US team's battery 'breakthrough'

17 April 2013 Last updated at 14:23 ET By Leo Kelion Technology reporter

A new type of battery has been developed that, its creators say, could revolutionise the way we power consumer electronics and vehicles.

The University of Illinois team says its use of 3D-electrodes allows it to build "microbatteries" that are many times smaller than commercially available options, or the same size and many times more powerful.

It adds they can be recharged 1,000 times faster than competing tech.

However, safety issues still remain.

Details of the research are published in the journal Nature Communications.

Battery breakthrough

The researchers said their innovation should help address the issue that while smartphones and other gadgets have benefited from miniaturised electronics, battery advances have failed to keep pace.

Batteries work by having two components - called electrodes - where chemical reactions occur.

In simple terms, the anode is the electrode which releases electrons as a result of a process called oxidation when the battery is being used as a power source.

The cathode is the electrode on the other side of the battery to which the electrons want to flow and be absorbed - but a third element, the electrolyte, blocks them from travelling directly.

When the battery is plugged into a device the electrons can flow through its circuits making the journey from one electrode to the other.

Meanwhile ions - electrically charged particles involved in the anode's oxidation process - do travel through the electrolyte. When they reach the cathode they react with the electrons that travelled via the other route.

The scientists' "breakthrough" involved finding a new way to integrate the anode and cathode at the microscale.

"The battery electrodes have small intertwined fingers that reach into each other," project leader Prof William King told the BBC.

"That does a couple of things. It allows us to make the battery have a very high surface area even though the overall battery volume is extremely small.

"And it gets the two halves of the battery very close together so the ions and electrons do not have far to flow.

"Because we've reduced the flowing distance of the ions and electrons we can get the energy out much faster."

Repeatable technique

The battery cells were fabricated by adapting a process developed by another team at the university which is designed to make it faster to recharge the batteries than lithium ion (Li-on) and nickel metal hydride (NiMH) equivalents.

It involves creating a lattice made out of tiny polystyrene spheres and then filling the space in and around the structure with metal.

The spheres are then dissolved to leave a 3D-metal scaffold onto which a nickel-tin alloy is added to form the anode, and a mineral called manganese oxyhydroxide to form the cathode.

Finally the glass surface onto which the apparatus was attached was immersed into a liquid heated to 300C (572F).

"Today we're making small numbers of these things in a boutique fabrication process, but while that's reliable and we can repeat it we need to be able to make large numbers of these things over large areas," said Prof King.

"But in principle our technology is scalable all the way up to electronics and vehicles.

"You could replace your car battery with one of our batteries and it would be 10 times smaller, or 10 times more powerful. With that in mind you could jumpstart a car with the battery in your cell phone."

Safety fear

Other battery experts welcomed the team's efforts but said it could prove hard to bring the technology to market.

"The challenge is to make a microbattery array that is robust enough and that does not have a single short circuit in the whole array via a process that can be scaled up cheaply," said Prof Clare Grey from the University of Cambridge's chemistry department.

University of Oxford's Prof Peter Edwards - an expert in inorganic chemistry and energy - also expressed doubts.

"This is a very exciting development which demonstrates that high power densities are achievable by such innovations," he said.

"The challenges are: scaling this up to manufacturing levels; developing a simpler fabrication route; and addressing safety issues.

"I'd want to know if these microbatteries would be more prone to the self-combustion issues that plagued lithium-cobalt oxide batteries which we've seen become an issue of concern with Boeing's Dreamliner jets."

Prof King acknowledged that safety was an issue due to the fact the current electrolyte was a combustible liquid.

He said that in the test equipment only a microscopic amount of the liquid was used, making the risk of an explosion negligible - but if it were scaled up to large sizes the danger could become "significant".

However, he added that he soon planned to switch to a safer polymer-based electrolyte to address the issue.

Prof King added that he hoped to have the technology ready to be trialled as a power source for electronic equipment before the end of the year.

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign team is one of several groups attempting to overhaul the way we power gadgets.

