Apple offers kid apps fee settlement

26 February 2013 Last updated at 07:24 ET

Apple has proposed paying compensation to US parents whose children made in-app purchases without their permission.

The iPod-maker had been sued over allegations it had failed to "adequately" publicise that child-targeted games in its App Store included the facility.

A judge will consider the proposal on 1 March.

Apple acknowledged it would need to tell more than 23 million iTunes account holders they might qualify.

Affected users would receive an email offering at least $5 (£3.20) in credit if they confirmed a minor had charged their account without permission, and that they had not already had the fee deleted after making a complaint.

15-minute window

The legal action dates back to April 2011 and allegations made by a California-based man that his youngest daughter had racked up a series of charges without his knowledge.

Garen Meguerian said his nine-year-old's actions had cost him approximately $200 after she bought toxin, gems and other "game currencies" within apps including Zombie Cafe, Treasury Story and City Story,

His lawyer later noted that some titles in Apple's store allowed children to buy more than $100 worth of items in a single click without entering a password. Apple took a cut of each in-app sale.

The case was later combined with other parents making similar claims.

By this point Apple had updated its mobile operating system to tackle the issue.

Prior to iOS 4.3 if a user entered their password to make a purchase their device would allow unlimited further sales without authentication for a 15-minute period.

After the software release all in-app transactions required a password.

But although Apple offered refunds on a case-by-case basis, it did not publicise an official compensation policy.

Time limit

Apple's proposed settlement was first reported by news site Law360.

Apple's proposal suggests affected parties can:

• Email in their details to qualify for a $5 iTunes credit
• Request the $5 in cash if they no longer have an iTunes account
• Provide full details of each in-app purchase to be reimbursed in full in credit or cash, for totals of at least $30

Apple indicates it will give claimants 180 days to submit their requests and will also award Mr Meguerian and four other named plaintiffs an additional $1,500 service award.

The plaintiffs have accepted the proposal and it is now set to be signed off by a judge in San Jose's courthouse on Friday.

Apple declined to comment when asked whether it might consider offering a similar deal to users outside the US.

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Facebook scrubs shooting 'tributes'

26 February 2013 Last updated at 09:36 ET

Facebook has removed some pages dedicated to last year's Sandy Hook primary school shooting, following complaints.

Dozens of "tributes" were added to the social network following the December attack in Newtown, Connecticut, in which 20 children and six adults died.

The family of one of the victims had raised concern some pages were being used to spread conspiracy theories.

Politicians had also complained that some posters appeared to be scammers.

Senator Richard Blumenthal, Senator Chris Murphy and Congresswoman Elizabeth Esty sent a letter to Facebook's chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg at the end of last week calling for action, after a local newspaper publicised the story.

A statement from Facebook said: "We have created a new, streamlined, customised process with dedicated staff to allow concerns specific to the Sandy Hook tragedy to be addressed directly and immediately, while also recognising that people across the country want to express grief for a terrible national tragedy."

Conspiracy theories

Greenwich Time reported last week that the mother of Victoria Soto - a teacher killed while trying to protect her students - had said she had previously failed to convince Facebook to delete some of the pages.

She had said that her daughter would have hated some of the unauthorised pages set up in her name.

"I understand some people have good intentions [and] some people say she is a public figure, but, to me, she is my daughter that was put in this awful position [and] she would never want to be a public figure and she would not want people making pages in her name," Donna Soto was quoted as saying.

The mother maintains her own Facebook page dedicated to the memory of her daughter.

Kaitlin Roig, a teacher at the school, who survived the attack, also noted that some posts had claimed the shootings had been staged, with one conspiracy theorist suggesting Ms Roig bore a strong resemblance to a known "crisis actress".

In the letter sent by the politicians to Facebook, they noted more than 100 tribute pages had been set up in Victoria Soto's name or likeness alone.

"Many give the appearance they were created by loved ones in the names of the victims," they wrote.

"Unfortunately, many of these pages have become vehicles for harassment, intimidation and possibly financial fraud.

"Pages providing platforms for people to violate the privacy of families as they grieve, or seek financial gain through soliciting donations under false pretences, or generating Facebook 'likes' for marketing purposes, should not be given quarter in the Facebook community."

