Dell laptops 'have cat urine smell'

30 October 2013 Last updated at 07:51 ET

A number of Dell users have complained that their Latitude 6430u Ultrabooks "smell of cat urine".

Dell engineers have ruled out biological contamination, and said the smell was not a health hazard.

The problem lay in the manufacturing process, which has now been changed, the company said.

Users affected by the issue should send their laptop back for replacement parts.

Customers first raised the issue with Dell's high-end business laptop in June.

"A few weeks ago I got a new Lattitude 6430u for work," one user called Three West complained on Dell's hardware support forum. "The machine is great, but it smells as if it was assembled near a tomcat's litter box. It is truly awful!"

Another customer, Hoteca, said: "I thought for sure one of my cats sprayed it, but there was something faulty with it so I had it replaced. The next one had the same exact issue. It's embarrassing taking it to clients because it smells so bad."

Other users said they had blamed their cats for the smell.

Dell support technicians initially suggested that users should clean the laptop air vents with compressed air, but users complained that the odour persisted.

In September, a customer known as Malioz raised a concern that the cause of the problem could be to do with the polymer used in the laptop plastics, and asked whether chemicals causing the smell could be a health hazard.

Replacement parts

After an investigation, Dell concluded that the odour was not hazardous to health.

"The smell is not related to cat urine or any other type of biological contaminant, nor is it a health hazard," Dell support technician SteveB said.

The problem was related to the manufacturing process, and had now been resolved, he said.

"If you order an E6430u now, it will not have the issue."

Dell recommended that users should send affected laptops away for a replacement palm rest and keyboard.

News of the issue spread after a link to the thread was posted to discussion site Reddit.

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Google's build-your-own-phone plan

29 October 2013 Last updated at 07:26 ET

Google-owned phone firm Motorola has announced a new project to let users customise their smartphone components.

Project Ara allows users to buy a basic phone structure and add modules such as keyboard, battery or other sensors.

Motorola has partnered with Dutch designer Dave Hakkens, who has created Phonebloks, a modular phone idea, on the project.

Experts were unsure on how big a shake-up for the mobile phone industry the customisable handsets would represent.

In a blog post, Motorola said that it had been working on the project for more than a year.

"We want to do for hardware what the Android platform has done for software - create a vibrant, third-party developer ecosystem," the firm wrote in a blog post.

"To give you the power to decide what your phone does, how it looks, where and what it's made of, how much it costs and how long you'll keep it."

The project will consist of what Motorola is calling an endoskeleton, the frame that will hold all the modules in place.

"A module can be anything from a new application processor to a new display or keyboard, an extra battery, a pulse oximeter - or something not yet thought of," the firm said.

Continue reading the main story

• It is predicted that 1.8bn phones will be sold this year, and that 1.5bn will be thrown away, or fall into permanent disuse
• A total of 5.5bn are estimated to be in use worldwide
• The environmental cost of making handsets includes mining for components
• Used phones contain hazardous elements such as lead, mercury and chlorine, but also valuable metals like gold
• Electronic waste is often exported to the developing world for processing - the work poisons workers and pollutes the environment

Source: CCS Insight, United Nations

Motorola plans to begin inviting developers to create modules in a few months time with a module developer's kit launching soon afterwards.

Motorola came across the work of Dave Hakkens, the creator of Phonebloks, while developing the project and asked him to team up with them. Phonebloks has gained much interest in recent months.

Lego phone

Mr Hakkens launched Phonebloks on crowd-promoting website Thunderclap and quickly amassed 950,000 supporters.

"We've done the deep technical work. Dave created a community," Motorola added in its blogpost.

Chris Green, principal technology analyst at the Davies Murphy Group consultancy, dismissed the project as a "gimmick".

"I don't see this as being a big deal. It is not responding to any particular demand and there is no real benefit to assembling your own device,

"The days of DIY IT, people building their own desktop PC, are gone due to falling costs of hardware," he said.

Ben Wood, a mobile expert from CCS Insight, is equally unsure of how mass market such a product can be.

