Texting 'improves language skill'

Text messaging may help language development

Text speak, rather than harming literacy, could have a positive effect on the way children interact with language, says a study.

Researchers from Coventry University studied 88 children aged between 10 and 12 to understand the impact of text messaging on their language skills.

They found that the use of so-called "textisms" could be having a positive impact on reading development.

The study is published in the British Journal of Developmental Psychology.

"Children's use of textisms is not only positively associated with word reading ability, but it may be contributing to reading development ," the authors wrote in the report.

The children involved in the study were given 10 different scenarios and asked to write about them using text messages.

The textisms were split into categories, including shortenings, contractions, acronyms, symbols and non-conventional spellings, and analysed for their use of language alongside more traditional schoolwork.

Misspellings

"The alarm in the media is based on selected anecdotes but actually when we look for examples of text speak in essays we don't seem to find very many," said Dr Beverley Plester, the lead author of the report and senior lecturer at Coventry University.

Texting is likely to be an important part of a child's learning development, she thinks.

"The more exposure you have to the written word the more literate you become and we tend to get better at things that we do for fun," she said.

The study found no evidence of a detrimental effect of text speak on conventional spelling.

"What we think of as misspellings, don't really break the rules of language and children have a sophisticated understanding of the appropriate use of words," she said.

Other reports have produced similar results. Research from the University of Toronto into how teenagers use instant messaging found that instant messaging had a positive effect on their command of language.

'All clear' for web auction tool

Auctiva has more than 500,000 users

A third-party add-on for eBay has been given the all clear after being flagged by Google as potentially malicious.

Servers powering Auctiva's website, which provides tools for sellers on the popular auction service, had become infected with a trojan virus.

"Google has rescanned our site and given it a clean bill of health," said the firm's Robert Green.

Google warns users about websites which may pose a security risk.

The trojan that had infected some of Auctiva's servers, called Adclicker, is classed by security specialist Symantec as a "very low risk".

It is designed to "artificially generate traffic to certain web sites" and is used by malicious hackers to boost clicks to online banner adverts or to inflate web statistics.

Google works in partnership with the StopBadware.org organisation to warn users about potentially malicious websites that are infected with viruses and trojans.

First flagged

More than 186,265 websites have been reported to StopBadware for hosting malicious programs or web scripts, which can damage a computer or, in extreme cases, hijack a machine.

Users first flagged the problem with the Auctiva site last week after anti-virus software began to warn there could be a problem with the service.

Hundreds of thousands of people use Auctiva's tools in their virtual shop windows on eBay.

Some users reported they were also receiving warnings on auction listings inside eBay.

The firm said it had removed servers in China that had become infected with the trojan and that it was "currently safe to navigate the Auctiva website".

Earlier this week Auctiva was taken offline completely in order to fix the problem.

Mr Green, product manager at Auctiva, added: "Ebay Security Teams are helping Auctiva to ensure the strictest level of safety and security on Auctiva.com.

"Ebay is currently conducting a site scan of Auctiva.com to ensure security vulnerabilities have been eliminated."

SNP accuse PM of airbrushing site

The site is designed to reflect initiatives across the UK

Gordon Brown has been branded "petty" by the SNP after policies by the Scottish government to combat recession were removed from a website.

The "real help now" website was launched by the prime minister to list action being taken around Britain.

It initially included Scottish measures such as a council tax freeze and flexible business support but the SNP claim these have been "airbrushed" out.

The Cabinet Office, which runs the site, said it was updated all the time.

A spokesman said: "The real help now website brings together the help available to families and businesses affected by the current economic climate.

"It is constantly being updated with news from across the UK."

'Whitewash'

But the SNP has accused the government of removing help being offered by the Scottish government and replacing it with a link to "an out-of-date Scotland Office statement" less than 24 hours after the site was launched.

SNP Scotland Office spokesperson, Angus MacNeil said the move made Gordon Brown "look more like Winston Smith than Winston Churchill" - a reference to a character from George Orwell's 1984 who rewrote newspaper articles to make them reflect the party line.

Mr MacNeil said: "Apart from making Gordon Brown look incredibly petty, he has replaced the real economic action taken by the Scottish Government with a link to a department which is all but irrelevant in tackling the financial crisis.

"Instead of website whitewashes, if Gordon Brown is serious about tackling the economic crisis, he should rule out Labour's planned cuts to public spending in Scotland which would be so damaging in the teeth of recession."

The "real help now site" is modelled on US President Barack Obama's "recovery" website as part of his economic plan, which he says aims to show the American people where their money is going.

No 10 says it wants to enable people to find details of the support it was giving workers, employers and homeowners "in one place".

Game consoles 'cause skin sores'

Excessive use of consules may cause physical problems

A new skin disorder caused by use of games consoles has been identified by skin specialists.

The condition, dubbed PlayStation palmar hidradenitis, is described in the British Journal of Dermatology.

Researchers outline the case of a 12-year-old girl who attend a Swiss hospital with intensely painful sores on the palms of her hands.

The girl, who had been using a games console regularly, recovered fully after 10 days of abstinence.