The politicians noted the site's own terms and conditions banned users from setting up personal accounts in someone else's name and from posting comments that "intimidate or harass".

'Vigilant' checks

A search of the social network by the BBC revealed that dozens of Community, Public Figure and Organisation pages dedicated to Ms Soto still remain online.

However, Facebook confirmed it had "refined" its procedures to help it address complaints related to the shooting.

"On Sunday, Facebook briefed Connecticut Attorney General George Jepsen, about our efforts to protect the families," a spokesman said.

"We continue to work closely with his office, the families, and the foundation representing the victims of Sandy Hook to ensure that we respond as quickly as possible to concerns.

"For the past few months, our rapid response team has acted swiftly to remove inappropriate materials flagged by the foundation and the families. We will continue to be vigilant."

According to Greenwich Time the news has been welcomed by Donna Soto.

"I am pleased that Facebook has agreed to do the right thing," she said.

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Robot designed to care for elderly

26 February 2013 Last updated at 09:57 ET

A robot designed to help care for elderly people has been invented at the University of Salford.

"Carebot" P37 S65 can be programmed to remind them to take medication and exercise, answer questions and even tell them jokes.

Researcher Antonio Espingardeiro, who developed the robot, said it could help care home staff and improve residents' quality of life.

It can recognise faces and recall the requirements of each patient, he said.

The robot can also be programmed with speech therapy and object recognition exercises to help people with dementia.

It is capable of acting as a video link to keep in touch with doctors and family, playing games and giving updates on the news.

The robot, standing at about the height of a person, can also carry meals to residents.

Mr Espingardeiro is looking for investment to perfect the robot before selling it.

He said: "Care of the elderly is a difficult issue but as populations age we're facing a difficult choice.

"I've already established that robots can provide meaningful interaction to supplement human contact, and from my work with care homes I've seen first-hand how both staff and residents benefit from their presence."

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Scientists show off stretchy battery

26 February 2013 Last updated at 11:39 ET By Jason Palmer Science and technology reporter, BBC News

Researchers have demonstrated a flat, "stretchy" battery that can be pulled to three times its size without a loss in performance.

While flexible and stretchable electronics have been on the rise, powering them with equally stretchy energy sources has been problematic.

The new idea in Nature Communications uses small "islands" of energy-storing materials dotted on a stretchy polymer.

The study also suggests the batteries can be recharged wirelessly.

In a sense, the battery is a latecomer to the push toward flexible, stretchable electronics. A number of applications have been envisioned for flexible devices, from implantable health monitors to roll-up displays.

But consumer products that fit the bendy, stretchy description are still very few - in part, because there have been no equally stretchy, rechargeable power sources for them.

"Batteries are particularly challenging because, unlike electronics, it's difficult to scale down their dimensions without significantly reducing performance," said senior author of the study John Rogers of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

S for stretch

"We have explored various methods, ranging from radio frequency energy harvesting to solar power," he told BBC News.

In recent years, Prof Rogers worked with colleagues at Northwestern University, focusing on stretchy electronics of various sorts made using what they termed a "pop-up" architecture. The idea uses tiny, widely spaced tiny circuit elements embedded within a stretchy polymer and connected with wires that "popped up" as the polymer was stretched.

But batteries do not lend themselves to this idea; traditionally they are much larger than other circuit elements. They could be made from smaller elements wired together, but to create a small battery with sufficient power, the elements must be spaced more closely than those of the pop-up circuits.

The team's new idea was to use "serpentine" connections - wires that loop back on themselves in a repeating S shape, with that string of loops itself looped into an S shape.

Stretching out the polymer in which the tiny solar cells were embedded first stretches out the larger S; as it is stretched further, the smaller turns straighten - but do not become taut, even as the polymer was stretched to three times its normal size.

The team says the stretchy battery can be charged "inductively" - that is, wirelessly over a short distance. Prof Rogers said that the uses for such batteries and the stretchy circuits they power were myriad.

"The most important applications will be those that involve devices integrated with the outside of the body, on the skin, for health, wellness and performance monitoring," he explained.

