Go TV-free to fight fat, says NICE

22 September 2014 Last updated at 23:55 By Helen Briggs Health editor, BBC News website

Adults and children should consider having TV-free days or limiting viewing to no more than two hours a day under new proposals to tackle obesity.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) recommendations also include avoiding drinks with added sugar and limiting takeaways.

The draft guidance, the first on the subject since 2006, is aimed at helping people maintain a healthy weight.

Obesity rates nearly doubled over the past 10 years in England.

Prof Mike Kelly, director of the Centre for Public Health at NICE, said a healthier diet and being more physically active was important for everyone, not just those who were already overweight or obese.

"The general rule for maintaining a healthy weight is that energy intake through food and drink should not exceed energy output from daily activity," he said.

"We all know we should probably take the stairs rather than the lift, cut down on TV time, eat more healthily and drink less alcohol.

"But it can be difficult to know the most useful changes that we can make in terms of our weight."

Lost generation

The guidelines make a number of recommendations that aim to ensure the advice given about maintaining a healthy weight is more specific and based on real evidence.

There are also new recommendations encouraging people to monitor their weight and activity levels, using apps or regular weigh-in sessions.

The draft suggestions include:

• Walking or cycling to school or work
• Reducing TV viewing with strategies such as TV-free days or setting a limit of no more than two hours a day in front of the TV screen
• Cutting down on calorific foods, such as fried food, biscuits, sweets and full-fat cheese
• Adopting a Mediterranean diet high in vegetables, fruit, beans and pulses, whole grains, fish and olive oil
• Avoiding drinks sweetened with sugar, including fizzy drinks, sports drinks and squash
• Limiting the amount of fast food and takeaways
• Limiting the amount of alcohol consumed, as alcoholic drinks are a source of extra calories

Last month, health leaders called for an emergency taskforce to be set up to tackle childhood obesity in England.

In an open letter to the chief medical officer for England, Prof Dame Sally Davies, they said "an entire generation is being destroyed by a diet of junk food and sugary drinks".

And last week, the head of NHS England, Simon Stevens, said obesity was "the new smoking" in terms of the impact on health and the cost to the NHS.

A quarter of adults - up from 15% 20 years ago - and one in five schoolchildren is obese, figures show.

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Minecraft map of UK adds houses

24 September 2014 Last updated at 00:23 By Mark Ward Technology correspondent, BBC News

A map featuring the UK made entirely of Minecraft blocks has had an upgrade.

Created by Ordnance Survey (OS), the original map re-created 224,000 sq km (86,000 sq miles) of Britain using more than 22 billion blocks.

The updated version uses 83 billion blocks, with each one representing 25m of real-world British soil, road or grass.

The Minecraft UK map is so detailed that people should be able to find their own house on it.

Ordnance Survey said it would put an interactive map on its main webpage so people could generate co-ordinates to lead them to their home on the Minecraft version.

Game play

Minecraft is a hugely popular video game set in worlds built of blocks that can be mined for raw materials that can then be turned into tools, weapons, armour and other items. Many people just play on randomly generated worlds but others build and share custom-created worlds for adventuring.

The original Minecraft map of the UK was created in two weeks by intern Joseph Braybrook in September 2013. The updated version was also created by Mr Braybrook, who recently started working at Ordnance Survey thanks to a graduate recruitment scheme.

Mr Braybrook said the map had been doubled in scale to make it much more detailed. Mapping tools created by OS staff were used to give it a "more expansive appearance that is closer to real life", he said.

The increase in scale means that woods and forests now have computer-generated trees, tributaries to rivers are visible and motorways, local roads and rail links are all accurate.

"I'm looking forward to seeing if people eventually build a working railway system in-game," said Mr Braybrook in a statement.

OS said it planned to make the one-gigabyte map freely available for download for people to play on. The original map has been downloaded more than 100,000 times, said the OS.

However, it added, its relatively coarse resolution limited what could be done with it. By contrast, said Mr Braybrook, the new version should be easier for Minecraft fans to get to grips with.

"I've attempted to re-create Great Britain to be more realistic, while maintaining the gameplay elements people love from the game," he said.