If you're worried about soreness on your hands when playing a games console, it might be sensible to give your hands a break from time to time Nina GoadBritish Association of Dermatologists

Doctors who examined her at the Geneva University Hospital concluded she had a condition known as 'idiopathic eccrine hidradenitis', a skin disorder that generally causes red, sore lumps on the palms of the hands and soles of the feet.

The condition has been previously found on the soles of the feet in children taking part in heavy physical activity, such as jogging.

It it is thought to be linked to intense sweating.

Unusual symptoms

For the disorder to only affect the hands is very unusual.

The patient had not participated in any sport or physical exercise recently, and could not recall any recent trauma involving her hands.

However, her parents did say that she had recently started to play a video game on a PlayStation console for several hours a day, and had continued to play even after developing the sores.

The doctors suspect that the problem was caused by tight and continuous grasping of the console's hand-grips, and repeated pushing of the buttons, alongside sweating caused by the tension of the game.

The researchers said cases of addiction to using games consoles had been recorded, but the symptoms had initially been thought to be psychological.

However, some physical symptoms, such as acute tendonitis, dubbed Wiitis, had begun to emerge.

They said 'PlayStation palmar hidradenitis' could now be added to the list.

Nina Goad, of the British Association of Dermatologists said: "This is an interesting discovery and one that the researchers are keen to share with other dermatologists, should they be confronted with similar, unexplained symptoms in a patient.

"If you're worried about soreness on your hands when playing a games console, it might be sensible to give your hands a break from time to time, and don't play excessively if your hands are prone to sweating."

MPs 'talking, not hearing online'

MPs should use the internet to converse not to inform, the report says

MPs are getting more adept at using the internet - but they tend to see it as way of talking to rather than hearing from voters, new research suggests.

Attitudes among MPs to new media as a communications tool are too "passive", the Hansard Society has concluded.

Its research found that although 83% of MPs have a personal website, only 11% of them blog while less than one in four use social networking sites.

New media remained an "untapped area" for political engagement, it said.

US example

All British parties have been studying Barack Obama's use of the internet during his successful election campaign to attract supporters, focus policy debates and drive voter registration.

It is thought the Obama campaign employed as many as 95 permanent web staff and spent heavily on online operations.

MPs are transmitting and not receiving Andy Williamson, Hansard Society

A survey of 168 MPs by the Hansard Society - the independent political research organisation - found members of Parliament were not fully exploiting the internet's interactive potential.

Its findings suggested MPs see electronic media primarily as a way of informing the public about their activities and views rather than engaging with people about them.

It found that younger MPs and those elected more recently were more likely to use social networking tools.

As for blogs, many MPs believed they did not have the time or resources to manage one although the reputation of some blogs of being a forum for abuse was cited as putting some off.

Cabinet minister Hazel Blears attacked political bloggers earlier this year for fuelling a culture of cynicism about public life.

But former deputy PM John Prescott is a recent convert to blogging, launching a site to support a fourth Labour term.

Although the potential of the internet is generally not well understood by MPs, Hansard said the growth in the number of MPs using social networking sites showed a willingness to learn.

"MPs are transmitting and not receiving," said Andy Williamson, director of the Society's eDemocracy programme.

"They use the internet as a tool for campaigning and for organising their supporters, rather than opening up two-way communications with constituents."

Workers 'stealing company data'

By Maggie Shiels Technology reporter, BBC News, Silicon Valley

The study said companies fail to take proper steps to stop data theft

Six out of every 10 employees stole company data when they left their job last year, said a study of US workers.

The survey, conducted by the Ponemon institute, said that so-called malicious insiders use the information to get a new job, start their own business or for revenge.

"They are making these judgements based out of fear and anxiety," the Institute's Mike Spinney told BBC News.

"People are worried about their jobs and want to hedge their bets," he said.

"Our study showed that 59% of people will say 'I'm going to take something of value with me when I go'."

The Ponemon Institute, a privacy and management research firm, surveyed 945 adults in the United States who were laid-off, fired or changed jobs in the last 12 months.

Everyone that took part had access to proprietary information such as customer data, contact lists, employee records, financial reports, confidential business documents, software tools or other intellectual property.

"Surging wave"

In the report, entitled Jobs at Risk = Data at Risk, the Institute showed that such data breaches put a company's financial health in jeopardy.

That view is backed in part by another recent study by security firm McAfee. It estimated total global economic losses due to data theft and security breaches by organised crime, hackers and inside jobs reached $1 trillion last year.

24% of workers could still access data after leaving the company

Kevin Rowney , from the data loss prevention arm of security firm Symantec, the sponsors of the study, told the BBC there would be a "surging wave" of these insider attacks.

"It is conceivable that a company can lose its corporate life through a large scale data breach," warned Mr Rowney.

He added: "The intellectual property of a company can represent the crown jewels and are almost worth more than the building. This is the core asset of a company and any breach or loss can be very expensive."

Relaxed attitude

The Ponemon Institute revealed that part of the problem rests with companies themselves and their relaxed attitude towards security.

