Launch of world's biggest 'ship'

4 December 2013 Last updated at 09:03 ET

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Shell has published this footage of Prelude's hull being tested at a shipyward in Geoje, South Korea

A floating vessel that is longer than the Empire State Building is high has taken to the water for the first time.

The hull of Shell's Prelude was floated in South Korea.

When fully built, Prelude will be the largest floating facility ever created, weighing more than 600,000 tonnes.

It would be used to help in the production of natural gas from 2017, Shell said, and would operate for 25 years off Australia's north-west coast.

The area has a yearly cyclone season from November to April, but Prelude has been designed to withstand such conditions. It is hoped the facility will be able to produce enough gas to power a city the size of Hong Kong.

Despite appearances, Prelude cannot strictly be described as a ship as it needs to be towed to its destination rather than travelling under its own power.

Shell has not disclosed how much the vessel will cost, but industry analysts told Reuters that it would be likely to command a price of between $10.8bn and $12.6bn (£6.6bn - £7.7bn).

Not content with Prelude's record-breaking size, Shell said it had already started work on an even bigger facility.

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Roaming offer extended by 3 to US

4 December 2013 Last updated at 05:35 ET

Customers of mobile operator 3 are now able to use their UK allowance of data, texts and calls in the US and 10 other countries.

The offer means that UK users can avoid high roaming charges that often occur when travelling overseas.

The extension to the scheme, which was announced on Wednesday, means the US, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Macau have all been added to the list.

The company is also planning to provide 4G mobile services for customers.

Frustration

Roaming charges are a significant gripe among mobile users, most of whom are forced to turn off the function - reducing the effectiveness of a smartphone - when on their travels.

The European Commission is proposing to scrap mobile phone roaming charges across Europe.

Now, 3 has negotiated a deal with two US networks that reduces the charges they levy. It also ensures any 3 customer travelling to the US will be forced onto those networks, allowing these customer to use their UK allowance, and avoiding any unintended bill shocks.

"We want customers to get the most out of their devices at home or abroad," said Dave Dyson, chief executive of 3.

"Adding the USA to the mix is great news for our customers and shows our commitment to giving them the best experience in what is a popular destination."

He added that he was "comfortable" with the fact that 3 was the last of the major operators to introduce 4G mobile services.

He said the company would not charge a premium for this service. All customers with a 4G device would be connected automatically by the end of March, he added.

On Tuesday, 3 was among four operators to sign an agreement with the UK government to protect customers from "sky-high bills" if their phones are stolen.

EE, Virgin Media and Vodafone joined 3 in agreeing to a new cap on the maximum customers would be expected to pay.

The firms will also tell people of mid-contract price rises, and phone users will then have the option of breaking off the contract without penalty.

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Two million stolen passwords online

4 December 2013 Last updated at 07:44 ET

More than two million stolen passwords used for sites such as Facebook, Google and Yahoo and other web services have been posted online.

The details had probably been uploaded by a criminal gang, security experts said.

It is suspected the data was taken from computers infected with malicious software that logged key presses.

It is not known how old the details are - but the experts warned that even out-dated information posed a risk.

"We don't know how many of these details still work," said security researcher Graham Cluley. "But we know that 30-40% of people use the same passwords on different websites.

"That's certainly something people shouldn't do."

Criminal botnet

The site containing the passwords was discovered by researchers working for security firm Trustwave.

In a blog post outlining its findings, the team said it believed the passwords had been harvested by a large botnet - dubbed Pony - that had scooped up information from thousands of infected computers worldwide.

A botnet is a network of machines controlled by criminals thanks to malicious software being installed on to computers without the owner's knowledge.

Often, criminal gangs will use botnets to steal large amounts of personal data, which can then be sold on to others or held to ransom.

In this instance, it was log-in information for popular social networks that featured most heavily.

The site - written in Russian - claimed to offer 318,121 username and password combinations for Facebook. Other services, including Google, Yahoo, Twitter and LinkedIn, all had entries in the database.

Russian-language sites VKontakte and Odnoklassniki also featured.

Chocolate teapot passwords

Trustwave said it had notified the sites and services hit prior to posting the blog entry.

Facebook highlighted that it was not at fault, and that this security risk was due to infected user machines.

"While details of this case are not yet clear, it appears that people's computers may have been attacked by hackers using malware to scrape information directly from their web browsers," a spokesman said in an email.