"Creating a Lego-like phone seems on the face of it like a great idea but the commercial realities of delivering such a device are challenging. Consumers want small, attractive devices and a modular design makes this extremely difficult.

"It's a nice idea on paper but whether we'll ever see a commercial product remains to be seen. Right now it would be a great improvement if it was easier to replace batteries and screens but even that seems unlikely in the near term."

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GPS bullets latest US police weapon

29 October 2013 Last updated at 12:35 ET

It sounds like something out of a James Bond movie - GPS bullets that can track the location of a suspect's car.

The bullet is designed to make high-speed chases safer - enabling the authorities to track suspects without having to risk theirs or others' lives.

And in true spy fashion the system works by hitting a button inside a police car.

That triggers a lid to pop up releasing a bullet that shoots out and sticks to the car in front.

The system, dubbed Starchase, is already in use in four US states - Iowa, Florida, Arizona and Colorado - and the firm behind it is now keen to get the system into the UK.

It costs $5,000 (£3,108) to install and each bullet costs $500 (£312).

Privacy issues

Once the bullet is connected to a car, the police can stop the chase.

They can track and pinpoint a suspect's vehicle location and speed in near real time.

"This is an important tactic for the police. We've already made a difference, from rescuing little girls from human trafficking to stopping drivers under the influence," said Trevor Fischbach, president of StarChase.

Dave Allen is a senior lecturer at Leeds University and recently co-authored a report into the future of technology for the UK police.

"This sounds like interesting technology and there is a clear operational use for it. I think the costs will fall rapidly and we will see them being used routinely in the not so distant future," he told the BBC.

But, he added, there needs to be pause for thought to make sure technology is not just being used for technology's sake.

"There are other ways to track vehicles and this could raise some civil liberties issues," he said.

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Samsung woos software developers

29 October 2013 Last updated at 10:03 ET By Richard Taylor North America Technology Correspondent

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Samsung is seeking more exclusive apps for its devices

Samsung has unveiled a raft of new software tools to help developers create apps specifically designed for its devices.

The South Korean firm is releasing five new software development kits (SDKs).

It said they would make it easier to create programs that can share content on its phones, tablets and TVs.

The company announced the news in San Francisco at its first developer conference. It is already the best-selling Android device manufacturer.

Samsung wants to defend that position by ensuring new software takes advantage of its devices' proprietary features, such as support for its S Pen stylus and its Multi Window function, which allows two apps to be run in split-screen mode.

"Consumers want the best possible experience," Samsung senior vice-president Curtis Sasaki told the BBC.

"So part of our job is to get developers excited about supporting all of our new features. That ends up benefiting the consumer with much better applications.

"We're hoping that innovation happens outside of the company. That's why we have developers from 33 different countries."

Stand-out smart devices

In holding a developer conference, Samsung follows the lead of other companies including Apple, Google, Microsoft and Blackberry.

All are seeking to offer unique software features to help their platforms stand out.

In the past couple of years Samsung has overtaken Apple to become the world's top-selling smartphone maker.

But unlike Apple and Blackberry - which develop both their own hardware and the operating systems that power it - Samsung relies on a third-party OS, Android, which is engineered by Google.

The same software is also used by many of Samsung's competitors, including Sony, HTC and LG.

Although Samsung adds its own TouchWiz user interface to the system, its use of Google's OS means its customers may find it relatively easy to migrate to other Android devices when they decide to upgrade.

It also means that customers who purchase apps after they buy a device typically funnel revenue to Google rather than Samsung itself, a situation the Asian company is keen to address.

To do so, Samsung has developed a multi-pronged approach.

In terms of hardware, it is trying to build an ecosystem in which one device relies on another. This is the case with its recently launched Galaxy Gear smartwatch, which is only being made compatible with the company's Galaxy Note, Mega and S handsets.

On the software side, Samsung is entering into partnerships with developers to offer exclusives.

These include Twitter's new tablet-optimised app, which currently only works with the Galaxy Note 10.1, and Pandora's multiscreen music app, which allows Galaxy handset owners to pick songs and then play them through one of Samsung's Smart TVs.