It found that only 15% of respondents' companies reviewed or audited the paper documents or electronic files employees were walking out of work with.

Most data breaches are preventable said experts

The report also said that if businesses did conduct a review, it was very poor with 45% not being completed and 29% being fairly superficial.

"Many firms believe insider data breaches are the cost of doing business," said Mr Spinney.

"They believe this is just something they have to live with. Our sense is that a lot of companies have really just given up, but this study shows these are preventable events."

During the economic downturn, security experts have predicted that the number of insider attacks will rise.

Last week, Microsoft told BBC News that "with 1.5 million predicted job losses in the US alone, there's an increased risk and exposure to these attacks".

Mr Rowney said one way to limit such breaches was to boost security but also to change focus.

"The industry has concentrated on the protection of the containers where the data is stored like firewalls, access, controls and end point security systems.

"The end result is that most security teams are protecting the containers not the data itself. And that is a core flaw in the security methodology of many practitioners today," claimed Mr Rowney.

The struggle among the stars

All players of Eve Online share one vast virtual galaxy.

By Flora Graham BBC News

It's a credit crunch nightmare.

The chief executive of the world's biggest corporation gets a phone call in the middle of the night. Thanks to industrial espionage, the company has been bankrupted, assets stripped, bank accounts emptied. When trading starts the next day, even the company name will be gone.

If this were real life, the executive might consider jumping out the window. But in the online game of EVE Online, it's all part of the fun.

"It is another challenge," said Par Molen, the leader of the "corporation" Band of Brothers (BoB), who got the late-night call.

"That's what we live for."

Mr Molen and his online colleagues had spent four years building BoB into the dominant force in a game where 200,000 players battle it out in an online galaxy of spaceships and planets.

Unlike other multiplayer online games like the hugely popular World of Warcraft, which is split into smaller groups, the thousands of EVE players are in it together.

In one virtual galaxy, players build, fight, and trade, joining together to form "corporations" to gain control over sections of the huge starscape.

This creates a complex society where anything can happen, and often does. Rules are few, and all of the lying, cheating and stealing that occurs in real life can also happen in the game.

A player called "The Mittani" is the shadowy spymaster who runs dozens of agents for his corporation - GoonSwarm. He got the call of his career when a disgruntled BoB director contacted him to say that he was thinking of switching sides.

With the director's access to BoB's internal workings, the pair were able to disband the corporation and steal all the assets they could lay their hands on.

To add insult to injury, GoonSwarm then re-registered the Band of Brothers name for itself, leaving the former alliance nameless and broken.

It's a finale that has been compared to "Apple dissolving Microsoft", and led to some players calling for the game's developer, CCP, to "roll-back" the game to the previous day and cancel the change.

Eve Online is about the struggle between giant corporations

"Any one director should not have the power to destroy the work of so many people for so many months and years with two mouse clicks," wrote a player called David on an EVE-related blog.

But CCP is well-known for keeping its hands off action within the game. Since no rules were broken, the changes stood, and thousands of BoB members woke up to a very different world.

Scams in space

This is not the first time that rogue bankers and credit fraud have made EVE Online seem more like the financial pages than a space cowboy video game.

In January, a player absconded with over 80bn ISK, the game's virtual currency, from an in-game bank. Although the 80bn is only worth a few thousand pounds if exchanged for real money, it represents hours of in-game toil.

In an online echo of the real-world banking crisis, the bank's chairman issued a statement to calm a run on deposits, writing: "Dynasty Banking will get over these times and we will continue to strive to earn the public's faith as one of the leading banks of Eve Online".

Another scam on an epic scale beyond the fantasies of real conmen was perpetrated in 2006, when a player ran off with 700bn ISK from another EVE bank.

"Think of me as a space Robin Hood

Sat-nav to aid disabled motorists

By Geoff Adams-Spink Age & disability correspondent, BBC News website

The display is clear but accuracy can be a problem

A satellite navigation system made specifically to assist disabled drivers has been made by a UK company.

Gowrings Mobility - a specialist in adapted vehicles - is marketing the BB Nav, developed by Navevo.

The system contains a database of Blue Badge parking bays, accessible toilets, disabled-friendly petrol stations and accessible accommodation.

It covers 150 major towns and cities around the UK including all of the London boroughs.

"Many disabled travellers worry about the uncertainty of not knowing where to park... and consequently do not venture further afield than their own local area," said Janet Seward, sales and marketing director at Gowrings.

"We want to make disabled travellers' lives and journeys much smoother, easier and more spontaneous."

The BB Nav grades car parks according to their level of accessibility and also has the location of more than 10,000 on-street parking bays.

The device is also programmed with the varying parking regulations for Blue Badge holders as they move from one local authority area to another.

Other "points of interest" (POIs) include accessible beaches, shopping facilities, toilets and hotels.

Road test

In practice, the BB Nav delivers a lot less than it appears to promise.

The unit is small and slim - much like other in-car GPS systems.

But unlike other satnavs that rely on finger operation, the BB Nav has a telescopic stylus that is housed in the body of the device.