Continue reading the main story

• Bot - one of the individual computers in a botnet; bots are also called drones or zombies
• Botnet - a network of hijacked home computers, typically controlled by a criminal gang
• Malware - an abbreviation for malicious software ie a virus, trojan or worm that infects a PC
• DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) - an attack that knocks out a computer by overwhelming it with data; thousands of PCs can take part, hence the "distributed"
• Drive-by download - a virus or trojan that starts to install as soon as a user visits a particular website
• IP address - the numerical identifier every machine connected to the net needs to ensure data goes to the right place

"People can help protect themselves when using Facebook by activating Login Approvals and Login Notifications in their security settings.

"They will be notified when anyone tries to access their account from an unrecognized browser and new logins will require a unique passcode generated on their mobile phone."

The social network said all of the users found in the database had been put through a password reset process.

Analysis of the passwords by Trustwave showed a familiar picture - the most popular password, found in the database over 15,000 times, was "123456".

Such predictable combinations made passwords completely ineffective, said Mr Cluley.

"It's as much use a chocolate teapot," he said. "Absolutely useless."

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US gene testing firm halts marketing

3 December 2013 Last updated at 16:46 ET

US genetic testing firm 23andMe, which is backed by Google, has stopped marketing its at-home kit, a company spokeswoman has said.

It halted television, radio and online advertising for its $99 (£60) personal genome analysis product last week.

The move follows a warning letter filed by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) last month.

The spit test is supposed to provide details about a person's health risks based on gene variants they carry.

The FDA ordered 23andMe to "immediately discontinue" its Saliva Collection Kit and Personal Genome Service (PGS) because it had failed to provide adequate information to support the claims made in the company's marketing.

In a blog post last week, the company's co-founder Anne Wojcicki responded to the FDA letter.

"We have worked extensively with our lab partner to make sure that the results we return are accurate," she wrote.

"We stand behind the data that we return to customers - but we recognize that the FDA needs to be convinced of the quality of our data as well."

She said 23andMe had been speaking to the FDA since 2008 and had submitted an application for clearance in July 2012, following on with another submission in August.

Ms Wojcicki added: "This is new territory for both 23andMe and the FDA. This makes the regulatory process with the FDA important because the work we are doing with the agency will help lay the groundwork for what other companies in this new industry do in the future."

The FDA said it was particularly concerned about the potential health consequences of false positive or false negative assessments by the PGS for genetic risk related to breast cancer and to adverse drug responses.

It said consumers might make important health decisions based on inaccurate information. Likewise, a false negative could result in a failure to recognise and act on an actual risk.

In September, 23andMe said that the number of people in its genetic database had reached 400,000 people, and the kits could still be purchased on its website.

The embattled firm, based in Mountain View, has also been hit with a class action lawsuit filed in California, which alleges there is "no analytical or clinical validation for the PGS for its advertised uses".

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UK courts admit legal mistake

By Chi Chi Izundu
Newsbeat entertainment reporter

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Attorney General, Dominic Grieve, says British legal system needs to adapt

The HM Courts & Tribunals Service has told Newsbeat it is sorry for publishing the names of defendants online because the publication identified the victims of sexual crime.

Victims of sexual crimes have lifelong anonymity under UK law.

Continue reading the main story

We apologise that the names of the defendants in this case were mistakenly included on our court listing site

HM Courts & Tribunals Service spokesperson

But the courts service admitted it had "mistakenly" published the names of two mothers convicted of sexually abusing their children.

This led to the children being identified.

It says it has taken action to make sure it doesn't happen in the future.

The statement comes after Peaches Geldof apologised for tweeting the names of the two mothers whose babies were abused by the Lostprophets front man Ian Watkins.

Peaches Geldof said sorry after tweeting the names of two defendants

An HM Courts & Tribunals Service spokesperson told Newsbeat: "We apologise that the names of the defendants in this case were mistakenly included on our court listing site.

"The names were quickly removed from the site, and action has been taken to ensure this does not happen again."

They wouldn't confirm how often this has happened in the past, or be specific about how they plan to prevent it happening in the future.

Public advice notices

The government's top lawyer, the Attorney General, has announced his office will be making public advice notices on high profile cases usually only distributed to the media.

Dominic Grieve has told Newsbeat the publication of the notices is to help "educate" people on social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook know what they can and can't say around legal proceedings of a case.