However, the prototype batteries described in the paper were only run through 20 charge/discharge cycles, and Prof Rogers said that "additional development efforts to improve the lifetime will be required for commercialisation".

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'Six strikes' piracy crackdown begins

26 February 2013 Last updated at 13:17 ET

A "six-strikes" campaign to combat internet piracy has begun in the US.

Five of the country's leading internet service providers (ISPs) are taking part in the Copyright Alert System (CAS), which they say is designed to educate rather than punish users.

Suspected persistent copyright infringers will receive six warnings, after which their internet access may be limited but not cut off.

Campaigners are calling for an independent body to oversee the scheme.

One group, called Demand Progress, has warned that ISPs "want to serve as judge, jury, and executioner".

But organisers have indicated that once users received six alerts they would be considered outside the system. In other words, they are unwilling to change their behaviour, so nothing else would be done.

Slowdowns

The scheme was supposed to launch last year, but organisers announced a last-minute delay, which they blamed on Hurricane Sandy disrupting final tests.

Verizon, Time Warner, Cablevision, Comcast and AT&T are all taking part in the initiative, which is co-ordinated by the Center For Copyright Information (CCI) - a group representing rights holders in the media industries.

"Over the course of the next several days... our content partners will begin sending notices of alleged peer-to-peer copyright infringement to ISPs, and the ISPs will begin forwarding those notices in the form of copyright alerts to consumers," announced the CCI's executive director Jill Lesser.

"Consumers whose accounts have been used to share copyrighted content over P2P networks illegally (or without authority) will receive alerts that are meant to educate rather than punish, and direct them to legal alternatives. And for those consumers who believe they received alerts in error, an easy-to-use process will be in place for them to seek independent review of the alerts they received."

The ISPs are being left to determine their own responses to users who either ignore six warnings or fail to challenge the evidence against them and it is not yet clear exactly how each will act.

Verizon initially said in a FAQ that it would slow users' access speed down to 256Kbps, "a little faster than typical dial-up speed" for up to three days - but later deleted the information from its site.

The original version can still be read via a snapshot Google took of the page. A spokeswoman was unable to explain the change at this time.

Time Warner said it planned to limit internet access to a pop-up showing a telephone number which the user must call. After a conversation with a customer service representative their service would be restored, it said.

AT&T said it would require its uses to "review materials on an online portal that will educate them on the distribution of copyrighted content online" after four alerts before they could continue to use the internet.

"Because customer privacy is paramount, we will not share or release our customers' names or other personally identifiable information to the content owners," Brent Olson, AT&T's vice president of public policy added.

UK delay

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has raised several concerns about the scheme.

It notes that the CCI states that "subscribers are responsible for making sure their internet account is not used for copyright infringement" and that the ISPs urge users to restrict access to their wi-fi connections.

"This seems designed to undermine the open wi-fi movement," said the EFF, referring to efforts to encourage users to share their wi-fi connections with others. It is suggested that free internet access can make locations more tourist-friendly and aid the emergency services.

"Open wireless is widely recognised to be tremendously beneficial to the public."

It added that it believed an independent body should vet the process.

Meanwhile the UK has favoured a proposed "three strikes" policy.

Under telecom regulator Ofcom's draft code, users who receive three warnings within 12 months would have anonymous information about their activities passed to copyright holders which could then seek court orders to discover their identities.

The policy had been due to come into effect in March 2014, but has been delayed after a House of Lords committee queried whether the Digital Economy Act - which the code is part of - complied with Treasury rules.

The government subsequently withdrew the legislation.

A spokesman for the Department for Culture Media and Sport said it would "reintroduce the statutory instrument as soon as possible". The first warning letters are unlikely to sent before the second half of 2014 as a consequence.

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Smartphone app tests users' urine

27 February 2013 Last updated at 07:09 ET By Jane Wakefield Technology reporter

A smartphone app that uses a phone's camera to analyse urine and check for a range of medical conditions has been shown off at the TED (Technology, Education and Design) conference in Los Angeles.

Uchek tests for 25 different health issues and could help diagnose and treat diseases in the developing world.

Increasingly mobile health is being talked up as a lifesaver in such areas.