Something so small and fiddly can and probably would be easily lost in a car.

The on-screen keyboard is too small to allow it to be programmed by all but the most slender of fingers.

The system had a problem finding some parking spaces

And the display fonts are so small that older motorists will be reaching for their reading glasses.

On the plus side, the display is large, the map easy to read and all side roads are helpfully named.

The default female voice is clear and crisp but does have a tendency to repeat itself too often.

When tested in the outer suburbs of North-West London, the BB Nav was disappointing and - at times - mystifying.

It failed to locate on-street parking bays on Bridge Street in Pinner.

When asked to find an accessible toilet in Ruislip, it found its way to a residential street of pre-war, detached houses with not a public convenience in sight - accessible or otherwise.

And when accessible accommodation in Harrow was requested, it located a Hilton hotel in Wembley but directed the car to industrial units close to the football stadium.

When Navevo - the makers of the BB Nav - were approached to comment upon the problems encountered, they referred the issue to The Pie Guide, the company that provides the data for the device.

Mike Hudson, data manager for Pie Guide, explained that the data on parking bays came from local authorities in a variety of formats, the quality of which was variable too.

Referring to the absence of the parking bay in Pinner, Mr Hudson said: "I suspect that the council has not provided the data to us - hopefully it will be picked up in a forthcoming update."

He said that the hard-to-locate accessible toilet in Ruislip was "troubling" and that it would require further investigation.

Data on accessible hotels was, he admitted, "not great".

The information comes from a variety of sources depending on the part of the UK being searched.

And not all hotel chains submit to the verification process which they would have to pay for.

"There is no one, single data source to which we can go and extract this information," said Mr Hudson.

Data updates are planned for the future but are still the subject of commercial negotiations between Navevo and Pie.

For a product costing just under

Warning of infected auction tool

Auctiva has more than 500,000 users

A third-party add-on for eBay used by thousands of sellers is being flagged by Google as potentially malicious, after it became infected with a trojan.

Auctiva provides tools for sellers on the popular auction website.

The company confirmed a virus had attached itself to files on its servers but remedied the problem soon after.

However, Google continues to warn users searching for the site that it "may potentially harm your computer".

The trojan, called Adclicker, is classed by security specialist Symantec as a "very low risk". It is designed to "artificially generate traffic to certain web sites" and is used by malicious hackers to boost clicks to online banner adverts or to inflate web statistics.

On its community forum Auctiva said that it had "initiated a request with Google to have our site cleared from being reported as a malicious site".

Google works in partnership with the StopBadware.org organisation to warn users about potentially malicious websites that are infected with viruses and trojans.

Users warned

More than 186,265 websites have been reported to StopBadware for hosting malicious programs or web scripts, which can damage a a computer or, in extreme cases, hijack a machine.

Users first flagged the problem with the Auctiva site last week after anti-virus software began to warn there could be a problem with the service.

Some users reported they were also receiving warnings on auction listings inside eBay.

The firm said it had removed servers in China that had become infected with the trojan and that it was "currently safe to navigate the Auctiva website".

However, until the website is cleared by the StopBadware organisation users will continue to get warnings from Google when clicking on the site following a search.

A spokesman for Google said the site was to be reviewed by StopBadware soon.

Investing in the next 'big thing'

By Maggie Shiels Technology reporter, BBC News, Silicon Valley

YouNoodle wants to make backing start-ups less of a gamble

A San Francisco company has launched a tool to help investors decide where to put their money.

YouNoodle uses a scoring system that plans to turn the business of investment into more of a science.

The software measures the "buzz" surrounding a company via blogs and media reports along with a variety of factors including website traffic.

The scoring tool covers nearly 30,000 start-ups, ranging from biotechnology to gaming software.

"By watching the way the world responds to a start-up, we can give advance notice of what's hot and what's not," said co-founder Bob Goodson.

Researchers adjust the algorithm (the mathematical rating), based on more than 150,000 start-up related stories, every day. Those reports are then analysed in much the same way that Google ranks content on a web page.

Assessing the chatter on Twitter is one of the sources the score is based on

"While dollars are regarded as the best indicator of success, there are other good indicators out there before there is revenue," Mr Goodson told the BBC.

"Take something like Facebook, which is an example from Web 2.0. For two years there was rapid growth, rapid expansion, hiring, media coverage and so on without the revenue.

"So if you are in the business of needing to understand what's hot, then you need to know what is moving before the revenue numbers come through. For investors, getting in early is where the real money is made," explained Mr Goodson.

Early warning system

The algorithm behind the new scoring system was devised by New Zealander Dr Sean Gourley.

He has also worked on modelling the likelihood of terrorist attacks for the Pentagon and describes the start-up tool as "an early warning system" that highlights to people the potential of a company.

The public can check the health of a start up for free

"Maybe 20 years ago if you were a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley, you knew everyone through your network and everyone came to you," said Dr Gourley, who is director of data tools.