The map is believed to be the biggest Minecraft map made using real-world geographic data.

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Google's top 20 university searches

24 September 2014 Last updated at 00:00 By Sean Coughlan BBC News education correspondent

Google has revealed the most popular searches for people around the world looking for universities.

This ranking of online searches is very different from the traditional map of the global powerhouses of higher education.

There is a strong interest in online courses, rather than traditional campus-based universities, says Google.

And there are five Indian institutions in the top 20 of most searched-for universities.

The top search worldwide is for the University of Phoenix, a US-based, for-profit university, with many online courses and a sometimes controversial record on recruitment.

The University of Phoenix, founded in the 1970s, comes ahead of famous US academic institutions such as Harvard, Stanford and Columbia.

Online students

In second place in this league table of university searches is the Massachusetts Institute of Technology - last week ranked as the world's best university and also an institution with a strong record for pioneering online courses.

The top European university is not some ancient institution, but the UK's distance learning pioneer, the Open University.

It has been developing online courses, including for the US, and is in third place in the Google most-searched rankings.

University College London and the London School of Economics are both ahead of Oxford and Cambridge among UK universities.

The University of Calicut, in Kerala, India, is fourth in this ranking of online searches. And Anna University in Chennai is the second Indian university in the top 10.

Liberty University, an evangelical Christian university based in Virginia in the US, with many online students, appears in the top 20.

Shopping channel

The internet has become a key marketplace for universities to reach potential students, says Google's analysis.

It is also increasingly the medium for delivering courses, including massive open online courses or "Moocs". In 2013, searches for online universities overtook traditional universities.

Taking the UK higher education system as an example, Google's search patterns show a globalised and fast-changing market.

Among searches worldwide for UK universities, 40% are from outside the UK. The biggest international regions for searching for UK universities are Asia Pacific and western Europe.

This has helped to put five UK universities in the top 20 - but Google's report on search data shows the volatility and pace of change.

In 2011, the most searched-for universities in the UK, apart from the Open University, were conventional campus-based institutions, headed by Oxford and Cambridge.

By 2014, all of these UK campus universities had been overtaken by Coursera, the US-based provider of online courses. Other Mooc providers, such as edX and FutureLearn, had also emerged as bigger than many traditional UK universities.

"The growth that they've experienced has been phenomenal," says the Google analysis. "Higher education institutions must decide whether to embrace and adapt or risk getting left behind."

The Khan Academy, which has been providing online teaching material since 2006, has more search activity than Cambridge University, teaching since the 13th Century.

'Tip of the iceberg'

Universities are acutely aware of the importance of their online presence, says Ronald Ehrenberg, director of Cornell University's Higher Education Research Institute in New York.

The internet is the "primary way" that universities market themselves to potential students and to alumni, says Prof Ehrenberg.

"We update our web page multiple times a week to broadcast all the news that is going on at the university and all of the achievements, including research, of our faculty and students, and showcase all the visitors to the university.

"But this is only the tip of the iceberg in the way that the internet has changed how we behave.

"Many institutions are heavily into online instruction as a way of expanding enrolments... many institutions are moving to expand revenues by growing professional masters programmes in a wide range of areas."

Nick Hillman, director of the Higher Education Policy Institute in London, says the impact of Moocs has been "over-sold".

But he says university websites have an important role in recruiting, particularly for overseas students.

The Google data suggests that academics, accustomed to university terms, will also need to pay attention to search terms.

"The internet is playing an ever increasing role in the decision making. Students are online searching and consuming content in all forms when they are deciding whether or not to go to university and deciding which universities to apply for," said Harry Walker, education industry head at Google.

Top 20 most searched universities by Google users worldwide, 2014
1. University of Phoenix
2. Massachusetts Institute of Technology
3. Open University
4. University of Calicut
5. University of California, Los Angeles
6. Anna University
7. Stanford University
8. London School of Economics
9. Columbia University
10. New York University
11. University of Mumbai
12. University College London
13. University of Oxford
14. Florida State University
15. Harvard University
16. University of Cambridge
17. Liberty University
18. University of Rajasthan
19. University of Michigan
20. Annamalai University

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Broadband voucher scheme overhauled

23 September 2014 Last updated at 14:20

The government is overhauling its plans for getting ultra-fast broadband to UK businesses after disappointing take-up of its current scheme.