The app is the brainchild of TED fellow Myshkin Ingawale.

"I wanted to get medical health checks into users' hands," he told the BBC.

Urine can be tested for the presence of 10 elements - including glucose, proteins and nitrites.

These can be used to pinpoint a range of conditions including diabetes, urinary tract infects, cancers, liver problems as well as being used to keep track of general health.

Users need to collect their urine and dip a standard test strip into it.

Colour chart

The strip is placed on a mat - supplied with the app and intended to normalise the colours on the stick regardless of lighting conditions where the photo is taken.

Once the photo is taken the app will analyse which, if any, condition, the colour applies to.

Continue reading the main story

There needs to be a rethink in the way healthcare is delivered to people"

End Quote Myshkin Ingawale TED fellow

The app will be available from Apple's app store from the end of March for $20 (£13), which includes the cost of the mat and five dipsticks.

As well as being used by individuals, the app will be put through its paces in the King Edward Memorial hospital in Mumbai, India.

There, its accuracy will be tested against the laboratory machines more normally used to test urine.

"If it does well we can make it available to mobile clinics. Instead of buying a $10,000 machine they can use their existing smartphones," he said.

Currently Uchek is only available for iPhones but versions for Android will be coming soon, Mr Ingawale told the BBC.

While such smartphones may be beyond the budget of many in the developing world, he is hopeful that will not remain the case for ever.

"I'm calling you from a $100 Android phone which I bought from a street market in India. In future smartphones will be even cheaper and all phones will be smart," he said.

Grassroots healthcare

According to the GSMA, the organisation which represents the mobile industry, mobile health service could help save one million lives in Africa over the next five years.

"Mobile health has immense potential to improve people's lives since it increases patient access to quality healthcare whilst reducing costs," said Michael O'Hara, chief marketing officer at the GSMA.

"These positive impacts will only grow as the mobile and health industries collaborate on new connected innovations," he added.

Health apps that allow users to test their heartbeat, monitor sleep patterns and keep a check on a variety of conditions are growing in popularity.

"There is huge potential to get the world of bio-chemistry out to users via apps," said Mr Ingawale.

Last year at TED, Mr Ingawale showed off a blood test that could be taken without drawing blood.

The test was designed to prevent women dying from anaemia and was designed to be easy for healthcare workers - often untrained - to use in the field.

Mr Ingawale is a campaigner for more grassroots medicine, allowing users to play more of a role in their own healthcare.

"There needs to be a rethink in the way healthcare is delivered to people," he said.

"It needs to be far more decentralised. It can become a consumerist movement in the same way that Wikipedia has been for information."

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NY photo blogger wins DKNY apology

27 February 2013 Last updated at 08:26 ET

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How a New York photo project became a web sensation

Fashion giant DKNY has apologised to a US street photographer after hundreds of his photos were used in a Bangkok shop window display without permission.

Brandon Stanton, who runs the popular blog Humans of New York, turned down an earlier DKNY bid to license his photos for $15,000 (£10,000).

After a fan informed Stanton about the Bangkok display, DKNY said the store had "inadvertently" used the pictures.

The fashion firm apologised and agreed to pay $25,000 to a Brooklyn charity.

Brandon Stanton's Humans of New York, which began as a Tumblr-based photoblog, has become wildly popular.

Almost 600,000 people now follow his daily portraits of street life in New York City via Facebook.

His work was clearly noticed at the headquarters of DKNY, the youth-oriented line run by designer Donna Karan.

Writing on Facebook after he was informed that the DKNY store in Bangkok had used 300 of his photos, Stanton said he had refused an offer from the label to use his work in a promotional campaign, Reflections of New York.

"They offered me $15,000. A friend in the industry told me that $50 per photo was not nearly enough to receive from a company with hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue. So I asked for more money. They said 'no'."

Disappointed that his work had been used without permission, Stanton asked his legions of followers to pressure the fashion giant into donating $100,000 to the YMCA in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn.

"These photos were used without my knowledge, and without compensation," Stanton wrote.

"That donation would sure help a lot of deserving kids go to summer camp. I'll let you guys know if it happens."