Dawn of Tizen

The electronics giant is also working with chip maker Intel to develop a new open source operating system called Tizen.

Tizen did not feature prominently in Samsung's San Francisco event, but it is seen as part of a long-term strategy to give the company more flexibility in the way it develops relationships with its customers.

Tizen is also attractive to developers, as it promises to run software written in the HTML5 web language smoothly.

Mozilla's Firefox OS also relies on HTML5, offering developers the prospect of cross-platform compatibility in which they can write a single version of their app for multiple operating systems, helping cut costs and coding time.

HTML5-based apps can also be made to work on Android and iOS. But developers, including Google and Facebook, faced performance issues when they released products using it, and later switched to native versions.

The first handsets running Tizen were expected to be out by the end of this year, but that date has now slipped. They are expected to be aimed at the lower end of the smartphone market rather than premium models.

Samsung has previously hinted at greater ambitions for the Tizen OS, indicating it might feature in everything from TVs to systems for car infotainment (media content mixing information with entertainment).

There has also been speculation that Samsung could take another tack by "forking" away from the Google-released version of Android.

This would involve it developing its own version of Android, which would no longer offer all the search company's services.

So, for instance, it might only support the Samsung Apps and Hub marketplaces but not the Play equivalents - preventing Google from taking a cut of sales.

To date, Amazon is the only company to have succeeded in doing something similar, with its Kindle Fire tablets.

But that has come at a price. Some developers have not made the necessary tweaks to make their software compatible with Amazon's customised version of Android, Fire OS.

Samsung may feel it has the clout to pull off a similar feat in the future - but unless it can build compelling alternatives to Google's own services, it risks alienating its consumer base rather than fostering the loyalty it craves.

You can follow Richard on Twitter @RichTaylorBBC.

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ISPs told to block 21 pirate sites

29 October 2013 Last updated at 10:36 ET

UK ISPs have been asked to block 21 more websites that are believed to be linked to pirated music.

The court order follows an application by the BPI which represents the British music industry.

The list includes BeeMPS, Abmp3 and several torrent sites, which link to copyright infringing material.

Previously ISPs have been asked to block access to the Pirate Bay and seven other websites.

The new blocks must come into force by Wednesday, 30 October.

Continue reading the main story

• Abmp3
• BeeMP3
• Bomb-Mp3
• FileCrop
• FilesTube
• Mp3Juices
• eMp3World
• Mp3lemon
• Mp3Raid
• Mp3skull
• NewAlbumReleases
• Rapidlibrary
• 1337x
• BitSnoop
• ExtraTorrent
• Monova
• TorrentCrazy
• TorrentDownloads
• TorrentHound
• Torrentreactor
• Torrentz

"We asked the sites to stop infringing copyright but unfortunately they did not and we were left with little choice but to apply to the court," said Geoff Taylor, BPI chief executive.

Gareth Mead, a Virgin Media spokesman said: "As a responsible ISP we obey court orders addressed to the company."

BT also said that it would block the sites.

Casual pirates

The BPI and other copyright holders regard site blocking as a more effective tool in the fight against piracy than targeting individuals which was originally the plan under legislation passed in the Digital Economy Act.

The BPI feels that the blocks currently in force have "significantly reduced the use of those sites in the UK".

But music analyst Mark Mulligan thinks that other developments are more responsible for the decline in usage of file-sharing sites.

"As things move more towards cloud-based models and streaming, there is less use of peer-to-peer sites," he said.

"While such blocks will deter the casual pirate, there are still plenty of workarounds for those more determined to get content for free."

Much of the focus of copyright infringement has shifted from music to illegal film and TV downloads.

According to the TorrentFreak website, popular TV show Breaking Bad was downloaded 500,000 times from various sites when the final episode aired in October.

Popular torrent site isoHunt closed this month following a lengthy court battle with the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) although it appears to have been resurrected by new owners just two weeks after the shutdown.

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Smart packaging firm draws investors

29 October 2013 Last updated at 20:48 ET

A Scottish firm which has developed a smart label that warns when food is past its best is to press on with trials in the US and Europe after being backed by a range of investors.

