Old batteries 'could power slums'

5 December 2014 Last updated at 13:17 By Dave Lee Technology reporter, BBC News

Old laptop batteries still have enough life in them to power homes in slums, researchers have said.

An IBM study analysed a sample of discarded batteries and found 70% had enough power to keep an LED light on more than four hours a day for a year.

Researchers said using discarded batteries is cheaper than existing power options, and also helps deal with the mounting e-waste problem.

The concept was trialled in the Indian city of Bangalore this year.

The adapted power packs are expected to prove popular with street vendors, who are not on the electric grid, as well as poor families living in slums.

The research, which comes from IBM's India-based research team, will be discussed at a conference in San Jose, California, according to Technology Review from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Cheap

The IBM team created what they called an UrJar - a device that uses lithium-ion cells from the old batteries to power low-energy DC devices, such as a light.

The researchers are aiming to help the approximately 400 million people in India who are off grid.

Options such as solar power are considerably more expensive and logistically more cumbersome at the moment.

If the UrJar, which would last a year, is made in sufficiently large volume, researchers estimate the price per unit at just 600 rupees (about £7).

They conclude: "UrJar has the potential to channel e-waste towards the alleviation of energy poverty, thus simultaneously providing a sustainable solution for both problems."

Feedback from the trial was positive, the team said. Among the improvements suggested by users was a call for rat-resistant wires.

Urgent

E-waste is a major problem, particularly in the developing world, where the majority of the West's unwanted technology ends up.

IBM's research said 142,000 computers are thrown away in the US daily - around 50 million a year.

India's predicament is particularly urgent. Not only does the country receive a lot of e-waste from other countries, but with a booming IT market it is also generating huge amounts of its own - around 32 tonnes a day, according to one estimate.

Computer Aid, a UK-based charity that redistributes unwanted old technology, welcomed the initiative.

"We think that this is an excellent initiative as it is in line with our practice of reusing and refurbishing rather than recycling," said Keith Sonnet, its chief executive.

"Refurbishing has definitely a more positive impact on the environment and we should encourage more companies to adopt this practice."

Follow Dave Lee on Twitter @DaveLeeBBC

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GCHQ 'does not breach human rights'

5 December 2014 Last updated at 18:02

The current system of UK intelligence collection does not currently breach the European Convention of Human Rights, a panel of judges has ruled.

A case claiming various systems of interception by GCHQ constituted a breach had been brought by Amnesty, Privacy International and others.

It followed revelations by the former US intelligence analyst Edward Snowden about UK and US surveillance practices.

The judges said the case had been important in clarifying GCHQ's policy.

Some of the organisations who brought the case, including Amnesty UK and Privacy International, say they intend to appeal the decision to the European Court of Human Rights.

The case led to extensive disclosures of the intelligence agency procedures for handling intelligence.

'Webcam watching'

The Privacy International pressure group had said the documents released by Mr Snowden detailed the many ways that GCHQ was spying on people, many of which violated the European Convention on Human Rights.

This guarantees a right to privacy and to freedom of expression.

The group also said the programmes run by GCHQ and the United States's National Security Agency - uncovered by Mr Snowden - let the agencies listen via microphones, watch through webcams and scoop up detailed web browsing histories.

Analysis: Gordon Corera, BBC security correspondent

GCHQ will consider this ruling an emphatic victory. They will argue that it, along with other oversight reports, clears them of carrying out "mass surveillance" as their critics have claimed.

They have argued that the way they collect and then examine material is compliant with human rights obligations and the law. A central point of contention has been whether bulk access to traffic through cable taps was in itself a violation of privacy because of what it swept up. The Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) says that indiscriminate trawling for information would be unlawful but the way in which the intelligence agencies go about selecting and retaining material is proportionate and lawful.

Those who brought the case will not give up - they will go to Strasbourg and the European court and have also raised questions about the IPT process itself. But they will be disappointed by today's ruling even if it did not come as a complete surprise.

The bodies bringing the case to tribunal argued that GCHQ's methods breached article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which is the right to privacy, as well as article 10, which protects freedom of expression.