Researchers in Texas are working on a kind of battery that can be spray-painted onto any surface while engineers at the University of Bedfordshire are exploring the idea of using radio waves as an energy source.

23.52 | 0 komentar | Read More

Anonymous offers citizen journalism

18 April 2013 Last updated at 07:05 ET

Anonymous, the controversial hacking collective, has a new venture - a website for crowdsourced news.

Its citizen journalism site Your Anon News takes its name from the group's social media news feeds and aims to collect breaking reports and blogs.

The site will include feeds for livestream events "as they are taking place instead of the 10-second sound bites provided by the corporate media".

The group has raised $54,798 (£35,924) to get the site up and running.

Anonymous memorabilia

The money, collected on fundraising site Indiegogo in the account name "Jackal Anon", will be used for development and hosting fees.

More than 1,000 people contributed to the fund and were rewarded with Anonymous memorabilia including mugs, t-shirts and hoodies.

The aim of the site is to bring together and expand its Your Anon news (YAN) service that currently runs on Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr.

"We know it would be beneficial to our followers to exist as a community beyond simple social media interactions," it added.

Its vision will the same though: "Our goal was to disseminate information we viewed as vital separating it from the political and celebrity gossip that inundates the mainstream."

But not everyone is convinced about its output.

"I think it is highly likely to be biased," said Prof Alan Woodward, a cybersecurity expert at the University of Surrey.

"The group have shown that they have a very particular political agenda, and so I can imagine this news feed will be on a par with a newspaper that has very obvious political leanings.

"The really obvious issue is that there is a lack of accountability. With an organisation that is by definition "anonymous" how can one trust that what is being promulgated is accurate?" he added.

North Korea

It is not clear whether the citizen reporters will be paid or whether the site will rely on volunteers.

This month Anonymous has turned its attention to the political tensions on the Korean peninsula, with Operation Free Korea targeting North Korean websites and social networks.

Uriminzokkiri, a North Korean news site was forced offline and Twitter and Flickr accounts breached.

In February, the group fell victim to its own security breach when one of its popular Twitter feeds was taken over briefly by rival hacktivists.

23.52 | 0 komentar | Read More

Clothes get 'computerised fabrics'

18 April 2013 Last updated at 08:01 ET

Clothes that change their colour and shape depending on the wearer's movement are being developed by researchers at a Canadian university.

The project - dubbed Karma Chameleon - involves weaving electronic fabric into clothes in a way that allows the storage of energy from the body.

Uses for the technology include a dress that "changes itself", and a shirt which can charge a phone.

However, it could be decades before the clothes are available to buy.

"We won't see such garments in stores for another 20 or 30 years, but the practical and creative possibilities are exciting," said Prof Joanna Berzowska, of the Department of Design and Computation Arts at Concordia University in Montreal, Canada.

"Our goal is to create garments that can transform in complex and surprising ways - far beyond reversible jackets, or shirts that change colour in response to heat."

Concept designs

Many researchers around the world are looking at smart fabrics in various shapes and forms.

In the military, British soldiers' uniforms could soon use electrically conducting yarn woven directly into the clothing, replacing cumbersome batteries and cabling.

Other innovations include the possibility of clothes which are able to warm the wearer - opening up the chance of wearing Hawaiian shirts and shorts in the winter months.

Although the garments designed by Ms Berzowska and team are still years from being made available, prototype designs have been developed to show the concepts in action.

One other suggested use is as a performance device - where the state and shape of the fabric is controlled by someone other than the wearer.

Ms Berzowska's ideas will be presented at a conference dedicated to smart fabric innovation to be held in San Francisco this week.

23.52 | 0 komentar | Read More

Twitter launches #Music service

18 April 2013 Last updated at 09:23 ET

Twitter has unveiled a new music app which will recommend tracks based on who you follow on the social network.

Songs can be played directly in the app via services such as Rdio, Spotify and iTunes.

The software displays songs your friends are currently listening to - as well as suggestions from artists.

It follows moves by other social networks such as Facebook to incorporate music recommendations into their services.

