

Facebook has added a feature in its mobile phone app that allows free calling for US iPhone users.

Users can now make calls to each other via the Facebook Messenger app anywhere they have a wi-fi or a cellular-data connection.

The feature could be a boon for heavy talkers as they would avoid carrier call charges.

Facebook said it was working on adding the feature to its Messenger app for Android and BlackBerry users.

Within the app, all a person needs to do is open a conversation with a partner, tap the "i" icon in the upper right hand corner and select "Free Call".

The calls, however, can only be made to another user who has Messenger installed on their iPhone. Users can neither call a Facebook friend who is logged in through the website or call a landline.

The latest mobile-to-mobile development was independent of the free video-calling software Skype, which was already integrated into Facebook's website, a spokesman said. The Messenger app is limited to voice calling.

The official said Facebook was expected to roll out the feature in its Messenger app for other operating systems and expand it overseas.

On Tuesday, Facebook unveiled a smart search engine - called Graph Search - that allows users to make "natural" searches of content shared by their friends.

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Phone apps 'delay skin diagnosis'

17 January 2013 Last updated at 07:19 ET

Using a smartphone app to decide whether a mole is cancerous could delay sometimes life-saving treatment, according to American researchers.

The University of Pittsburgh scientists put four applications to the test by showing them 188 pictures of cancers and less concerning skin conditions.

Three of the apps wrongly labelled the cancerous lesions as unproblematic in almost a third of cases.

Doctors warn using phones rather than seeking expert help could be harmful.

The research, published in the journal JAMA Dermatology, looked at four commonly used applications.

The images selected to test the apps were all of skin lesions that were later removed and checked for an accurate diagnosis.

Three of the apps analysed the pictures using automated algorithms, without the involvement of doctors.

But users submitting pictures to the fourth app had their images reviewed by a qualified skin specialist.

In this case only one out of 53 cancerous legions was misdiagnosed, but this app cost $5 (£3.10) per use.

Prof Laura Ferris, lead researcher of the study, said: "It is important that users don't allow their apps to take the place of medical advice and physician diagnosis.

"If they see a concerning lesion but the smartphone app incorrectly judges it to be benign, they may not follow up with a physician," she added.

Deborah Mason, of the British Association of Dermatologists, said: "There are a number of mole-check apps on the market - those that purport to offer diagnosis should be treated with caution.

"A diagnosis can only be made by a medical professional and anyone with a suspicious mole should speak to their GP or dermatologist about it."

The researchers also raised concerns about the lack of regulation of applications purporting to give medical advice.

The US Food and Drug Administration is currently looking at the possibility of regulating some applications related to health.

Last year in America two application developers were fined for making unsubstantiated claims that their software could treat acne using a coloured light from a smartphone.

The UK regulator, the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency, said: "The regulation of software such as these health applications is complex and needs to be looked at on a case-by-case basis.

"Work is progressing at the European level to produce the appropriate guidance to most effectively regulate this rapidly growing area."

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Post modern: Assange parcel is art

17 January 2013 Last updated at 11:31 ET By Dave Lee Technology reporter, BBC News

Two Swiss artists have used GPS tracking and live webcam to follow the progress of a parcel intended to reach Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.

Domagoj Smoljo and Carmen Weisskopf have posted updates on the parcel's progress online.

At the time of writing, the parcel had reached the embassy and appeared to be being checked over by security.

For the past seven months Mr Assange has taken refuge at the Ecuadorean embassy in London.

He faces extradition to Sweden over sexual assault claims, which he denies.

Continue reading the main story

We wanted to visualise the invisible journey a parcel takes through the postal system"

End Quote Carmen Weisskopf Artist

The artists posted the parcel at a post office in east London on Wednesday at 12:43 GMT. Later, they emailed Mr Assange to explain the project.

"The parcel is a live mail art piece. It is intended as REAL_WORLD_PING, a SYSTEM_TEST inserted into a highly tense diplomatic crisis," the email read, making reference to program code functions.

"Since you took refuge there in June last year, the Ecuadorean embassy in London has been the spectacular staging of an intense clash between the international order and freedom of information activists.

"We want to see where the parcel will end. Which route it takes and whether it reaches you."

The artists requested that Mr Assange use the camera to "show us your view of the diplomatic crisis unfolding outside the embassy".

When finished, Mr Assange has been encouraged to send the camera on to another person of his choosing.

Prior to its arrival, the package broadcast pictures of its position within a Royal Mail sorting office - before being put into the back of a van and taken across the city.

Continue reading the main story

Artist Ms Weisskopf told the BBC that they did not know what to expect when they sent the parcel.

"We were actually expecting everything, from the parcel not being accepted to it being taken out of the system and destroyed," she said.

Explaining the motivation behind the project, she added: "We like to experiment with technological systems and see how far we can take them. We wanted to visualise the invisible journey a parcel takes through the postal system."

Sorting office staff can be seen in some of the photographs taken. The Royal Mail told the BBC it had no comment on the project - or whether it would encourage similar tracking or broadcasting of parcels.