But the judges at the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) said the disclosures made during this case, which included the legal footing of the intelligence system's activities, had contributed to their decision that the intelligence agencies were not in breach of human rights.

In a written judgment, a panel of IPT judges said: "We have been able to satisfy ourselves that as of today there is no contravention of articles 8 and 10 by reference to those systems.

"We have left open for further argument the question as to whether prior hereto there has been a breach."

A government security source told the BBC: "We are delighted that a third independent body has confirmed that GCHQ does not seek to carry out mass surveillance."

'Trust us'

James Welch, legal director for civil rights organisation Liberty, said: "So a secretive court thinks that secret safeguards shown to it in secret are an adequate protection of our privacy.

"The IPT cannot grasp why so many of us are deeply troubled about GCHQ's Tempora operation - a seemingly unfettered power to rifle through our online communications."

Surveillance systems

• Prism is a surveillance system launched in 2007 by the NSA

• A leaked presentation, dated April 2013, stated that it allows the organisation to "receive" emails, video clips, photos, voice and video calls, social networking details, log-ins and other data held by a range of US internet firms

• Tempora is the codename given to an operation to create a "buffer" to allow huge amounts of data to be temporarily stored for analysis

• According to documents reported by The Guardian, the scheme is run by GCHQ and began at the end of 2011
• It says the agency holds content gathered from tapped fibre-optic cables for three days and metadata for 30 days so that both it and the NSA can search and analyse it before details are lost

Amnesty UK's legal advisor Rachel Logan said the government had "managed to bluff their way out of the case" by "retreating into closed hearings and constantly playing the 'national security' card".

"We have had to painstakingly drag out every detail we could from an aggressively resistant government."

She also said the IPT's ruling was a "disappointing, if unsurprising, verdict from an overseer that was in part assessing itself".

"The government's entire defence has amounted to 'trust us' and now the tribunal has said the same," she added.

"Since we only know about the scale of such surveillance thanks to Snowden, and given that 'national security' has been recklessly bandied around, 'trust us' isn't enough."

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Shops ban 'sexually violent' GTA 5

4 December 2014 Last updated at 13:41

Two Australian retail chains have removed video game Grand Theft Auto V from sale in its stores, following complaints about the depiction of violence towards women.

Target and Kmart stores pulled the game after a petition launched by three female survivors of violence gained more than 40,000 signatures.

Target said the decision "was in line with the majority view of customers".

Some fans of the game accused the stores of censorship.

The decision was made after three women set up a petition on change.org urging Target to withdraw the game.

"It's a game that encourages players to murder women for entertainment. The incentive is to commit sexual violence against women, then abuse or kill them to proceed or get 'health' points," the petition reads.

"To see this violence that we lived through turned into a form of entertainment is sickening and causes us great pain and harm."

It goes on to say that games like GTA 5 are "grooming yet another generation of boys to tolerate violence against women".

A rival petition was launched soon after, urging the stores to continue sales.

"This game may allow you to kill, hurt, bash and shoot anyone not just females and this game should be on the shelves all over the country. It's made for adults not children, we have the right to buy games despite their content," said Brett Herbert, who launched the petition.

Customer feedback

Jim Cooper, general manager of corporate affairs at Target, said that the decision to withdraw the game had not been taken lightly.

"We've been speaking to many customers over recent days about the game and there is a significant level of concern about the game's content," he said in a statement.

"We've also had customer feedback in support of us selling the game, and we respect their perspective on the issue.

"However, we feel the decision to stop selling GTA 5 is in line with the majority view of our customers."

Target Australia posted on its Facebook page the news it was withdrawing the game and immediately received thousands of comments, many of them criticising the decision.

Kmart also decided to pull the game - both it and Target are owned by the retail group Wesfarmers.

Strippers and prostitutes

Set in the fictional city of Los Santos, Grand Theft Auto V allows gamers to control three criminals as they rampage through the town committing a series of crimes.