Only £7.5m out of a pot of £100m has so far been spent, with just 3,000 businesses taking up vouchers.

Initially the government had expressed hope of reaching 200,000 small businesses.

With a March 2015 deadline for the money to be spent, the government is keen to galvanise interest.

Changes aimed at making it easier to get the money include a redesigned website and a more streamlined process of applying for a grant.

Other changes include:

• Qualifying businesses no longer need to fill in an application form but can access the government grant with a call to a pre-approved broadband supplier

• Businesses that already have a different supplier in mind need only to fill in a form to get their quote approved

• Suppliers can also apply to BDUK (the group overseeing the process) with a set of eligible connection costs, cutting the need for businesses to apply at all

• Once a broadband package has been approved, suppliers can market them to eligible businesses with no more need for forms or rubber-stamping

"This is a golden opportunity for businesses to take advantage of better broadband. The grant takes away the costs of installation, which are normally charged up front or added to monthly charges," said Sajid Javid, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport.

'Maximum competition'

The plan to help get ultra-fast broadband to small and medium-sized businesses is part of a wider government strategy to create a network of super-connected cities around the UK.

More than 20 cities, including London, Edinburgh, Cardiff, Belfast, Birmingham, Manchester and Cambridge, were earmarked in 2012 for ultra-fast broadband, defined as minimum speeds of 80Mbps.

Birmingham City Council's plan to spend the money on a 100Mbps (megabits per second) network for the city was challenged in the courts by BT and Virgin Media, with the firms arguing that the state-aided network being proposed would pose unfair competition to their own rollouts in the city.

The European Commission subsequently revised its state aid guidelines and DCMS decided that, to avoid delays to other cities' plans being approved, it would offer the subsidy in the form of vouchers for businesses.

Only companies with fewer than 250 workers can apply for the vouchers.

The government was keen to play up the success of the scheme with a spokesman for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) saying take-up was "increasing on a weekly basis".

But others were not convinced.

"The scheme has not proved as successful as government had hoped," said Malcolm Corbett, head of the Independent Networks Co-operative Association (Inca).

"The problem is that the government can't be seen to aggregate demand as that will fall foul of European state aid rules."

Inca is helping small businesses take advantage of the voucher scheme by encouraging them to group together to get the maximum benefits from the subsidies.

Labour's plans

In Shoreditch, for example, 90 small businesses based in the same building have joined forces and used the vouchers - which are worth about £2,500 each - to provide 100Mbps fibre connections to their premises.

The government's broadband rollout has been described as unambitious by the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB). In a report published this summer it called for a major rethink of the current strategy.

It recommended that the government commit to delivering a minimum of 10Mbps for all homes and businesses by 2018-19, with that rising to 100Mbps by 2030.

As part of its annual conference, Labour will launch its own digital strategy this week.

It will include a plan to bring speeds of 1Gbps (gigabit) to homes and businesses as well as recommending a digital Magna Carta aimed at defining citizens' rights.

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Yahoo prodigy opts for university

24 September 2014 Last updated at 14:08 By Leo Kelion Technology desk editor

The British teenager who sold his app for millions of pounds to Yahoo has decided to go to university in the UK rather than work full-time for the tech firm in California.

Nick D'Aloisio said he would, however, still continue to work on its news app.

The 18-year-old had previously managed to combine development of the service with his A-level studies.

Yahoo News Digest has been downloaded more than two million times, according to analytics firm Xyo.

"I am thrilled to be attending Oxford University in England where I will study computer science and philosophy," Mr D'Aloisio said.

"I'm excited to simultaneously complete my college degree while continuing part-time to manage Yahoo News Digest - especially at such an exciting time for summarisation, artificial intelligence and wearables."

Mr D'Aloisio told the BBC earlier this month that the team he managed at Yahoo was developing a version of the news summary app for both Apple Watch and smartwatches running Google's Android Wear.