Last year, Spotify announced its own "follow" system, but the functionality is yet to be rolled out to users on mobile.

Twitter's app - called #Music - is expected to be made available to download for Apple's iPhone shortly.

No app has been made for users on Google's Android or the Windows Phone platforms - but there will be a web browser-based version.

It will initially be available in the UK and Ireland, US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, with more countries being added soon.

Surfacing songs

The app was likened to a "21st Century mixtape" unveiled on Good Morning America.

In a blog post, Twitter's Stephen Philips explained: "It uses Twitter activity, including tweets and engagement, to detect and surface the most popular tracks and emerging artists.

"It also brings artists' music-related Twitter activity front and centre: go to their profiles to see who they follow and listen to songs by those artists."

He added that half of the social network's users follow at least one musician.

"This is why artists turn to Twitter first to connect with their fans — and why we wanted to find a way to surface songs people are tweeting about."

Ahead of the app's release, Twitter gave several musicians early access. They included Moby, who wrote: "It's a really interesting music resource."

Apple's failure

Many companies have tried to tap into the potential of social recommendation for music.

London-based Last.fm, which was bought in May 2007 by CBS for £140m, analyses what a user listens to and offers suggestions based on the tastes of other Last.fm members who enjoy similar artists.

Apple also dipped its toe into the market with Ping - a service built into its iTunes software that promoted music it thought users may like.

At its launch, the late Steve Jobs said: "We think this will be really popular very fast because 160 million people can switch it on today."

Ping was closed in September last year.

23.52 | 0 komentar | Read More

Google and Microsoft profits rise

19 April 2013 Last updated at 03:41 ET

Technology giants Google and Microsoft have both reported rising profits.

Google's net profit climbed to $3.35bn (£2.19bn) in the first three months of the year, up 16% from a year earlier, boosted by online advertising revenue.

Microsoft said it made $6bn in profit during the same period, a jump of more than 17% from a year ago.

Its earnings, which beat market forecasts, came despite a lukewarm reception for Windows 8 and a decline in global PC sales during the period.

Meanwhile IBM reported a fall in first quarter profits and revenues after the technology services company failed to complete deals in time and was hit by the depreciation of the Japanese yen.

'Fantastic' margins

Analysts said that Microsoft's profits were boosted in part by changing the way its sold its products to corporate clients, as well as cost-cutting measures.

"Microsoft has successfully transitioned into an enterprise software company and these results show that," said Kim Caughey Forrest, a senior analyst at Fort Pitt Capital.

"The strength of server and tools, and the actual way they sell licences to business, is making up for the missing PC sales.

"The margins are fantastic and the online services division seems to lose less money each quarter," she added.

Meanwhile Google's profits were driven up by growing income from online advertising, which helped boost overall revenues to nearly $14bn for the quarter. That is up from $10.7bn during the same period last year.

The results also suggested that Google may be beginning to build confidence with advertisers. The amount paid per advert is still declining, but at a slower rate than last year.

Management changes

Continue reading the main story

The CFO departure is a little bit troubling. We've had a lot of executives leaving Microsoft recently"

End Quote Brendan Barnicle Pacific Crest Securities

Despite the stronger-than-expected numbers, Microsoft announced that its chief financial officer (CFO), Peter Klien, would be leaving the firm at the end of June.

Mr Klein, who has been with the tech giant for 11 years, is the latest in a series of executives to leave the company.

His departure comes just months after the Steven Sinofsky, the head of Windows division, quit the firm.

The departures of the two senior figures have come as there have been questions over the leadership of chief executive Steve Ballmer.

These doubts have been driven in part by slowing growth, and amid concerns that Microsoft had not been able to make a significant impact in the new and fast-growing sectors such as the smartphone and tablet PC markets.

The leading smartphone and tablet PC makers, such as Samsung and Apple, rely more on operating systems such as Android and iOS, rather than Microsoft's Windows, which has enjoyed a dominance in the traditional PC market.

The fear for Microsoft is that as more people use smartphones and tablet PCs to access the internet, it may see its market share decline.