The game, developed by UK-based Rockstar North, was released a year ago and was immediately criticised for the levels of violence, particularly for its depictions of torture and the way it often portrays women as strippers and prostitutes

It carries an 18 certificate in the UK and an equivalent R18+ rating in Australia.

Despite criticisms about its content, it became the fastest-selling entertainment product in history, passing $1bn of sales in the first three days. It has also won 33 awards.

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Apple music abuse trial may collapse

5 December 2014 Last updated at 11:49

A court case against Apple, which could see the company facing damages of $1bn, might collapse.

Lawyers for Apple have raised a last-minute challenge saying new evidence suggested that the two women named as plaintiffs may not have purchased iPod models covered by the lawsuit.

The case is considering whether the hardware giant abused its dominant position in the digital music market.

The lawsuit covers iPods purchased between September 2006 and March 2009.

During that period Apple used software that meant only rights-protected music purchased from its iTunes store could be played on its devices.

Serial number

Lawyers representing both consumers and businesses claim that the restrictions meant Apple could inflate the prices of iPod in an anti-competitive manner. They are seeking $350m in damages, which could be tripled under US competition laws.

But after lead plaintiff Marianna Rosen testified on Wednesday, Apple lawyers checked the serial number on her iPod Touch and found it was purchased in July 2009.

The other main plaintiff, Melanie Wilson, also bought iPods outside the relevant timeframe, they indicated.

"I am concerned that I don't have a plaintiff. That's a problem," Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers said at the end of the trial's third day of testimony in Oakland, California.

Lawyer Bonny Sweeny said that her team was checking for other receipts. She conceded that while Ms Wilson's iPod may not be covered, an estimated eight million consumers are believed to have purchased the affected devices.

The case has been rumbling on for years and offers a fascinating insight into the early days of the digital music business.

At the start of the millennium, the big record labels were terrified that illegal copying of digital music could ruin their businesses.

Rivals frustrated

To help placate them, Apple created digital rights management software known as FairPlay but early versions of it were easily cracked by music pirates.

The software also frustrated rivals such as RealNetworks, who found that music from its digital music store could not be played on iPods.

In response, RealNetworks announced a similar technology - Harmony - which allowed music purchased from the RealPlayer music store to be played on iPods.

It led Apple chief executive Steve Jobs to famously accuse the firm of adopting the "tactics and ethics of a hacker to break into the iPod".

By 2007 Apple's software had got more sophisticated and restrictive.

In the trial it emerged that, between 2007 and 2009, if an iPod owner tried to sync their device with iTunes and had music from another digital store on the device, they would receive an error message telling them to restore their iPod to factory settings. This effectively wiped all non-iTunes music from the device.

Apple maintained at the trial that the software and restrictions were necessary to protect users from malicious content and hackers.

If the case continues it will hear video testimony from Steve Jobs, filmed shortly before his death.

Judge Gonzalez Rogers is currently considering her options and has asked both sides to file written arguments as to how they think the trial should proceed.

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Uber taxi business valued at $40bn

4 December 2014 Last updated at 19:01

Taxi booking firm Uber has completed the latest stage of a fundraising, valuing the fast growing business at $40bn (£25.5bn).

The San Francisco company has raised another $1.2bn from investors in a deal that confirms its status as one of most highly valued new technology start-ups.

In June, a sale of shares to investors valued Uber at $17bn.

In a blog post on Thursday, Uber's co-founder Travis Kalanick said the new money would help expansion in Asia.

The company, which a year ago operated in 60 cities in 21 countries, is now in 250 cities in 50 countries.

At its current valuation Uber, which was only founded in 2009, is worth about three times as much as either ITV or Marks and Spencer, says BBC technology correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones.

Last month, the company was forced to issue an apology after being accused of planning smear tactics against journalists and of tracking its users without their permission.

In his blog, Mr Kalanick said: "Events of the recent weeks have shown us that we also need to invest in internal growth and change."

"Acknowledging mistakes and learning from them are the first steps," he added.

Uber does not own cars or employ drivers, but connects customers and vehicles through its app, bringing what the company says is much needed competition to the taxi industry.