"Today the world is a lot bigger and there is a lot of information out there. We wade through the noise and create value by making sense of it all and putting a spotlight on companies that could easily slip under the radar, because they don't come through the old boys' network."

While Dr Gourley talked of hoping to "create a meritocracy" for the start-up world, the reality is that venture capitalists have always relied on their trusted networks, personal referrals and their own gut instinct.

Ron Conway is a business "angel", who invests at an early stage of a company's life. Of the more than 500 start-ups he has put his money into, his successes include Google, PayPal, Digg and Ask Jeeves.

He is affectionately known as the Godfather of Silicon Valley for having placed more bets on internet start-ups than anyone else in the Valley.

He told the BBC he thought the scoring system "sounded like a useful tool that I think would be helpful to investors".

However he also said that for him, the personal connection was what counted.

"Most of my deal flow comes from the people in the more than 500 companies I have invested in. If the company is recommended to me by someone I have done business with in the past, then that will move it way up my list.

"For me, word of mouth and trust is even more important to me than a scoring system. But it might help as an add-on," said Mr Conway.

Best return

Investing in start-ups can seem like a risky way to make money given that there is no guarantee of a return and the belief is that most companies flame out within the first couple of years.

Mr Goodson said he believes this scoring system will take some of the gambling element out of the equation, as well as eventually boosting the $100bn (

Judge dismisses Google lawsuit

By Maggie Shiels Technology reporter, BBC News, Silicon Valley

Google's Street View has been criticised on several occasions

A legal claim by a Pittsburgh couple that Google's Street View feature violated their privacy has been thrown out by a federal judge.

Christine and Aaron Boring sued the search giant after photos of their home appeared on the free mapping programme.

The couple accused Google of privacy violation, negligence, trespassing and unjust enrichment.

In her ruling, Judge Amy Reynolds Hay said the Borings "failed to state a claim under any count".

"We are pleased the judge agreed the suit was without merit," said Google in a statement to the BBC.

Street View displays street level, 360-degree photographs of areas taken by specially equipped Google vehicles.

Failure

The photographs at the centre of the lawsuit, launched last year, were taken at the foot of Mr and Mrs Boring's driveway and shows their house, a pool area and detached garage. Signs marked the road as private.

The suit alleged that Google's Street View had caused Mr and Mrs Boring "mental suffering" and diluted the value of their home.

Google removed the offending pictures after the lawsuit was filed

"While it is easy to imagine that many whose property appears on Google's virtual maps resent the privacy implications, it is hard to believe that any - other than the most exquisitely sensitive - would suffer shame or humiliation," Judge Amy Reynolds Hay of US District Court for Western Pennsylvania wrote in her 12-page decision.

The judge also suggested that the Borings' lawsuit made it possible for more people than ever to view the picture of their home.

"The Borings do not dispute that they have allowed the relevant images to remain on Google Street View, despite the availability of a procedure for having them removed from view," wrote Judge Reynolds Hay.

"Furthermore, they have failed to bar others' access to the images by eliminating their address from the pleadings, or by filing this action under seal," she said.

The publicity has actually perpetuated dissemination of the Borings' name and location, and resulted in frequent re-publication of the Street View images, the judge concluded.

"The plaintiffs' failure to take readily available steps to protect their own privacy and mitigate their alleged pain suggests to the Court that the intrusion and that their suffering were less severe than they contend," wrote Judge Reynolds Hay.

The Borings had sought $25,000 (

Mobile broadband next-gen battle

By Jason Palmer Science and technology reporter, Barcelona

Advertisement

Rory Cellan-Jones takes a look at the wireless internet to replace 3G currently being tested on the streets of Barcelona

A number of companies at the Mobile World Congress are demonstrating hardware they think will make up so-called fourth generation or 4G solutions to succeed the current 3G technology.

The explosion of interest in mobile broadband - and consumers' insatiable craving for faster connections - means that this more forward-looking part of the industry is filled with contenders.

In the UK, the highest mobile broadband speed available is 7.2 megabits per second (Mbps), and Vodafone has successfully trialled a 3G network in Spain providing 20Mbps.

However, just like fixed-line broadband, the upper speed limit that is quoted is rarely reached, with a number of variables affecting a user's speed limit at a given time. The same is true for these 4G demonstrations.

Highway

Two very different rivals are on show here, with two very different technological pedigrees: WiMAX and LTE.

Driving around Barcelona during the Congress are two vans, demonstrating the truly mobile capabilities of both approaches.

Two rival formats are competing to succeed existing 3G technology

"What you've seen so far, this 2G and 3G, is the end of one road. This is the beginning of the next, the highway," says Noel Kirkaldy, a director of marketing solutions for Motorola.

WiMax is, roughly speaking, an evolved version of the Wi-Fi effort and works at similar frequencies. It is being championed largely by the computer industry.

The communications industry tends to back LTE, short for Long-Term Evolution - and is much more well-represented at the Congress, organised by the industry's umbrella organisation GSMA.

Both are capable of providing speeds higher than today's High-Speed Packet Access, or HSPA, that drives current mobile broadband, with upper limits depending on with whom you're speaking.