Insignia Technologies has been given nearly £900,000 to help commercialise its "smart pigment" technology.

Its smart label is designed to change colour over time to show how long a packet of food has been open.

Insignia will now complete trials with supermarkets and packaging companies.

The investment of £865,000 in Insignia was led by Equity Gap along with Highland Venture Capital, the Scottish Investment Bank, the University of Strathclyde and a number of private investors.

The announcement comes amid rising public concern about the amount of food waste in homes and supermarkets.

Last week, Tesco revealed it had generated almost 30,000 tonnes of food waste in the first six months of 2013.

And Zero Waste Scotland estimated recently that Scottish households throw away 566,000 tonnes of food every year.

'Clear benefits'

Insignia, which is based at life sciences research centre Biocity at Newhouse in Lanarkshire, said its patented technology had "clear benefits" for shoppers, retailers, and food producers.

In a statement, it said: "Removing the confusion around how long a pack has been opened it reduces unnecessary food waste while restoring consumer confidence in certain food categories which in turn drives repeat purchase and increased sales."

Insignia chief executive David Kilshaw said the recent investment gave the company an opportunity to press on with customer trials in the UK, US and Europe and drive the business towards commercialisation.

"As importantly, the investment provides the necessary funding to drive the development program being carried out by our technical team, both with regards to the existing technologies, as well as future research projects," he added.

Kerry Sharp, director of the Scottish Investment Bank at Scottish Enterprise, commented: "Insignia Technologies is an excellent example of a Scottish company developing innovative new technology to address global problems."

Insignia will initially target the food production and processing sector, but has plans to expand into other areas including healthcare, cosmetics and pharmaceuticals.

The company was formed in August 2012 as the result of a merger between Dundee-based intelligent inks firm Insignia Pack Ltd and Novas Technologies Ltd, a University of Strathclyde spin-out company.

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Adobe hack worse than first reported

30 October 2013 Last updated at 07:43 ET

Adobe has confirmed that a recent cyber-attack compromised many more customer accounts than first reported.

The software-maker said that it now believed usernames and encrypted passwords had been stolen from about 38 million of its active users.

It added that the attackers had also accessed details from an unspecified number of accounts that had been unused for two or more years.

The firm had originally said 2.9 million accounts had been affected.

Adobe has also announced that the hackers stole parts of the source code to Photoshop, its popular picture-editing program.

It had previously revealed that the source code for its Acrobat PDF document-editing software and ColdFusion web application creation products had also been illegally accessed.

The information could allow programmers to analyse how Adobe's software works and copy its techniques.

In May, Adobe shifted several of its products to a subscription model, meaning its customers needed to register an account and provide their payment card details in order to qualify for upgrades.

Passwords reset

A spokeswoman for Adobe defended the fact its initial statement did not reveal the full scale of the issue.

"In our public disclosure, we communicated the information we could validate," she said.

"As we have been going through the process of notifying customers whose Adobe IDs and passwords we believe to be involved, we have been eliminating invalid records. Any number communicated in the meantime would have been inaccurate."

She added that the firm still believed that encrypted credit and debit card numbers, product expiration dates and other information relating to customer orders had only been compromised in the case of the original 2.9 million users identified.

Regarding the additional 35.1 million users, the company thinks only customer IDs and encrypted passwords have been affected.

It has since reset the passwords as a precaution against the encryption being cracked. However, this would not protect its customers from the threat of having their accounts on other services attacked if they used the same usernames and passwords.

According to Brian Krebs, a security blogger who first reported the breach, a file was uploaded to a hacking forum last weekend that appeared to contain millions of usernames and hashed passwords taken from Adobe.

The fact the passwords had been hashed means that they had been converted into a string of characters using a process that cannot be reversed to reveal the original text.

The spokeswoman for Adobe said the document had since been removed from the site at the firm's request, and added that her company had seen no indication of unauthorised activity on any of the accounts involved in the incident.

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Germans in US talks over spy claims

30 October 2013 Last updated at 07:55 ET

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A summary of US spying allegations brought about by Edward Snowden's leak of classified documents

A German delegation of intelligence officials is in Washington for talks at the White House on Wednesday following claims that the US monitored Chancellor Angela Merkel's mobile phone.