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Lens-less camera to help car drivers

17 January 2013 Last updated at 14:00 ET

Cheap sensors that help cars avoid collisions could emerge from research into a lens-less imaging system.

US scientists have used metamaterials to build the imaging system, which samples infra-red and microwave light.

Metamaterials are materials that have properties purposefully designed rather than determined by their chemistry.

The sensor also compresses the images it captures in contrast to current compression systems, which only squash images after they are taken.

Small sensor

Most imaging systems, such as those found in digital cameras, use a lens to focus a scene on a sensor studded with millions of tiny sensors. More sensors means more detail is captured and, generally, produces a higher resolution image.

The imaging system developed by graduate student John Hunt and colleagues at Duke University in North Carolina has no lens and instead combines a metamaterial mask or aperture and complicated mathematics to generate an image of a scene.

The aperture is used to focus different wavelengths of light in different parts of a scene onto a detector. The different frequencies in the scene are sampled sequentially.

This sampling helped to work out the distribution and mix of light wavelengths and their relative intensities found in a scene, said Mr Hunt.

"Then we use some very elegant maths which was developed in computational imaging to turn that data into a 2D picture," he told the Science podcast. The wavelength sampling was done electronically so happens very fast, he added.

Cheap, small, portable

Currently the imaging system could capture about 10 images per second, he said. In addition, the imaging system compressed the information as it was gathered. Most other image compression systems, such as the widely used Jpeg format, are applied after an image has been snapped.

While imaging systems that capture infra-red and microwave wavelengths already existed, said Mr Hunt, they were typically expensive, bulky or complicated to build.

By contrast, the Duke imaging system used a thin strip of metamaterial mated with some electronics and processing software. Although it did not yet work with visible wavelengths of light, Mr Hunt said it could lead to a range of cheap, small, portable sensors that could find a role in many different fields.

"You could build an imager into the body of a car to do collision-avoidance imaging," he said, "or you could have a cheap handheld device to look through walls for wires and pipes."

A research paper detailing the work has appeared in the journal Science.

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Intel profits and revenues fall

17 January 2013 Last updated at 17:33 ET

Profits at Intel have fallen as the world's largest maker of computer microchips continues to suffer from weaker PC sales.

Net income for the last three months of 2012 fell 27% to $2.47bn (£1.54bn), although the figure beat analysts' forecasts. Revenue fell 3% to $13.5bn.

Sales of PCs, the majority of which use Intel chips, have suffered with the rise of smartphones and tablets.

Intel shares fell 3% in after-hours trading on Wall Street on Thursday.

The fourth-quarter figures took Intel's profits for the year to $11bn, on revenues of $53.3bn. This was a fall of 15% and 1.2% respectively on the previous year.

Intel had already warned that earnings in the three months to the end of December would be sluggish, and that the usual boost to business from the holiday buying season would be small.

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"The fourth quarter played out largely as expected as we continued to execute through a challenging environment," said Paul Otellini, Intel's chief executive.

Research firm Gartner said this week that global PC shipments fell 4.9% in the fourth quarter from a year ago.

California-based Intel said in a statement that it expects revenues in the first three months of this year to be about $12.7bn. That would be slightly below analysts' average forecasts of $12.9bn.

Despite the fourth-quarter fall, some analysts were broadly satisfied with the numbers.

Kevin Cassidy, at Stifel Nicolaus, said: "Seems like they're managing through this downturn pretty well." He expects new PC models due to come onto the market later this year to boost Intel's business.

"The results show that the PC industry is still around and maybe it was slightly exaggerated that the death of the PC was here," he said.

Doug Freeman, analyst at RBC Capital, said "the numbers are not worse than feared".

However, he said that the amount of money Intel is spending on new facilities, research and development, and capacity - £13bn - could be a concern for those investors who feel that this huge investment is being made at a time when the PC market will continue to decline.

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Google to move HQ in £1bn deal

18 January 2013 Last updated at 03:31 ET

Technology giant Google is to move its UK headquarters following a £1bn property deal.

It has bought a 2.4 acre site at King's Cross in north London and plans to build a seven and 11 storey complex.

The US company will move staff from its two London offices in Victoria and Holborn to the new location when it is completed in 2016.

Google's Matt Brittin said the move was "good news for Google, London and the UK".

It will be located in the King's Cross Central development, which sits on a former fish, coal and grain goods yard and spans 67 acres.

The redeveloped site will eventually contain homes, offices and shops.

Google has traditionally leased its overseas offices but in the past two years has purchased premises in Paris, Dublin, and now London.

Mr Brittin, vice president for northern and central Europe, said: "This is a big investment by Google. We're committing further to the UK, where computing and the web were invented."

Construction on the site will begin towards the end of this year.

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Sony sells New York HQ for $1.1bn

18 January 2013 Last updated at 04:27 ET

Sony is to sell its US headquarters in Manhattan for $1.1bn (£690m).

The skyscraper on Madison Avenue will be bought by the Chetrit Group, a major family-owned New York property group.

The news, as well as further weakening of the yen's value, lifted shares in the troubled Japanese conglomerate 12% on the Tokyo stock exchange on Friday.