The Londoner was only 16 years old when he secured a $250,000 (£154,000) investment in his text summary software from Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-Shing.

A few months later Yahoo acquired the technology and his services, in a deal reported to be worth £20m.

Since taking up the role of project manager for the news app, the teenager has spoken at several high-profile public events including Yahoo's keynote address at the Consumer Electronics Show in January and O2's Campus Party in September.

A spokeswoman for Yahoo said he should now be able to get involved in the BBC's computer coding initiative - a series of television shows and other events designed to encourage people to learn to program - next year, "time permitting".

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A question of identity

23 September 2014 Last updated at 09:05

How do you go about proving you are who you say you are?

As more and more services move online - and fraud mounts - this is of growing importance not just to individuals but to the businesses and governments with which they interact. In many countries, the answer is an identity card, but that idea has met with lots of resistance in the UK.

Now the team which overhauled the government's many websites, bringing them all under the gov.uk address, thinks it has the answer. The Government Digital Service, fresh from winning all sorts of awards for gov.uk, is confident that an identity assurance system called Verify will be even more transformative.

Last week in a conference room inside the Treasury, I got a first glimpse of the new service from a group of people who couldn't be less like your average civil servants. Casually dressed, toting fold-up bicycles and laptops covered in stickers, they come across like programmers from an edgy start-up. Which is what GDS aspires to be..

They explained with some excitement that I was the first outsider to get a glimpse of Verify. The elevator pitch is that this is a one-stop shop for proving your identity for a range of government services, from renewing your passport or driving licence to paying tax.

The process of verifying your identity is not done by the government itself but is handed over to a range of outside companies. Right now, at the beta testing stage, this is limited to the credit rating agency Experian and the American company Verizon, which has an identity assurance business as well as a mobile phone network. Further on, the Post Office, banks and UK mobile phone operators will also be suppliers.

The GDS team gave me a demo of how the process worked, proceeding through a series of screens where you first choose which company to verify, and are then asked to give various personal details such as passport or driving licence number. You need to link your account to a mobile or landline phone number, which is then used to give you a one-time code before you proceed.

The whole process has been designed so that the first registration should be complete in 10 minutes. The promise is that once this is complete, you as the citizen will find access to public services more speedy while the government will have far more certainty that you are who you say you are. It all looks rather clever, and I emerged from the Treasury quite impressed. The UK is apparently leading the world with this scheme, with other governments and commercial organisations such as banks watching carefully to see whether it works.

Then, over the weekend, I tried the system at home. I'd been given special access to Verify , which starts its public test in October. I chose Experian as my identity checker and everything seemed to go smoothly, as I provided some details and supplied security answers to security questions - colour of first car, favourite food and so on.

Then quite suddenly up popped a message saying, "Unfortunately we have been unable to verify your identity at this time". Puzzled, I restarted the process with Verizon, only to end up with something similar. "You've been authenticated successfully," said the computer, "but not with a sufficient level of trust."

This was puzzling - I have been living at the same address for more than 20 years and, as far as I know, have a very solid credit record. So if I'm going to be rejected from this scheme, won't it end up excluding many of those who need online access to public services?

I went back to the GDS team, who were puzzled. Without access to my personal data - and an important part of the process is that users are not handing over new information to the government - they could not explain why Experian and Verizon had rejected me.

But a spokeswoman tells me that my experience will form part of the feedback as they prepare to go live with Verify, which will have a very cautious launch. "We are not under any illusion that this is a finished product," she tells me. "This is a complex thing and we'll continue to test, monitor, and improve the system."

As the system is gradually rolled out across various public services, there are bound to be stories of angry users unable to make it work. There will also be plenty of questions of trust - do we really want a credit agency or a bank intervening in our relationship with the government?

But the GDS team is convinced that its open approach, where you experiment in public and learn from your mistakes rather than launch the "finished" product with a big bang, is the way forwards. Given the record of old school public sector IT projects, many of them multi-billion pound fiascos, you can see their point.

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Google warned over anti-trust fine

23 September 2014 Last updated at 17:17

Google will face formal charges if it fails to come up with a suitable plan to give equal prominence to rival search engines, the EU has warned.