Both are step changes in the technology, requiring new hardware on the ground to transmit, and new hardware in whatever mobile device you have in your hand to listen.

Here today

The demonstrations in the vans are to prove that the technologies can accomplish one of the more difficult aspects of any cellular technology: the "handoff" that occurs as you move further away from one base station and closer to another.

For a call not to drop or a download not to crash, the handoff has to be seamless.

For WiMAX, says Intel's Tim Sweeney, that problem has long since been cracked, and the crucial part of the debate is that WiMAX is here, now. Worldwide, only one commercial contract has been signed to deliver a complete LTE network.

We're deploying WiMAX networks today Tim SweeneyIntel

"We're deploying WiMAX networks today," Mr Sweeney told BBC News. "We have the whole city of Portland, Oregon covered - In the US alone, $3 billion in deployments will be invested this year.

"There is no LTE that can be deployed today."

A few commercial speed tests in the van show download speeds around six megabits per second.

In the LTE van, a constant video feed from the Congress show floor is being fed in high-definition.

"That's eight megabits, over the air," says Mr Kirkaldy.

Downturn effects

The number of factors in the battle - along with the number of acronyms - is staggering.

The allocation of spectrum, which determines the upper limit of broadband speeds, is a matter still being hashed out for both technologies.

The "digital dividend" debate in the UK has shown how valuable each band of frequencies can be.

Future speeds are, of course, the bottom line. Mr Sweeney says that by this time next year WiMAX2 will be on show, with double the current speeds.

LTE proponents quote numbers up to 100Mbps, but because the only thing on offer is demonstration networks, the final hardware and specifications are still up in the air.

What will ultimately make the world of mobile broadband go round is money.

At present neither WiMAX or LTE has a clear lead over the other

Many industry analysts believe that WiMAX may fill a gap while LTE is developed further, standardised, and deployed. But in the longer term, the telecoms industry's capital and existing customer base will act as the 800-pound gorilla that pushes LTE through as the industry standard.

Motorola has its feet in both camps, with clients for both its WiMAX solutions and LTE development.

Motorola's Ben Ansell says that current economic conditions may give WiMAX more foothold in the market in the longer term.

"It was all reasonably clear until recently, when the economy fell to bits," he says.

"LTE learned from WiMAX, built on that and has all the financial muscle of the Oranges and T-Mobiles. Once it gathers momentum it could steamroller WiMAX.

"But to deploy a full LTE network, you're talking billions of dollars, and that's got to be borrowed from somewhere. So companies put that off for a couple of years, by which time WiMAX has gathered more momentum - because they're quite cheap and quite easy to deploy."

Sylvain Fabre, research director for mobile networks at analysts Gartner, says that things are not incredibly clear because LTE is still in its very early stages.

"A lot of these LTE announcements are to a large extent just PR," he told BBC News. "You ask about deployments and they're much more careful with their language."

Nevertheless, Mr Fabre says that regardless of short-term global economic concerns, WiMAX will "always be a distand second" to LTE.

"As far as where the investment money going to go, it's going to be LTE. WiMAX is going to exist, it has a place in some markets, but it's not going to be a real alternative to LTE."

Facebook 'withdraw' data changes

Mark Zuckerberg started the site to help students connect

The founder of Facebook says the social network will return to its previous terms of service regarding user data.

In a blog post Mark Zuckerberg said the move was temporary "while we resolve the issues that people have raised".

Users had complained after new terms of service seemed to suggest Facebook would retain personal data even if someone deleted their account.

Originally defending the changes, Mr Zuckerberg said it was to better reflect how people used the site.

stressed that users "own their information and control who they share it with".

Concern grew when amended terms of service for the site deleted a provision that said users could remove their content at any time.

Facebook, which has 175 million users, said the changes reflected how people used the site.

Comments will remain on the site if a user deletes their account

Mr Zuckerberg said the changes were made to ensure that if a user deletes his or her account any comments or messages he or she had left on a friend's Facebook page would not also disappear.

He said: "We think this is the right way for Facebook to work, and it is consistent with how other services like email work. One of the reasons we updated our terms was to make this more clear."

He added: "In reality, we wouldn't share your information in a way you wouldn't want."

Some Facebook users have created groups on the site to oppose the changes.

It is not clear just how much data, or what types of data, is retained on Facebook if a user decides to shut their account.

Over the past few days, we have received a lot of feedback about the new terms we posted two weeks ago. Because of this response, we have decided to return to our previous Terms of Use while we resolve the issues that people have raised.

Pirate Bay joy at charge change

Two of the defendants argued their innocence on Sunday in a webcast

Half of the charges levelled at the founders of the Pirate Bay file-sharing site have been dropped.

Swedish prosecutors dropped charges relating to "assisting copyright infringement" leaving the lesser charges of "assisting making available copyright material" on trial day two.

Pirate Bay co-founder Frederik Neik said it showed prosecutors had misunderstood the technology.

The music industry played down the changes as "simplifying the charges".