In a statement posted on its own Facebook page, DKNY said it had always been "inspired by and incorporated authentic New York into its imagery".

"We have immense respect for Brandon Stanton aka Humans of New York and approached him to work with us on this visual program. He declined to participate in the project.

"However, it appears that inadvertently the store in Bangkok used an internal mock up containing some of Mr Stanton's images... We apologize for this error and are working to ensure that only the approved artwork is used."

"DKNY has always supported the arts and we deeply regret this mistake."

The firm's contrition was not universally accepted online, with commenters on both Facebook pages expressing disbelief that the poster was printed and shipped to Bangkok by mistake.

The photographer himself refused to get drawn into a wider debate about copyright infringement online, instead challenging his social media followers to help raise an extra $75,000 for the YMCA.

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Music piracy 'down' as revenues rise

27 February 2013 Last updated at 08:34 ET

Online music piracy across the world "declined significantly" in 2012, according to a new report.

The NPD Group said last year the number of users on peer-to-peer (P2P) illegally downloading music fell by 17% - down to 21 million worldwide.

The market research firm cited an increased use of legal streaming music sites as being behind the drop.

It comes as a separate report noted that global music revenues had risen for the first time since 1999.

The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) said that accelerating digital music sales had caused a 0.3% upturn in global revenues - a total of $16.5bn (£10.9bn). A small boost, but it is the first year of growth for well over a decade.

"It is hard to remember a year for the recording industry that has begun with such a palpable buzz in the air," said Frances Moore, chief executive of IFPI.

"These are hard-won successes for an industry that has innovated, battled and transformed itself over a decade.

"They show how the music industry has adapted to the internet world, learned how to meet the needs of consumers and monetised the digital marketplace."

Targeted campaign

The NPD Group's report, based on its annual study of music consumers, said that at P2P file sharing's peak, in 2005, as many as 33 million people used the services - one in five of all internet users aged 13 and older.

Continue reading the main story

1. Carly Rae Jepsen, Call Me Maybe, 12.5 million units
2. Gotye, Somebody That I Used To Know, 11.8 million
3. PSY, Gangnam Style, 9.7 million
4. Fun, We Are Young, 9.6 million
5. Maroon 5, Payphone, 9.1 million
6. Michel Telo, Ai Se Eu Te Pego, 7.2 million
7. Nicki Minaj, Starships, 7.2 million
8. Maroon 5, One More Night, 6.9 million
9. Flo Rida, Whistle, 6.6 million
10. Flo Rida, Wild Ones, 6.5 million

Source: IFPI

But in 2012 that number was measured as being down to 21 million people.

The report said as many as 40% of people who used illegal music services in 2011 stopped doing so in 2012.

Of those, 20% said this was due to the fact the illegal service they were using had been shut down, or had contained spyware and viruses.

More than half the users who stopped using illegal sites said they now preferred legal services such as the UK-headquartered Spotify.

The music industry has undertaken a sizable campaign over several years to see illegal sites and services put out of business.

In the UK, the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) took action to the courts, obtaining a court order to force internet service providers to block access to file-sharing site The Pirate Bay.

The Pirate Party UK - a political group that campaigns for an "open" internet - launched a proxy service to allow UK users to circumvent the block of The Pirate Bay, but that too was closed following legal threats from the BPI.

"In recent years, we've seen less P2P activity, because the music industry has successfully used litigation to shut down [P2P client] Limewire and other services," said Russ Crupnick, senior vice president of NPD.

"Many of those who continued to use P2P services reported poor experiences, due to rampant spyware and viruses on illegal P2P sites."

Removing barriers

Despite the seemingly good news, controversial measures to curb piracy further are still taking place.

On Tuesday, the "six strikes" campaign - where users engaging in piracy are given six warnings before action is taken - came into force in the US.

The music industry has also started to refocus its efforts by targeting those who make profiting from illegal music possible, such as advertisers, as well as the piracy sites themselves.

Elsewhere, search engines like Google have been pressured to demote piracy websites in their search results.

More needs to be done on that front, IFPI said: "Searches for the names of popular artists followed by the term "mp3" still return a large number of results for illegal sources on the first page.