These concerns have grown after Windows 8, which is designed to make PCs work more like tablet computers, was greeted with mixed reviews at its launch last October.

More positively, analysts said that Mr Klien's departure from the firm suggested that an imminent departure of chief executive Steve Ballmer was unlikely.

"The CFO departure is a little bit troubling. We've had a lot of executives leaving Microsoft recently," said Brendan Barnicle, an analyst with Pacific Crest Securities.

"This also makes a departure by Steve Ballmer less likely. It would be very unusual to have a CEO leave soon after a CFO departure."

Yen impact

Also on Thursday, IBM reported first quarter earnings of $3bn, down 1% from a year earlier, with revenues falling 5% to $23.41bn - lower than analysts' expectations.

IBM said its results had been hit by delays in completing deals, with about $400m worth of contracts that were expected to be counted in the first quarter of the year now being moved into the second.

In addition, the company said that the recent weakening of the yen had affected its earnings. The depreciation of the yen means that it earns fewer dollars from sales in Japan.

"Despite a solid start and good client demand, we did not close a number of software and mainframe transactions that have moved into the second quarter,'' said IBM's chief executive, Ginni Rometty.

"The services business performed as expected with strong profit growth and significant new business in the quarter.''

IBM's chief financial officer Mark Loughridge said it was "hard to measure" whether the recent series of US budget cuts - the sequester - had affected the firm.

"I can tell you that our US federal business was down 13%, which was certainly a drag on the US performance," he said.

23.52 | 0 komentar | Read More

Cispa cyber bill passed by US House

19 April 2013 Last updated at 06:06 ET

The US House of Representatives has passed the controversial Cyber Information Sharing and Protection Act.

Cispa is designed to help combat cyberthreats by making it easier for law enforcers to get at web data.

This is the second time Cispa has been passed by the House. Senators threw out the first draft, saying it did not do enough to protect privacy.

Cispa could fail again in the Senate after threats from President Obama to veto it over privacy concerns.

A substantial majority of politicians in the House backed the bill.

The law is passing through the US legislative system as American federal agencies warn that malicious hackers, motivated by money or acting on behalf of foreign governments, such as China, are one of the biggest threats facing the nation.

"If you want to take a shot across China's bow, this is the answer," said Mike Rogers, the Republican politician who co-wrote Cispa and chairs the House Intelligence Committee.

'Fatally flawed'

Cispa has also secured the backing of several technology firms, including the CTIA wireless industry group, as well as the TechNet computer industry lobby group, which has Google, Apple and Yahoo as members. By contrast, the social news website Reddit has been vocal in its opposition to the bill. In March, Facebook said it no longer supported Cispa.

The bill could fail again in the Senate after the Obama administration's threat to use its veto unless changes were made. The White House wants amendments so more is done to ensure the minimum amount of data is handed over in investigations.

The American Civil Liberties Union has also opposed Cispa, saying the bill was "fatally flawed". The Electronic Frontier Foundation, Reporters Without Borders and the American Library Association have all voiced similar worries.

Cispa's authors say existing amendments have addressed many of the criticisms and more oversight was being given to data before it was handed over.

23.52 | 0 komentar | Read More

Sony hacker Recursion goes to jail

19 April 2013 Last updated at 06:35 ET

A 25-year-old man known online as Recursion has been sentenced to a year in jail for hacking Sony Pictures Entertainment.

Cody Kretsinger pleaded guilty last April, and admitted being part of an infamous hacking group known as Lulzsec.

After his jail term, Kretsinger will be required to do 1,000 hours of community service, a Los Angeles judge ruled.

Sony said the hack caused more than $600,000 (£392,000) in damage.

Not to be confused with the attack on Sony's PlayStation Network, the Sony Pictures hack in July 2011 involved breaching the company's website and accessing a database of customers' names, addresses, phone numbers and email addresses.

Around 50,000 of the names were later posted online.

Kretsinger pleaded guilty to counts of conspiracy and unauthorised impairment of a protected computer.

Prosecutors declined to say if Kretsinger was also co-operating with authorities in exchange for leniency.