But it has faced opposition from some governments and established taxi firms, including from London's "black cab" drivers and in cities across Europe and the US.

Uber is also facing increased competition. On Wednesday,Softbank announced it had invested $250m in GrabTaxi, a service in Southeast Asia.

Details of Uber's new investors were not disclosed, although previous backers of the business include Goldman Sachs, Google Ventures, Blackrock, and Amazon's founder and chief executive Jeff Bezos.

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N Korea 'denies' Sony Pictures hack

4 December 2014 Last updated at 12:17

A North Korean diplomat in New York has said his country was not behind a cyber-attack on Sony Pictures, according to reports.

The film giant suffered a huge leak of information after last month's breach.

US broadcaster Voice of America quoted the unnamed diplomat as saying claims North Korea had been responsible were a "fabrication".

Sony has hired security specialists but has not yet made any suggestion as to the source of the attack.

Independent security researchers said there were solid clues that the attack had originated in the secretive nation.

Sony has brought in the services of security specialists FireEye to investigate the breach, which reportedly saw computers across Sony Pictures rendered unusable, with staff told to switch off their technology.

The FBI is also involved - it alerted businesses to be aware of "destructive" malware that had recently been discovered.

Technology news site Recode on Wednesday said Sony Pictures and FireEye were poised to announce that North Korea had been responsible - although the companies have since denied this.

However, independent researchers - such as security firm Trend Micro - have pointed out similarities in the malicious code used to hit Sony and a similar attack on South Korea last year.

The South Korean government said the attack, dubbed Dark Seoul, had been carried out by North Korea - although, like many cyber-attacks, the source was never confirmed.

Film anger

The suggested motivation for a hack from North Korea, commentators said, had been the country's anger at an upcoming Sony film, The Interview.

In the film, set for release at Christmas, Seth Rogen and James Franco play two reporters who have been granted an audience with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

The CIA then enlists the pair to assassinate him.

North Korea said the film was "the most undisguised sponsoring of terrorism as well as a war action".

The country's UN envoy Ja Song-Nam said there would be a "merciless response" if the film was not cancelled.

However, the diplomat quoted by Voice of America - who asked to remain anonymous - dismissed reports his country had been involved in the attack on Sony.

"Linking [North Korea] to the Sony hacking is another fabrication targeting the country," he told the broadcaster.

"My country publicly declared that it would follow international norms banning hacking and piracy."

Earlier this week, a separate North Korean official gave a more ambiguous response, saying: "Wait and see," in response to a question about the attack.

Analysis: Leo Kelion, technology desk editor

Suggestions North Korea could be behind the Sony Pictures hack has drawn incredulity from some, surprised that the "Hermit Kingdom" might be able to pull off such a stunt.

In fact, experts say Pyongyang's cyber-skills should not be underestimated. One US government adviser warned last year that North Korean hackers posed "an important 'wild card' threat" to US and international security.

Being sure about how far its cyber-capabilities extend isn't easy. A report by Hewlett Packard's security division noted that most North Koreans were restricted to an intranet system, separate from the wider internet, which limits their links to the outside world.

But the report noted that the state's education system places special emphasis on mathematics, which has helped it develop skilled programmers, cryptographers and security researchers.

According to a report by Al-Jazeera, North Korean defectors have spoken of promising students going on a two-year accelerated university course before heading to China and Russia for a year to hone their hacking skills.

A US analyst quoted a defector who claimed to be part of North Korea's Unit 121 hacking squad until he escaped in 2004. He said some operations had been carried out from a Pyongyang-owned hotel in Shenyang, China.

According to HP, North Korea's "cyber-warriors" are thought to have carried out a wide variety of attacks, including:

• Spreading malware via video games
• Stealing details of foreign technologies stored on computers
• Carrying out distributed denial of service attacks (DDoS), which knock services offline by flooding them with traffic sent from hijacked foreign computers
• Cyber-psychological operations - posting propaganda to social networks and "trolling" message boards

However, hacking a major corporation to make threatening demands is not a behaviour that has been linked to North Korea in the past, and the hashtag #GOP (Guardians of Peace) - used in the Sony attack - is not known to have been used by Pyongyang.