There have so far been three attempts to solve the long-running dispute.

Competition commissioner Joaquin Almunia told a European parliamentary committee that the next logical step would be to issue a statement of objection, including formal charges.

Google said that it continued to work with the EU.

The company is accused of abusing its dominant position in Europe, where it accounts for 90% of search traffic.

Improvement needed

The dispute has been running since 2010 when rivals, including British price-comparison site Foundem, complained about the way it displayed results.

The deal suggested by Google in February was rejected after 20 formal complaints made the EU rethink its original decision to accept the proposals.

Under the terms of the deal, Google agreed to reserve space near the top of its European search pages for competitors, which would be open to rivals to bid for via an auction.

Rivals argued that Google's solution was unfair for a range of reasons, including the fact that Google would make money out of the changes.

"At the beginning of the month I have communicated this to the company asking them to improve these proposals," said Mr Almunia.

"We now need to see if Google can address these issues and allay our concerns."

He did not put a timeframe on the new proposals but acknowledged that it could be left up to the next Commission headed by Jean-Claude Juncker to sort out.

Mr Almunia steps down in October.

But, he warned, if the next set of proposals failed to impress, the next stage would be a fine.

"The next logical step is to issue a statement of objection," he said.

Regulatory hurdles

EU rules mean that a company falling foul of anti-trust laws can be fined up to 10% of its annual sales.

Last year, Google's annual sales amounted to $55.5bn (£33.8bn).

For its part, Google seemed in no mind to appease the EU. Writing an opinion piece for the European Commission's Digital Minds - a series of articles about the digital age written by some of the biggest players in the industry - chairman Eric Schmidt said that Europe needed to embrace disruptive industries such as Uber.

"New businesses promoting new ideas should not be held back by bureaucratic or regulatory hurdles," he wrote.

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Paypal deal enables Bitcoin payments

24 September 2014 Last updated at 13:02

Paypal is teaming up with three major Bitcoin payment processors so that certain retailers will be able to receive payments in the virtual currency via the firm's payment hub.

The three processors are BitPay, Coinbase and GoCoin.

The service has gone live and will initially be available to sellers of digital goods based in North America.

However, the payments will not be processed by Paypal itself, the company confirmed.

"We're proceeding gradually, supporting Bitcoin in some ways today and holding off on other ways until we see how things develop," wrote Scott Ellison, senior director of corporate strategy in a blog post on the Paypal website.

"Paypal has always embraced innovation, but always in ways that make payments safer and more reliable for our customers. Our approach to Bitcoin is no different."

Last month Paypal announced that its subsidiary unit Braintree, a payment processor used by firms such as Uber and Airbnb, was also looking at ways to handle Bitcoin payments.

Scott Green, founder of UK Bitcoin price comparison site Bittybot, said the new partnership was significant.

"I think we will look back at this announcement from Paypal as being a major turning point in the mainstream adoption both of Bitcoin and its payment system being taken seriously by businesses," he told the BBC.

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Reports of bent iPhones spread

24 September 2014 Last updated at 13:24 By Leo Kelion Technology desk editor

Experts are divided over whether Apple should respond to claims that its new iPhone 6 handsets are prone to becoming bent when carried in trouser pockets.

Several members of the public have postedphotos to the MacRumors site that appear to show the problem. A reporter for the Geek.com news site also reported his phone had warped.

Other mobiles have bent in the past.

And it is not yet clear if the new iPhones' aluminium shells make them particularly vulnerable.

Even so, the claims have been reported across tech blogs as well as mainstream media including the Independent, the Washington Post, India Today and the Sydney Morning Herald.

Twitter users have also posted thousands of comments about the claims, using the hashtag Bentgate.

The BBC has contacted Apple but the firm has yet to provide any comment.

One industry watcher said the company should investigate the complaints and issue a statement as soon as possible.

"I think initially they should acknowledge the situation," said Jasdeep Badyal, an analyst from the telecoms consultancy CCS Insight.

"Then the second step will be to take action by providing cases or replacements."