Peter Danowsky, legal counsel for the music companies in the case, said: "It's a largely technical issue that changes nothing in terms of our compensation claims and has no bearing whatsoever on the main case against The Pirate Bay.

"In fact it simplifies the prosecutor's case by allowing him to focus on the main issue, which is the making available of copyrighted works."

The Pirate Bay was launched in 2003 and quickly established itself as the world's most high profile file-sharing website. In February 2009, it reported 22 million simultaneous users.

At the start of the trial in Stockholm, Frederik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Peter Sunde Kolmsioppi and Carl Lundstorm were facing a large fine and up to two years in prison, if convicted.

"This is a sensation. It is very rare to win half the target in just one and a half days and it is clear that the prosecutor took strong note of what we said yesterday," defence lawyer Per E Samuelson told the TorrentFreak website, which reports on developments in the BitTorrent file-sharing community.

BitTorrent is a legal application used by many file-shares to swap content because of the fast and efficient manner it distributes files.

No copyright content is hosted on The Pirate Bay's web servers; instead the site hosts "torrent" links to TV, film and music files held on its users computers.

Universal charger for phones plan

There are dozens of different cable chargers for phones

The world's biggest mobile phone makers and network operators have backed plans to create a universal phone recharger.

Most manufacturers now produce chargers which work only with their own devices.

The re-charger will consume 50% less stand-by energy than today's cables, the GSM Association (GSMA), an umbrella group for the industry, said.

Firms to back the plan include Nokia, Motorola, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, LG, T-Mobile, Orange, 3, AT&T and Vodafone.

The majority of new handsets will support the re-charger by 2012.

"This is a broad agreement that will move the industry to a single, energy-efficient charger for all mobile phones," said Michael O'Hara, marketing director for the GSMA.

In a statement, Mitti Storckovius, director of environment, devices at Nokia said: "By supporting this industry initiative on common charging solutions, and enabling consumers to choose if they need a charger with every new device or can re-use existing ones, we can contribute further in improving the industry's environmental footprint."

The micro-USB connector will be used as the common charging interface.

Manufacturers had been under pressure from the European Commission to produce a standardised charger.

EU Industry Commissioner Guenter Verheugen told German radio station Deutsche Welle last week that there were more than 30 different kinds of charger in use across the 27-nation European Union.

The GSMA estimates the new charger will mean the potential elimination of up to 51,000 tonnes of duplicate chargers.

Facebook founder enters data row

Mark Zuckerberg started the site to help students connect

The founder of Facebook has tried to dampen a growing row over the ownership of user data on the social network.

In a blog post Mark Zuckerberg stressed that users "own their information and control who they share it with".

Concern grew when amended terms of service for the site deleted a provision that said users could remove their content at any time.

Facebook, which has 175 million users, said the changes reflected how people used the site.

Comments will remain on the site if a user deletes their account

Mr Zuckerberg said the changes were made to ensure that if a user deletes his or her account any comments or messages he or she had left on a friend's Facebook page would not also disappear.

He said: "We think this is the right way for Facebook to work, and it is consistent with how other services like email work. One of the reasons we updated our terms was to make this more clear."

He added: "In reality, we wouldn't share your information in a way you wouldn't want."

Some Facebook have created groups on the site to oppose the changes.

It is not clear just how much data, or what types of data, is retained on Facebook if a user decides to shut their account.

'Mobile health' campaign launched

ByJason Palmer Science and technologyreporter, BBC News, Barcelona

Health teams synchronize mobile devices and gather data from clinics

Three foundations have announced their intention to join in a "mobile health" effort to use mobile technology to provide better healthcare worldwide.

The UN, Vodafone, and the Rockefeller Foundation's mHealth Alliance aims to unite existing projects to improve healthcare using mobile technology.

The alliance will guide governments, NGOs, and mobile firms on how they can save lives in the developing world.

The partnership is now calling for more members to help in mHealth initiatives.

The groundbreaking "mHealth for Development" study produced by the UN/Vodafone Foundation Partnership lists more than 50 mHealth programmes from around the world, showing the benefits that mobile technology can bring to healthcare provision.

The report also outlines how such programmes offer value to the mobile industry.

That, said UN/Vodafone Foundation Partnership head Claire Thwaites, is a crucial step in an industry that like so many others stands at the edge of a downturn.

"I think there's a real need to have an alliance," Ms Thwaites told the BBC at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona.

"It's looking at scaling up and bringing governments together with NGOs and corporations, and it will commission pretty rigorous research on what the market opportunity is for mHealth, answering the question: why should a business get involved in this area?"

Bringing a "value proposition" to network operators is what could bring together the individual, small-scale efforts that so far have existed as purely humanitarian endeavours.

Andrew Gilbert, European president of Qualcomm, says that his firm has launched 29 different programmes across 19 countries, involving some 200,000 people, as part of its Wireless Reach campaign.

"It's not a charitable thing, it's very much aimed at allowing these solutions to become self-sustaining," he said.

Connecting areas

Because 3G mobile technology is cheap and easily made widespread, Mr Gilbert added, comparatively small amounts of investment can wreak great change in these so-called emerging markets.