Lulzsec in the dock

It follows guilty pleas last week from other hackers involved with Lulzsec.

At Southwark Crown Court in London, 26-year-old Ryan Ackroyd, from South Yorkshire, admitted to being part of the group that targeted the NHS and the UK's Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca).

He is to be sentenced next month with three others: Mustafa Al-Bassam, 18, from Peckham, south London, Jake Davis, 20, from Lerwick, Shetland, and Ryan Cleary, 21, of Essex.

Kretsinger's guilty plea came a month after it was revealed that another prolific hacker, known as Sabu - real name Hector Xavier Monsegur - had been co-operating with US authorities to provide information on people suspected of being part of Lulzsec.

Murdoch and CIA targeted

The group emerged as a splinter group of the Anonymous hacking collective in May 2011.

The name stood for Lulz Security - in which "Lulz" is derived from the popular internet term "lol", meaning "laugh out loud".

Members employed techniques to flood websites with high traffic - known as distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks - in order to render them unusable.

Lulzsec claimed to have attacked the Sun newspaper's website, on which a false story was planted suggesting that Rupert Murdoch, CEO of its News Corporation parent company, had died.

In the US, the group was credited with attacking the website of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

Lulzsec had previously posted a story on American broadcaster PBS's website, suggesting that the dead rapper Tupac Shakur was alive.

23.52 | 0 komentar | Read More

Blackstone pulls out of Dell bid

19 April 2013 Last updated at 10:03 ET

Blackstone has decided not to submit a bid for computer company Dell, citing falling sales and fears over the company's finances.

Blackstone said it was concerned by an "unprecedented" drop in PC sales.

Billionaire investor Carl Icahn and a consortium led by Michael Dell, the company's founder, are still in the bidding race.

Blackstone said it continued to view Dell as "a leading global company with strong market positions".

But it also said that the two worrying conditions meant it was nevertheless withdrawing its interest in the company.

Since Blackstone submitted its bid, Dell had reduced its operating income projections for the current year to $3 bn (£1.95bn), down from $3.7bn.

Michael Dell, joined by private-equity firm Silver Lake Partners, has proposed a $24.4bn buyout of the company.

The bid has drawn opposition from some shareholders who believe the offer is too low.

23.52 | 0 komentar | Read More

BadNews bug hits Android app store

19 April 2013 Last updated at 10:35 ET

Security researchers have identified 32 separate apps on Google Play that harboured a bug called BadNews.

On infected phones, BadNews stole cash by racking up charges from sending premium rate text messages.

The malicious program lay dormant on many handsets for weeks to escape detection, said security firm Lookout which uncovered BadNews.

The malware targeted Android owners in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and other countries in eastern Europe.

The exact numbers of victims was hard to calculate, said Lookout, adding that figures from Google Play suggest that between two and nine million copies of apps booby trapped with BadNews were downloaded from the store.

In a blogpost, Lookout said that a wide variety of apps were harbouring the BadNews malware. It found the programme lurking inside recipe generators, wallpaper apps, games and pornographic programmes.

The 32 apps were available through four separate developer accounts on Play. Google has now suspended those accounts and removed all the affected apps from its online store. No official comment from Google has yet been released.

Lookout said BadNews concealed its true identity by initially acting as an "innocent, if somewhat aggressive, advertising network". In this guise it sent users news and information about other infected apps, and prompted people to install other programmes.

BadNews adopted this approach to avoid detection systems that look for suspicious behaviour and stop dodgy apps being installed, said Lookout.

This masquerade ended when apps seeded with BadNews got a prompt from one of three command and control servers, then it started pushing out and installing a more malicious programme called AlphaSMS. This steals credit by sending text messages to premium rate numbers.

Users were tricked into installing AlphaSMS as it was labelled as an essential update for either Skype or Russian social network Vkontakte.

Security firm Lookout said BadNews was included in many popular apps by innocent developers as it outwardly looked like a useful way to monetise their creations. It urged app makers to be more wary of such "third party tools" which they may include in their code.