He added that even if it emerged that there had been a "faulty batch" or there was only a minor risk of damage, the firm should still issue a statement to make this clear.

But Chris Green, principal technology analyst at the advisory service Davies Murphy Group, thought that Apple should take a different tack.

"This is not an issue that Apple - or other phone companies - need to be compelled to respond to or fix. If anything this is a reflection of how people have started to use devices beyond what they were designed for," he said.

"Even the most recent smartphones are not designed to be put in trouser pockets - front or back - where they are going to be under the most chassis strain. And this just illustrates the fact that the public's desire for manufacturers to strive for ever thinner and lighter devices means that we are getting ever more fragile devices.

"Just casually sticking a £700 smartphone in your pocket is an increasingly reckless thing to do."

'Serious issue'

Apple is marketing both the iPhone 6 and the larger iPhone 6 Plus as the thinnest smartphones it has released - with both models less than 0.3in (0.76cm) thick.

Some iPhone owners have posted comments to the company's own website about the earlier modelsbecoming misshapen, and the Cult of Mac news site notes that owners of Samsung, Blackberry and other handsets have also reported instances of bent devices.

However, it is unusual for the issue to be given so much attention so soon after a launch - the new iPhones went on sale only on Friday.

Russell Holly, who writes about mobile phones for Geek.com, said that, having looked into the reports, he was surprised to find he had become a victim of the phenomenon.

"I set my phone glass down on a flat surface and noticed the phone wobbled slightly when I pressed on the top right and bottom left corners," he told the BBC.

"I had already taken many photos of this phone for my work at Geek.com and could find no evidence of this warping when the phone was initially removed from the box. Like many of the other reports, I have never dropped the phone or abused it in any way.

"The phone sat in my front pocket for a couple of hours the day before while I drove around town to run a few errands, but there's no way that should have caused any damage to the phone.

"This seems like a serious issue that Apple needs to at the absolute least be warning consumers about. Having spent quite a bit of time with many different smartphones, the severity of this issue is unique."

Insurer Square Trade had declared the new iPhones "more durable" than their predecessors after carrying out tests, but did not carry out "bendability" checks.

YouTube show Unbox Therapy's own stress test - which involved an unusual amount of pressure being applied - suggested that the iPhone 6 Plus was easier to bend than the plastic-coated Samsung Galaxy Note 3.

Analysis from Eric Slivka, editor-in-chief of MacRumors

It's not something people should be particularly worried about, but they should be aware of it and use some common sense.

Earlier iPhone models and phones from other manufacturers will do the same thing when subjected to particular stresses.

With the much larger body of the iPhone 6 Plus in particular, perhaps allowing for additional stress while constrained in the user's pocket, the issue may be somewhat more prevalent, but it's still being overblown.

With millions of units sold already and only a handful of cases reported so far, it's by no means an epidemic.

It seems pretty straightforward to recommend that users not sit on their iPhones in rear pockets and to be mindful of whether their movements are putting stress on devices kept in front pockets.

A rigid case will certainly help support the phone as well.

Damage control

Apple has a tendency not to respond to problems until it can release a definitive statement.

This was the case in 2010, when its former chief executive Steve Jobs held a news conference after multiple reports that the iPhone 4 dropped calls when gripped on the lower left-hand side.

Mr Jobs announced at the event that buyers of the handset would get a free case to work around the problem.

His successor, Tim Cook, also took time before penning a letter to apologise for problems with the iPhone's Maps app in 2012.

But there are also instances when the firm has opted to respond in a less high-profile manner.

For example, complaints in 2012 that the iPhone's camera lens sometimes produced an undesired purple flare effect were dealt with by a support document that suggested users move position or shield the lens with their hand.

Do you own the latest iPhone? Have you had problems with it? You can email your experiences to haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.

Send your pictures and videos to yourpics@bbc.co.uk or text them to 61124 (UK) or +44 7624 800 100 (International). If you have a large file you can upload here.

Read the terms and conditions

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Blackberry rethinks the keyboard

24 September 2014 Last updated at 15:00 By Leo Kelion Technology desk editor

Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play.