Continue reading the main story

I do accept that we all need to look, including the court service, including my own office, at how we go about the process of firstly providing people with information about cases

Dominic Grieve Attorney General

He said: "If there are only two people looking at your Twitter feed, it's very unlikely that a fair trial is going to be undermined. But the danger as you know is that Twitter feeds can go viral and can be read by hundreds of thousands or in fact millions of people.

"That's one of the reasons why people need to understand the risk they're potentially taking when they effectively broadcast to the world."

He added that the education wasn't just targeted at the general public.

"I do accept that we all need to look, including the court service, including my own office, at how we go about the process of firstly providing people with information about cases.

"But secondly alerting people to the fact that there may be anonymity orders in place in respect to particular cases or particular witnesses.

He also said he would like to see schools teaching students about how to be responsible when they are using Twitter and Facebook.

Last month, a man was given a 14-month suspended prison sentence after tweeting an image he claimed was James Bulger's killer Jon Venables.

You can follow the Attorney General's advice on his office's twitter feed @AGO_UK

Follow @BBCNewsbeat on Twitter.

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Pulse weapon brings cars to a halt

3 December 2013 Last updated at 08:11 ET By Chris Vallance BBC Radio 4, PM

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Andy Bennett, of E2V, shows how the device works at Throckmorton Airfield, in Worcestershire

A British company has demonstrated a prototype device capable of stopping cars and other vehicles using a blast of electromagnetic waves.

The RF Safe-Stop uses radio frequency pulses to "confuse" a vehicle's electronic systems, cutting its engine.

E2V is one of several companies trying to bring such a product to market.

It said it believed the primary use would be as a non-lethal weapon for the military to defend sensitive locations from vehicles refusing to stop.

There has also been police interest.

The BBC was given a demonstration of the device at Throckmorton Airfield, in Worcestershire.

Deputy Chief Constable Andy Holt, of the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo), who has evaluated the tech, said the machine had "potential, but it's very early days yet".

Radio pulse

At one end of a disused runway, E2V assembled a varied collection of second-hand cars and motorbikes in order to test the prototype against a range of vehicles.

In demonstrations seen by the BBC a car drove towards the device at about 15mph (24km/h).

As the vehicle entered the range of the RF Safe-stop, its dashboard warning lights and dials behaved erratically, the engine stopped and the car rolled gently to a halt. Digital audio and video recording devices in the vehicle were also affected.

"It's a small radar transmitter," said Andy Wood, product manager for the machine.

"The RF [radio frequency] is pulsed from the unit just as it would be in radar, it couples into the wiring in the car and that disrupts and confuses the electronics in the car causing the engine to stall."

He did not provide other specifics. However, the Engineer magazine has reported the device uses L- and S-band radio frequencies, and works at a range of up to 50m (164ft).

Some experts the BBC has spoken with suggested that turning off the engine in this manner would not stop vehicles rapidly enough. Others worried about what effect it might have on a car's electronic brake and steering systems.

But E2V said the risks were lower than with alternative systems.

Acpo suggested the machine's ability to stop motorbikes "safely" could prove particularly useful.

Mr Holt noted that the tyre deflation devices used by some police forces posed the risk of causing "serious injury" if used against two-wheelers.

E2V added that its device could also be effective against other types of vehicles, including boats.

But because the device works on electronic systems, he acknowledged that it would not work on all older vehicles.

"Certainly if you took a 1960s Land Rover, there's a good chance you're not going to stop it," Mr Wood said.

The firm added that it did not believe the RF Safe-Stop posed any risk to people using a pacemaker.

Listeners in the UK can hear more about the device on BBC Radio 4's PM programme between 17:00 and 18:00 on Tuesday.

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Microsoft designs stress-busting bra

3 December 2013 Last updated at 13:15 ET

Microsoft researchers have designed a smart bra that can detect stress.

The prototype contains removable sensors that monitor heart and skin activity to provide an indication of mood levels.

The aim was to find out if wearable technology could help prevent stress-related over-eating.

Mood data was provided to the wearer via a smartphone app in order to highlight when "emotional eating" was likely to occur.

A team from Microsoft's visualisation and interaction research group embedded an electrocardiogram and electro-dermal activities sensors as well as a gyroscope and accelerometer in the bra.

In their paper, the researchers say using a bra "was ideal because it allowed us to collect EKG [electrocardiogram] near the heart".

Efforts to create a similar piece of underwear for men worked less well, largely because the sensors were located too far away from the heart.