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UK chipmaker reveals Raspberry Pi rival

4 December 2014 Last updated at 13:18

British chip designer Imagination has produced a barebones computer to compete with the Raspberry Pi.

Called the Creator CI20, the board has a more powerful processor than the Pi, more memory and more onboard storage.

For its graphics, it uses a version of the Imagination chip that is also found inside Apple's iPad tablet.

The small computer enters a growing and competitive market, with the Raspberry Pi already having sold almost four millions units.

The CI20 will cost £50 ($65) and can be ordered now, though the first units will not be dispatched to customers until January 2015.

As a chip designer, Hertfordshire-based Imagination is better known for drawing up the plans and specifications for processors that are used to handle graphics in Apple gadgets as well as phones from many other manufacturers.

With the CI20, Imagination is entering a market that is crowded with small form-factor, barebones computers that are being used by hobbyists and others for small embedded computing projects.

Anyone looking to buy a small computer can choose from the Raspberry Pi, the BeagleBone Black, Arduino Uno and Intel's Galileo and NUC devices.

Like its rivals, the CI20 can run many different versions of the open source operating system Linux and it can also run the latest edition of Google's Android mobile operating system.

It also has built-in wi-fi and Bluetooth for wireless data connections. By contrast, the BeagleBone Black and Raspberry Pi B+ devices have only Ethernet connectors built in.

Tony King-Smith, a spokesman for Imagination, said the CI20 was aimed at people who wanted a "high-performance" board for their development projects.

Writing on the Bit-Tech reviews site, Gareth Halfacree said there was no doubt that the CI20 was seeking to take part of the market that the Pi currently dominates.

However, he wondered, if the high price and "uncommon instruction set architecture" would limit its appeal.

One expert who has had time to test the kit also had doubts about its potential.

"There will be a modicum of pick-up, especially for people trying to develop for Android it could be a very useful low-cost device to have," said Chris Green, principal technology analyst at the Davies Murphy Group consultancy.

"But do I think it will make much wider impact? The answer is no.

"It just doesn't have the momentum that the Raspberry Pi has.

"The Pi was seen as a good cause and had backing from various corporations, the media and even government departments that gave it a good word because of the educational potential it had.

"The Creator CI20 is just a product, the Raspberry Pi is a movement."

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Emergency call system for new cars

4 December 2014 Last updated at 17:36

An emergency call system dubbed eCall will be installed in all new cars from March 2018 under an agreement reached at the European Parliament.

The system will send an automated call to the emergency services in the event of an accident.

Research suggests that the mandatory use of the system could halve response times, especially in rural areas.

But one expert questioned why it was going to take so long to be implemented.

The proposal was originally made in 2012 but was delayed for a variety of reasons, including privacy concerns.

Critics were unsure of the need for a government-mandated in-car system that would track a vehicle's location.

Under the new deal, the eCall system will give emergency services only basic data such as:

• type of vehicle
• fuel used
• time of accident
• location

Antonio Avenoso, executive director of the European transport safety council welcomed the initiative.

"Getting emergency services to the scene of a crash quickly is crucial to preventing deaths. So, this technology will save lives," he said.

"However, it's regrettable that it will be several years before we see all new cars fitted with the system and that other vehicles aren't covered by the legislation yet.

"These are missed opportunities to extend the safety benefits further, with little or no justification."

The rules are now subject to formal votes in the European Parliament and by all member states, likely to take place in March next year.

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Parklife festival fined for 'mum' text

The company behind Manchester's Parklife festival has been fined £70,000 after sending promotional text messages claiming to be from festival-goers' mums.

The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) said many of the people who complained suffered "substantial distress".

One teenager, who received the message three years after the death of her mother, said she burst into tears.

Organisers initially made a joke about the complaints but later apologised.

The message said: "Some of the Parklife after parties have already sold. If your going, make sure your home for breakfast!." (sic)

Nineteen-year-old Ros Prior was one of the 70,000 who bought a ticket to last year's event.