The chancellor's foreign policy adviser and Germany's intelligence co-ordinator will hold talks at the White House.

The head of US intelligence has defended the monitoring of foreign leaders as a key goal of operations.

The US is facing growing anger over reports it spied on its allies abroad.

It has also been reported that the National Security Agency (NSA) monitored French diplomats in Washington and at the UN, and that it conducted surveillance on millions of French and Spanish telephone calls, among other operations against US allies.

Continue reading the main story

Analysis

The measure of how seriously Chancellor Merkel takes the matter is that she has sent two of the most important people in her immediate circle of advisers: her foreign policy adviser, Christoph Heusgen, and the German government's intelligence coordinator, Guenter Heiss.

Next week, the heads of the actual spying agencies go to meet their opposite numbers in Washington.

This week's meetings are more about how to rebuild trust, while next week's agenda will be more about the detail of how the two countries' agencies might or might not work more in harmony.

The US has an agreement to share intelligence with Britain, New Zealand, Australia and Canada. It is not clear if Germany wants to be part of that.

There have been commentators in America saying that Germany is in a different position from the other countries mentioned because its future relationship with China is not clear.

On this argument, Germany's close trade links with China might make it loath to support the US in any future trans-Pacific confrontation.

However, NSA director Gen Keith Alexander said "the assertions... that NSA collected tens of millions of phone calls are completely false".

The revelations stem from documents leaked by fugitive ex-US intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, who now lives in Russia and is wanted in the US in connection with the unauthorised disclosures.

German media have reported that the US bugged German Chancellor Angela Merkel's phone for more than a decade - and that the surveillance only ended a few months ago.

Germany's delegation includes Christoph Heusgen, Mrs Merkel's foreign policy adviser, and Guenter Heiss, the secret service co-ordinator, said Caitlin Hayden, a spokeswoman for the US National Security Council.

US National Security Adviser Susan Rice, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and Lisa Monaco, assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism, are also expected to take part.

Ms Hayden said the meeting was part of the agreement reached between President Barack Obama and Chancellor Merkel last week to deepen US-German cooperation on intelligence matters.

'Basic tenet'

The meeting comes just hours after Mr Clapper and Gen Alexander testified before the intelligence panel of the House of Representatives on Tuesday.

Continue reading the main story

How intelligence is gathered

• Accessing internet company data
• Tapping fibre optic cables
• Eavesdropping on phones
• Targeted spying

Gen Alexander said much of the data cited by non-US news outlets was actually collected by European intelligence services and later shared with the NSA.

Meanwhile, Mr Clapper told lawmakers that discerning foreign leaders' intentions was "a basic tenet of what we collect and analyse".

He said that foreign allies spy on US officials and intelligence agencies as a matter of routine.

Mr Clapper said the torrent of disclosures about American surveillance had been extremely damaging and that he anticipated more.

But he said there was no other country that had the magnitude of oversight that the US had, and that any mistakes that had been made were human or technical.

The BBC's Jonny Dymond in Washington says if anyone was expecting apologies or embarrassment from the leaders of America's intelligence community, they were in for a disappointment.

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James Clapper said knowing what foreign leaders were thinking was critical to US policymaking

The intelligence pair were not given a tough time by the committee but that sentiment is turning within Congress toward tightening up the reach of American intelligence agencies, our correspondent says.

Meanwhile, the spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin has denied that Moscow used free USB memory sticks and mobile phone charging cables to spy on delegates attending the G20 Summit in St Petersburg last September.

Reports in two Italian newspapers suggested that the USB sticks and cables had bugs on them that could steal data from the delegates.

Spokesman Dmitri Peskov said the reports were an attempt to distract from the problems between European countries and the US.

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India to impose email restrictions

30 October 2013 Last updated at 10:31 ET

India is planning to impose a ban on the use of foreign cloud-based email services to send official communications, before the end of the year.

It would prevent civil servants using Gmail, Yahoo! or Outlook.com.

Instead they would be required to use a service provided by the country's own National Informatics Centre (NIC).