The women testing the technology reported their emotions for about six hours a day over a period of four days.

"It was very tedious for participants to wear our prototyped sensing system, as the boards had to be recharged every three to four hours," Microsoft senior research designer Asta Roseway said.

Electric shock

Wearable technology is increasingly being used to monitor a range of health conditions.

Last month saw the release of a Twitter-connected bra, that tweeted every time it was unhooked to encourage women to self-examine their breasts.

And last year a patent was awarded to a US firm that was working on a wearable device that analysed breast heat in order to detect cancer.

Meanwhile in response to a series of rapes in India, three engineering students developed a bra loaded with sensors and an electronic circuit that is activated when someone attempts to grope a woman wearing it.

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Two-screen phone with e-ink launched

4 December 2013 Last updated at 03:07 ET

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Could two-screen phones make a comeback?

A smartphone with two screens - one of which uses e-ink technology and is "always on" - has been launched.

The Russian company Yota said the phone would go on sale online immediately in Russia, Austria, France, Spain and Germany.

The Android-powered phone promises to extend battery life by transferring web pages and other applications to the e-ink screen.

Experts said it may prove attractive to users fed up with drained batteries.

The phone has one LCD display, similar to those found on other smartphones, and a second e-ink screen which the company says lets users see the information they want without having to wake up the phone.

"The typical user picks up and activates their smartphone more than 150 times a day," said Yota Devices chief executive Vlad Martynov.

"Why? Because users worry that messages or information they need or want are hidden behind their phone's black screen. This is a huge distraction and can impede meaningful interaction with our friends, families and colleagues."

St Petersburg-based Yota is best known for making modems and router equipment. The dual-screen smartphone, which was first announced in 2012, is the company's first mobile phone.

"The YotaPhone is an ambitious concept and although it will be considered a gimmick by many we believe there is merit in the design," said Ben Wood, a mobile analyst with research firm CCS Insight.

"With many smartphone owners struggling to make the battery on their device last a whole day, the option to have a secondary screen that uses little or no power to capture and display a 'snapshot' of the main screen could be attractive," he added.

Yota plans to launch the phone in 20 other countries by March 2014.

It also features a 1.5GHz dual-core processor and a 12-megapixel rear camera and will cost 499 euros.

Slimmer screens

E-ink displays are commonly used for e-book readers and consume very little power. They are also easier to read in the sun than their LCD equivalents, but offer a slower refresh rate making them unsuitable for videos or most games.

Mr Wood said that the YotaPhone has some "smart ideas" about how the secondary e-ink screen could be used.

"Some are just nice touches along the lines of displaying a love heart when a text message arrives with the words, 'I love you'. Others are more intriguing, such as using the e-ink display for advertising. This could open up some interesting new business models in future," he said.

E-readers could be slimmer in future after a thinner screen was developed by the company E Ink.

The new screen technology, known as Fina, is up to 50 percent lighter and thinner than current screens according to the company.

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Google ramps up plan to make robots

4 December 2013 Last updated at 06:37 ET By Leo Kelion Technology reporter

Google has revealed it has taken over seven robotics companies in the past half a year and has begun hiring staff to develop its own product.

A spokesman confirmed the effort was being headed up by Andy Rubin, who was previously in charge of the Android operating system.

The spokesman was unwilling to discuss what kind of robot was being developed.

But the New York Times reports that at this stage Google does not plan to sell the resulting product to consumers.

Instead, the newspaper suggests, Google's robots could be paired with its self-driving car research to help automate the delivery of goods to people's doors.

It notes the company has recently begun a same-day grocery delivery service in San Francisco and San Jose, called Google Shopping Express.

That would pitch the initiative against Amazon's Prime Air Project, which envisages using drones to transport goods to its customers by air.

"Any description of what Andy and his team might actually create are speculations of the author and the people he interviewed," said Google of the NYT article.

One UK-based expert welcomed the news.

"This is a clear sign that days of personalised robotic technology entering the mainstream market is imminent," said Prof Sethu Vijayakumar, director of the Robotics Lab at the University of Edinburgh.

"Movement and sensing systems for robotics technology have made great strides. Now, with mainstream companies like Google taking up the challenge, other elements such as robust software integration, standardisation and modular design will pick up pace."

The search giant's robotics project is based in Palo Alto, California, and will have an office in Japan - one of the world's leading nations in the field.