Three weeks before this year's event in June received a message from her "mum".

Her mother had died of multiple sclerosis three years earlier.

"My phone went off and I clicked to read it," she explained.

"It said, 'New message from mum' and my heart stopped.

"Even though it was only two seconds of sheer panic, it was horrible because I just saw mum. You just think, 'Oh my god, is she still alive?'

"I started crying. And then I read the text and realised it was Parklife."

Ros tweeted a picture of an email she had sent to the organiser explaining how upsetting she found the messages.

She said: "People kept getting in touch, saying they felt the same and that Parklife couldn't get away with this."

Ros wasn't alone.

The ICO, a body which protects people's personal information, said one festival-goer who contacted them had kept the number of his recently-deceased mother in his contacts and was extremely "distressed" when he received the "unprofessional and disgusting message".

Others felt so strongly they sold their tickets and refused to attend the festival.

Parklife did not initially take the complaint hugely seriously, tweeting: "So this is what it feels like to be a jar of Marmite #LoveItOrHateIt."

The company later apologised and has cooperated with the ICO investigation after it received 76 complaints.

A spokesperson said: "The communication was intended as a fun way of engaging festival-goers. However, the festival acknowledges that this was not an appropriate theme for everyone.

"The Parklife Weekender wants to apologise for any offence caused by the SMS marketing message sent to their customers earlier this year. "

The ICO fined Parklife Manchester Ltd for breaching regulations because the identity of the person behind the text it sent to customers was "disguised or concealed".

Head of ICO enforcement, Steve Eckersley, said: "This was a poorly thought out piece of marketing that didn't appear to even try to follow the rules or consider the impact that their actions would have on the privacy of individuals.

Snoop Dogg and Foals were headliners for this year's Parklife Weekender

"It made some people very upset in an attempt to sell tickets to a club night. The fine sends a clear message that using this type of marketing is unacceptable."

Snoop Dogg and Foals headlined this year's Parklife Weekender.

The likes of Disclosure, Bastille, London Grammar and Plan B have also performed at the festival in recent years.

Follow @BBCNewsbeat on Twitter and Radio1Newsbeat on YouTube

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Getting rid of football's boring bits

For years Match of the Day has satisfied impatient football fans by condensing a 90 minute match into a handy chunk of highlights.

But that requires a very patient man or woman to select the most important periods of play.

Now scientists in Spain are trying to make that work easier by getting a computer to do it.

The technology is being designed to automatically edit a whole game down to the key moments.

The technology looks over the footage from cameras shown during the match.

The people behind it at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia have been working on it for a few years and have just published 18 pages of exactly how it works.

Arnau Raventos is the lead professor on the project.

He tells Newsbeat they have "been working with the local television companies in Spain in order to try to make the job easier for the person who manually does the summaries currently."

Without having to read the full report (we did that for you) - in short - it analyses what are known as key-frames.

So, every part of the match is looked over by the computer to spot tell-tale signs of when something interesting is happening.

That might be lots of players grouped together, lots of zoomed-in action, extra noise from the crowd or the sound of the referee's whistle.

In a test of five matches, the technology picked out 70% of the goals.

Arnau calls them "occasions".

"We want to find specific combinations of moments in a football match. A goal is an occasion."

We thought of an example: if a defender goes down in the penalty box, everyone groups around them, you'll hear a whistle, there's lots of faces in the shot and a penalty happens. In theory, the technology should capture that.

There is a long way to go though.

The technology could frustrate even the most lukewarm of football fans because it hasn't quite nailed exactly the magic moment - when the goal goes in.

In a test on five matches, the technology detected 70 per cent of the total goals.

"We need to be sincere," says Arnau. "We need to say that at the moment it's not possible to perform a complete automatic summary just yet. It's difficult to detect all the goals."

"However, we think it's very easy to discard those moments that are not important. For example, the panoramic views. They are easy to detect and to discard them so that already makes the job of the editor easier."

Follow @BBCNewsbeat on Twitter and Radio1Newsbeat on YouTube

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