The move follows the publication of leaks about US cyber-spying operations.

According to documents given to the Guardian and subsequently reported by The Hindu newspaper in June, 6.3 billion pieces of information were collected from India's computer and telephone networks over the course of a month by the US National Security Agency (NSA), making it the fifth most "intensively watched" country.

Spying allegations

India's communications and IT minister first announced his intention to restrict which email services officials could use in August.

He added that staff working outside the country should use virtual private networks and one-time passwords when accessing NIC servers to further protect themselves.

"It is imperative in view of the security concerns that exist in other countries,'' Kapil Sibal said at the time.

One of the minister's officials has now confirmed the plan is close to implementation.

"Our effort will be to operationalise the policy by mid or end-December," said J Satyanarayana, secretary at the Department of Electronics and Information Technology, at a conference in Delhi.

Brazil's anger

India is not the only country implementing such measures.

Earlier this month Brazil's president confirmed her country planned to set up its own secure, encrypted email service to "prevent possible espionage".

The move would prevent the NSA and GCHQ (the UK Government Communications Headquarters) monitoring locally sent and received messages unless Brazilians allowed them access to their servers or if the emails were sent to an account belonging to a non-protected service.

President Dilma Rousseff, in a speech at the UN. described the suspected interception of Brazilian diplomats' data as "a breach of international law".

However, India's ministers have been less vocal about the issue.

"This is not scrutiny and access to actual messages," said India's External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid in July when questioned about the alleged surveillance of his country.

"It is only computer analysis of patterns of calls and emails that are being sent. It is not actually snooping specifically on content of anybody's message or conversation."

Since then there have been allegations that the US has tapped German Chancellor Angela Merkel's phone for more than a decade and monitored dozens of other world leaders.

However, when questioned about the matter a spokesman for India's prime minister Manmohan Singh told the BBC last week: "We have no information and no cause for concern."

India is in the process of creating its own data intercept scheme called the Centralised Monitoring System.

Local telecoms operators have been told they must co-operate with the surveillance effort, which involves a variety of local security agencies.

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Twitter gives photos pre-float tweak

30 October 2013 Last updated at 11:50 ET

Twitter has redesigned the way posts to the social network are displayed to allow images and video previews to be shown in its timeline feed.

Previously users had to click on a link to see the associated media.

The move coincides with efforts by the company to promote itself to investors before the flotation of its shares.

The move may help it compete for adverts against other services. But the news was only given a cautious welcome by one industry insider.

"More pictures and video should mean more engaging content, which could in turn be good news for advertisers," said Bob Wootton, director of media at Isba, a body that represents British advertisers.

"But what is pivotal here is whether the redesign makes for a good user experience."

Twitter suggested the move had benefits beyond promoting company brands, and described its new look as "more visual and more engaging".

Photos and screenshots belonging to videos posted to its Vine network now appear in oblong boxes, which expand to fill much of the screen when tapped or clicked on.

The change is being applied to the US company's iPhone and Android apps, as well as to its web-based service.

"This will enable Twitter to run more traditional picture-based adverts in users' newsfeeds, boosting potential revenue growth in the run up to flotation," said Ian Maude, of media consultancy Enders Analysis.

"Of course, with any such move there's a risk of a backlash. In this case people will see fewer tweets on their screen at once. But we're all used to scrolling down through our feeds and I doubt there will be any major negative reaction."

TWTR ticker

The redesign is not the only advertiser-friendly change being pursued by the company before its share sale.

Twitter has also announced that it will introduce its Promoted Products service in South Korea this week.

The facility allows advertisers to purchase a tweet that is labelled as an advert, which then appears at the top of relevant search results. The company tries to ensure they are delivered to the most relevant people by analysing user behaviour on its network.

The service is already offered to advertisers in the US and the UK, among other countries.

Twitter has said it will price its shares at between $17 and $20, valuing the company at about $11bn (£6.8bn). That compares with the $100bn valuation Facebook received when it floated in May.

Trading on the New York Stock Exchange is expected to begin on 7 November under the ticker symbol TWTR.

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