Speaking to the NYT, Mr Rubin said Google had a "10-year vision" for bringing the effort to fruition.

"I feel with robotics it's a green field," he said.

"We're building hardware, we're building software. We're building systems, so one team will be able to understand the whole stack."

The companies acquired by Google to jumpstart its effort are:

• Autofuss - a San Francisco company that employed robotics to create adverts. It has worked on several campaigns for Google's Nexus-branded products.
• Bot & Dolly - a sister company to Autofuss that specialised in precise-motion robotics and film-making. Its systems were used to make the film Gravity.
• Holomni - a Mountain View, California-based company that specialised in caster wheel modules that could accelerate a vehicle's motion in any direction.
• Industrial Perception - a Palo Alto-headquartered business that focused on the use of 3D vision-guided robotic technologies to automate the loading and unloading of trucks, and handle packages.
• Meka Robotics - A spin-off from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) that built robot parts that appeared friendly and safe to humans. Its products included heads with big eye sensors, arms and a "humanoid torso".
• Redwood Robotics - a San Francisco-based company that focused on creating next-generation robot arms for use in manufacturing, distribution and service industries such as healthcare.
• Schaft - a spin-off from the University of Tokyo that focused on the creation and operation of humanoid robots.

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Drones 'vulnerable to flying hack'

4 December 2013 Last updated at 09:47 ET By Leo Kelion Technology reporter

A security researcher has created a flying contraption that he says can hijack control of other flying drones made by one of the industry's leading manufacturers, Parrot.

Samy Kamkar said he was able to achieve the feat because the company's products do not support a way of encrypting or authenticating the wi-fi data they use.

The BBC understands that the company is looking into the allegation.

Other experts said Parrot appeared to have ignored well-known guidelines.

However, they played down Mr Kamkar's suggestion that the technique might one day be adapted to hijack drones used by Amazon and others.

A spokesman for Parrot said he was unable to comment yet.

Mr Kamkar has previously made a name for himself by developing malware that exposed a flaw in the MySpace social network and for revealing that several smartphones were sending back location data identifying their owners' movements to the makers of their operating systems.

'Design blunder'

In his latest blog - entitled Skyjack - he reveals how he combined a Parrot Drone with a Raspberry Pi computer, a wi-fi transmitter, a battery pack, existing hacking software and his own code.

"The Parrots actually launch their own wireless network which is how the owner of the drone connects," he explained.

"We take over by deauthenticating the owner, then connecting now that the drone is waiting for its owner to connect back in, exploiting the fact that we destroyed their wireless connection."

He said that the hack took advantage of the fact that Parrot's drones used a specific block of publicly registered MAC addresses to identify themselves, meaning the attack drone could pick them out from other wi-fi connected equipment in the area.

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Parrot showed off its drone at the CES tech show earlier this year

Mr Kamkar added that the SkyJack technique could also be run from computer equipment on the ground to hijack Parrot drones flying overhead.

"This appears to be a basic design blunder," Prof Ross Anderson, head of the University of Cambridge's computer security research group, told the BBC.

He explained Parrot had two easily implemented options to prevent the hack:

• Use a secret key, shared by the controller and the drone, to authenticate each command message sent to the drone
• Encrypt the data sent between the machines, which has the added benefit of ensuring the content of any message remains private

Parrot targets its drones at enthusiasts who want to take videos or photos from above, controlling the devices via their smartphones or tablets.

The firm's latest model can fly at up to 40km/h (25mph) and at altitudes of 165m (540ft).

The news site Ars Technica has highlighted the fact that at least half a million Parrot drones have been sold since 2010.

Delivery drones

Mr Kamkar's blog appears to have been inspired by Amazon's announcement that it is carrying out tests of drone-based deliveries.

"How fun would it be to take over drones, carrying Amazon packages… or take over any other drones, and make them my little zombie drones?" Mr Kamkar wrote.

Package service UPS and Domino's Pizza are among other companies to have declared they are investigating a similar use of the technology.

However, one security consultant suggested such firms would be unlikely to ignore security guidelines if they ever brought their products to market.

"Both the ISO27001 and PCI DSS voluntary best practice standards state that any management traffic must be authenticated and encrypted," said Vladimir Jirasek from Jirasek Consulting Services.

"If Parrot is not following good practice this could lead to security incident, potentially followed by an accident. Imagine a drone disturbing traffic on a motorway.

"But I do not think Amazon would be lax in its security measures."

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