"In August 2012, Google announced it would take into account the number of valid copyright notices it receives when returning search results.

"That was a welcome step in principle but unfortunately has not been translated into results."

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Holograph help for firefighters

27 February 2013 Last updated at 09:00 ET

Infra-red holography could be more useful than the camera imagery currently used by firefighters searching for people trapped in burning buildings, researchers in Italy say.

They have built an imaging system that uses an infra-red laser to penetrate areas of thick smoke and flames.

The beam reflects off any objects, including people, within the area.

That data is then decoded by an imager to create a 3D model of everything inside the room.

Infra-red (IR) camera monitors currently used by firefighters require lenses that can be blinded by intense fire, said researcher Pietro Ferraro, of the Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR) Istituto Nazionale di Ottica in Italy.

"IR cameras cannot 'see' objects or humans behind flames because of the need for a zoom lens that concentrates the rays on the sensor to form the image," he said.

"It became clear to us that we had in our hands a technology that could be exploited by emergency responders and firefighters at a fire scene to see through smoke without being blinded by flames, a limitation of existing technology."

Mr Ferraro added that fire victims who were moving could also be picked up by the system.

"Perhaps most importantly, we demonstrated for the first time that a holographic recording of a live person can be achieved even while the body is moving."

Other potential applications include monitoring breathing and cardiac activity, said Mr Ferraro - but the next step for the researchers was to make the technology more portable.

The research has been published in journal Optics Express.

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3D see-through computer revealed

27 February 2013 Last updated at 11:20 ET By Jane Wakefield Technology reporter

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A video from MIT Media Lab/Microsoft Applied Sciences shows how the technology works

A transparent computer that allows users to reach inside and touch digital content has been unveiled at the TED conference in Los Angeles.

TED fellow Jinha Lee has been working on the SpaceTop 3D desktop in collaboration with Microsoft.

Allowing people to interact with machines in the same way they do with solid objects could make computing much more intuitive, he told the BBC.

He can see the system coming into general use within a decade.

The system consists of a transparent LED display with built-in cameras, which track the user's gestures and eye movements.

Human touch

The design was inspired by what he sees as a human need to interact with things.

"Spatial memory, where the body intuitively remembers where things are, is a very human skill," he said.

Translating this to the digital world will enable people to use computers more easily as well as complete more complex tasks.

"If you are working on a document you can pick it up and flip through it like a book," he told the BBC.

For more precise tasks, where hand gestures are not accurate, there is a touchpad. It will allow, for example architects to manipulate 3D models.

"The gap between what the designer thinks and what the computer can do is huge. If you can put your hands inside the computer and handle digital content you can express ideas more completely," he said.

Not everyone is convinced by the Minority Report-style future that will see us interact with machine via touch.

In an interview with The Awl website designer Christian Brown said: "Human hands and fingers are good at feeling texture and detail, and good at gripping things - neither of which touch interfaces take advantage of.

"The real future of interfaces will take advantage of our natural abilities to tell the difference between textures, to use our hands to do things without looking at them."

Magic ball

Mr Lee, a graduate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is currently serving his military obligation in South Korea at Samsung Electronics, where he is working on TV interfaces.

At TED, which stands for Technology, Education and Design, he also demonstrated other projects he is working on, including ZeroN, a floating ball, which can literally be placed in midair.

It utilises electromagnetism to stay afloat and when coupled with software can be used for a variety of applications.

"It could be used in schools," said Mr Lee.

"If kids are learning about planetary movement they can pick up a model of a planet and place it in orbit. That is tangible and makes the learning experience so much more powerful."

He is also working on an augmented reality shopping app, which combined with a virtual reality handset would allow users to try on items such as watches from online shops.

For Mr Lee the ultimate goal is to unite the digital and physical worlds.

"I don't want to look back on my life and find that I have just been typing on a keyboard," he said.

"It is one of our key human skills to be able to interact with 3D spaces and I wanted to let people do the same with digital content."

Computers are becoming more user-friendly as the gap between the real world and technology closes.

"With the first computers there was a huge gap but that gap is getting smaller with things such as touchscreens," he said.

"The only boundary left is our imagination."

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