WATCH: Rory Cellan-Jones tries out the Blackberry Passport

Blackberry has launched a distinctive handset featuring a square screen and a keyboard that offers both physical keys and touch-enabled gesture controls.

It said work-focused users in particular should benefit from the Blackberry Passport's innovations.

Sales of the company's handsets - which are powered by its own operating system - have been in decline.

Analysts said the new device should appeal to existing Blackberry owners but might struggle to win over others.

The Canadian company's chief operating officer said the handset's release was part of a broader turnaround strategy led by John Chen, who became chief executive in November.

"You're going to see us be very focused," Marty Beard told the BBC.

"Potentially, in the past we got a little too broad a little too aggressively.

"Our target segment is more enterprise-focused. It's the power professional. It's someone who wants to be productive.

"Those users tend to be in regulated industries like banking or healthcare or government. We know those segments really well - in a way it's getting back to the Blackberry roots."

Push and swipe

The Passport got its name because its dimensions resemble a thick version of the travel document.

It has a 4.5in (11.4cm) touchscreen with a resolution of 453 pixels per inch - higher than Apple's iPhone 6 Plus, but lower than Samsung's Galaxy Note 4.

Blackberry suggests documents are easier to edit because of the extra width provided by having a square screen, even if it is less suited for watching video.

The keyboard buttons are also touch-sensitive. This allows gesture-based shortcuts that were previously restricted to Blackberry's all-screen devices.

For example, swiping a finger quickly leftwards along the keys deletes the previous word, while sliding a thumb along them more slowly moves the cursor in the same direction.

In addition, users can select from three anticipated words - shown near the bottom of the screen - by flicking upwards beneath the desired one. This saves having to type the text in full.

"In some cases it takes a while to learn it, because even if you're familiar with a Blackberry it's a little bit different because it's that combination of physical plus virtual," acknowledged Mr Beard.

"So there may be that learning curve in the beginning, but it's well worth it, and once people learn it they are flying."

One expert who has tested the handset supported the claim.

"It certainly made me respond more eloquently to emails rather than just triaging them with a 'Yes, no, I'll call you back or see you later'," said Shaun Collins, founder of the telecoms consultancy CCS Insight.

"However, it's going to divide opinion - it gives you the Blackberry experience on steroids. But for a broader audience it will be a curiosity."

The phone is being sold at an "introductory rate" of $599/£529/649 euros.

Sales slump

Blackberry's own figures indicate it sold about 1.6 million smartphones over the three months to June.

That compares poorly with the 6.8 million handsets it sold in the same quarter in 2013, and 13.2 million over the corresponding period in 2011.

Its fortunes contrast with the wider smartphone market, which has expanded.

Having pioneered the sector, the company now accounts for only 1% of sales in the UK, according to research firm Kantar Worldpanel.

Even so, one company watcher said Blackberry still had appeal to certain organisations, even if they had not purchased its other recent releases in large numbers.

"The key markets it holds are financial services and security-oriented industries," said Martin Bradley from Strategy Analytics.

"Blackberry continues to offer the most secure end-to-end communications architecture in the mobile market, and its devices provide business users with that reassurance."

Voice commands

Other features introduced by the handset and its new operating system - Blackberry 10 OS 10.3 - include:

• Access to the Amazon Appstore - the phone can run the 240,000 Android apps it contains. But the store lacks some popular products, including photo-sharing network Instagram, and newly released games, such as Fifa 15, both found on Google Play
• Blackberry Blend - this allows certain tasks on the phone to be controlled by a wi-fi-connected PC or tablet that does not store the data involved, letting users take advantage of bigger screens when available
• Blackberry Assistant - a facility that recognises voice commands and speaks back in English, French, German, Spanish and Italian
• A 3,450 mAh battery - this is bigger than most of its rivals, and allows the Passport to promise up to 25 hours of mixed use

The company has also added a new, tougher level of encryption to messages sent via its BBM messaging app to protect them from eavesdropping and manipulation.

"We've already got a lead - we're not going to sit on our laurels," said Mr Beard.

He added that Blackberry also intended to add encryption to voice calls made between its devices in the future but it was "still to be decided" if this function would come to the Passport.

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