Sony admitted that the motivation for the sale was to raise much-needed cash, expected to equal $770m, after debts on the building have been repaid.

The firm will also record a windfall profit in its accounts, as the building is being sold at a gain of £685m, compared with the price that Sony originally paid for it in 2002.

The firm said that it will continue to lease the building back for another three years following the sale, which is expected to be completed in March.

The skyscraper houses 1,500 Sony employees, including its music and films businesses.

Ignominious decline

The 37-floor building was first constructed in 1984, at a time when Sony was in the ascendant thanks largely to the success of the Walkman.

The company has since fallen back to earth, and last year its share price was trading below the 1,000-yen level for the first time in over two decades.

On Friday, its shares ended the day in Tokyo at 1,149 yen - a fraction of their peak of 16,950 yen at the height of the Japanese stock market bubble in 2000.

Having recorded a loss every year for the last four years, Sony has embarked upon a major restructuring of its business, including the sell-off of its chemicals division, and cutting 10,000 jobs.

The company has failed to compete with foreign competitors - sophisticated US firms such as Microsoft, Apple and Google, and cheaper Asian competitors such as LG.

The company - like other major Japanese manufacturers such as Panasonic and Sharp - has not been helped by the yen, which continued to strengthen before, during and after the 2008 financial crisis, and has only recently begun to lose some of its value.

In November, Sony suffered the ignominy of having its credit rating downgraded to "junk" by Fitch - indicating that the ratings agency has serious doubts about whether Sony will be able to repay its debts.

As well as its US regional headquarters, Sony has also indicated its willingness to sell the building housing its television business in Tokyo.

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US general warns on Iran cyber-force

18 January 2013 Last updated at 05:16 ET

Cyber-attacks on Iran are turning it into a "force to be reckoned with" America's top cyber-soldier has warned.

Since 2010, Iran has come under attack many times by malicious viruses written specifically to target key industrial installations in the country.

The repeated attacks have provoked Iran to improve its cyber-capabilities, said Gen William Shelton who oversees US cyber-operations.

It meant Iran was becoming a growing force in web-based attacks, he said.

Gen Shelton issued the warning during a briefing given to reporters about the US Air Force division he heads that includes America's cyber-troops.

He said the 2010 Stuxnet virus attack on Iran's Natanz uranium processing plant had generated a "reaction" by Iran that had led it to rapidly improve its defensive and offensive cyber-capabilities. Since then Iran has been hit again and again by viruses. In December 2012, the Stuxnet virus returned and hit companies in the southern Hormozgan region.

That improved capability had helped it protect itself against subsequent attacks on oil terminals and other manufacturing plants. Its capability might well be turned against Iran's enemies in the coming years, he said.

"They are going to be a force to be reckoned with," said Gen Shelton, "with the potential capabilities that they will develop over the years and the potential threat that will represent to the United States."

Web war

Gen Shelton's comments come soon after a senior Iranian commander said it had growing "electronic warfare" capabilities that it planned to use to disrupt what it called enemy communication systems. The nation is known to have carried out web-based military exercises at the same time as other troops were on manoeuvres.

Currently, said Gen Shelton US cyber-forces were about 6,000 strong but would add another 1,000 people in the next 12 months. These workers were successfully fending off the vast majority of the millions of attacks aimed at military networks every day, he added.

In addition, he said, the cyber-forces could gather intelligence and were developing the ability to carry out hack attacks in support of more traditional military operations.

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Details emerge on Megaupload service

18 January 2013 Last updated at 06:37 ET

More details have emerged about the web storage service being set up by Megaupload boss Kim Dotcom.

The Mega cyber-locker service will be a sequel to the popular Megaupload system that was shut down in January 2012.

Police raids on the offices of Megaupload and home of founder Kim Dotcom led to the closure of the file-saving and sharing system.

The switch-on date for the new Mega service is 20 January, almost exactly a year after Megaupload was shuttered.

More details about Mega were revealed in a series of tweets Mr Dotcom posted to his Twitter account.

He said every customer would have 50 gigabytes of free storage - far more than is offered by rival services such as Dropbox or Microsoft's SkyDrive.

Mega is expected to be a web-based service that lets people upload and store files of any kind. Data will be encrypted so only those who upload data have access to it. Data is also being held in the cloud to make it easy for users to get and share files.

The 2012 raids on Megaupload were carried out because, said US law enforcement, many users of Megaupload were engaged in pirating content and illegally sharing it. They accused Mr Dotcom and other managers at Megaupload had profited from the piracy.

Official apology

Mr Dotcom has rebuffed the accusations and is fighting a legal battle to stay in New Zealand from where he ran Megaupload. A hearing on whether he is can be extradited to the US is due to be held in March.

The case has generated controversy in New Zealand over the way the police and intelligence services gathered evidence before the raid and won an apology to Mr Dotcom from the country's prime minister. Mr Dotcom has also won support from prominent technologists such as Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak.

The raid on Megaupload put 25 petabytes of data uploaded to it by its 50 million members into a legal limbo.

In one message, Mr Dotcom said he was working with lawyers and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which campaigns on digital rights issues, to get access to that seized data and return it to users.

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