Half of the 32 apps seeded with BadNews are Russian and the version of AlphaSMS it installed is tuned to use premium rate numbers in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Armenia and Kazakhstan.

23.52 | 0 komentar | Read More

Amazon to pilot TV shows online

19 April 2013 Last updated at 11:11 ET By Helen Bushby BBC entertainment and arts reporter

Fourteen pilot shows - including Alpha House and Zombieland - are to be put to the public vote on Lovefilm and Amazon.com.

Viewers can submit feedback influencing which shows get made into full series.

The 14 shows are made by independent production companies and produced by Amazon Studios, the film and series production arm of Amazon.

"This is the first time Amazon Studios has done this," said Simon Morris, Lovefilm's chief marketing officer.

Eight adult comedies and six children's animation series will be put to the public vote.

The shows will be aired on Amazon's pay subscription services - Amazon Prime in the US, and Lovefilm in the UK - but Morris told the BBC they would be available to everyone and not just subscribers.

The adult pilot shows include Alpha House, about four senators who live together in a rented house in Washington DC and stars John Goodman, who was recently in Oscar-winning film Argo.

"Bill Murray has got a cameo in Alpha House, looking a bit older, a little bit more bedraggled, but definitely Bill Murray," Mr Morris added.

Onion News Empire is set behind the scenes of the Onion News Network, a satirical daily news service, and "shows just how far journalists will go to stay at the top of their game", according to Amazon Studios.

It stars Arrested Development's Jeffrey Tambor as the "egomaniacal lead anchor".

Musical comedy Browsers stars Cheers and Frasier actress Bebe Neuwirth as the "terrifying" boss of a news website in Manhattan.

Other pilot shows include Zombieland - based on the film of the same name - featuring four survivors attempting to outwit zombies, while animated comedy Dark Minions, written by Big Bang Theory's Kevin Sussman and John Ross Bowie, is about two "slackers" working on an intergalactic warship.

The children's shows include animations Sara Solves It, where Sara and Sam solve maths-based mysteries, and Creative Galaxy, an interactive art adventure series.

"This isn't X Factor for some new titles where you get to vote and they're fairly gimmicky," Mr Morris said. "It has a unique position in the world in that it has a platform that's a pay platform, it has an entertainment platform."

He said that the "world of digital has been growing, driven in large part by the BBC iPlayer, from about 2008" and that he saw this move as the next stage.

"Mass-market digital consumption and streaming have come of age in the last few years," he added.

'Promotional tool'

But Toby Syfret, TV analyst for Enders Analysis, was sceptical about the venture, describing it as a "gimmick" and said he did not think it would make much of a dent in the TV landscape.

"I think the success of this will have a huge amount to do with the publicity they can get for it."

Amazon and Lovefilm were able to put pilots to the public vote because "they are not TV channels with set budgets", he said, adding that "you cannot sustain a programming operation if you let viewers decide - you're losing control of the purse strings".

He also queried whether programme-makers would want the public vote to potentially leave them "committed to the most expensive thing which is least good".

"Programme makers may end up saying 'we'll go with it, but it's a bit expensive so we'll cut the budget' - and then you've done what the public's asked but it's been slashed by half," he added.

"Ultimately, this is a promotional tool - Amazon's thinking that Netflix has done it this way [by broadcasting Kevin Spacey's House of Cards drama series] so we'll come at it from another way."

Earlier this year, the streaming TV and movie service Netflix made and broadcast House of Cards, and revealed plans to make at least five new shows a year.

YouTube, owned by Google, also recently launched its original channels initiative with 20 new channels coming from the UK.

Mr Morris said that the key thing that marked his venture out was that "the platform is open".

"Not everyone has the opportunity to go and pitch an idea to HBO in New York, not everyone can get on a plane to Cannes and pitch a script," he said.

"But there is now a vehicle whereby people are in a place that independent writers - whether they've got a track record or not - can put content through and it can be evaluated and brought to market. And that's the exciting thing about this."

23.52 | 0 komentar | Read More