The biggest problem is fragmentation of small projects Claire ThwaitesUN/Vodafone Foundation Partnership

"In India, there are 1m people that die each year purely because they can't get access to basic healthcare," said Dan Warren, director of technology for the GSM Association, the umbrella organisation that hosts the MWC.

"The converse angle to that is that 80% of doctors live in cities, not serving the broader rural communities where 800 million people live."

Simply connecting rural areas with city doctors using mobile broadband would allow the provision of better healthcare to more people, and many of the initiatives to date have focused on that kind of connection.

In 2007, the GSMA supported Ericsson in its Gramjyoti project, providing broadband to the remote Indian villages in the southern state of Tamil Nadu.

A band of paramedics in a mobile broadband-equipped van visited the villages and were able to cover vast areas, referring many queries back to doctors in major cities.

Fragmented market

Yet mobile technology, as much as it can multiply the efforts of city-dwelling doctors and bring diagnoses to far-flung villages, cannot make up for some shortfalls.

"There's 4 billion mobile phones now in the world, 2.2 billion of those in the developing world," said Ms Thwaites. "Compare that to 305 million PCs and then look at hospital bed numbers: there's 11 million of them in the developing world."

mHealth aims to unite projects to improve healthcare using technology

As a result, mHealth projects must also be able to provide an ounce of prevention, and the report sheds light on some particularly successful initiatives.

In South Africa, the SIMpill project integrated a sensor-equipped medicine bottle with a SIM card, ensuring that healthcare workers were advised if patients were not taking their tuberculosis medicine.

The percentages of people keeping up with their medicine rocketed from 22% to 90%.

The medium of text message can overcome sociological barriers as well.

The Project Masiluleke SMS message campaign provided people with free text messages, with the remainder of the 160 characters used to provide HIV and Aids education.

In Uganda, the Text to Change text-based HIV quiz campaign resulted in a 33% increase in calls to an HIV information hotline.

"There are a couple of interesting benefits that the project brought to light," says UN Foundation spokesperson Adele Waugaman. "One of them is the benefit of talking to people in their local language.

"Also, HIV is very stigmatised in South Africa, so people don't like to discuss it publicly. The benefit of getting these private text messages is it's a new form of access that addresses these stigmatisation and privacy concerns."

Healthcare includes improving quality of life as well. One case study from Qualcomm's Wireless Reach programme, - 3G for All Generations - shows how mobile broadband has brought the company together with the Spanish Red Cross and Vodafone Spain to provide a custom software solution for Spain's elderly.

They can have video calls with care providers, call for help, or simply have a chat, providing real social interaction without anyone needing to travel.

Each of these and the many more in the new report showcases the potential of the technology but underlines the significant stumbling block of mHealth so far.

"The biggest problem is fragmentation of small projects," says Ms Thwaites.

"A lot of the work being done on the ground is NGO- and foundation-led, but let's join those efforts with the Microsofts and the Qualcomms and the Intels and the Vodafones.

"There's a business case for it now; you have to have the experience of the NGOs on the ground talking to the big corporates out there and creating real business models, and that's why I think the mHealth Alliance can tackle that."

How The Pirate Bay sailed into infamy

The Pirate Bay was launched in 2003

The Pirate Bay was launched in 2003 and has established itself as the world's most high-profile file-sharing site. But its founders are now on trial for copyright violation and face imprisonment, if found guilty.

The Pirate Bay isn't shy about what they are doing - they are pirates, and proud of it. Their logo shows a galleon under full sail, with a cassette tape topping a skull and crossbones in a nod to the Jolly Roger.

It is an accurate characterisation, according to Swedish prosecutors, who have put three of the website's creators and one of its sponsors on trial on charges of contributing to copyright infringement.

But the defendants claim to be more Robin Hood than Bluebeard, freeing creative content from the shackles of copyright.

"There is not a cause closer to my heart," one of the founders told Wired. "This is my crusade."

The Pirate Bay website hosts BitTorrent tracker files, and claims to be the world's largest: in February 2009, they reported 22 million simultaneous users.

BitTorrent connects people so that they can share files over the internet. But users need a "tracker" link to find what they're looking for - like the index card in a library catalogue. The Pirate Bay provides an directory of these trackers, essentially becoming a library of catalogues.

It doesn't store the books, or files, itself, just the information on where to find them.

This distinction is what Pirate Bay claims will protect them under Swedish law.

Two Pirate Bay founders, Gottfrid Warg and Peter Sunde, arrive in court

"The tracker provides the user only with .torrent files which contain no copyrighted data. The actual copyrighted material is to be found on the individual machines of our users, not on our servers," says the site.

The Pirate Bay's enormous success has enraged copyright protection groups like the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). And the site's cheeky bravado rubs salt in the wounds. For example, it posts all of the cease-and-desist letters that it receives, including its sarcastic replies.

"Please don't sue us right now, our lawyer is passed out in an alley," says a reply to videogame giant Electronic Arts.

History

The site was founded by the Swedish file-sharing advocacy group Piratbyr