Owner of Flash web technology opens new front in bitter dispute with Apple with ad in financial papers and on tech websites

The Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal were both carrying full-page "We Love Apple" adverts on Friday morning, but the space was not bought by the Californian technology giant but by Adobe, the web technology firm that is locked in a bitter dispute with Steve Jobs.

The adverts, using a variant of the famous "I love New York" motif created by Milton Glaser, have appeared in newspapers including the Wall Street Journal and San Jose Mercury and online on websites including Wired and TechCrunch.

They present the latest front in an increasingly nasty war between the two companies. Adobe's web video technology Flash is not supported by Apple's iPad or iPhone and Jobs has publicly criticised it for causing battery problems and crashes.

In a blogpost last month, Jobs said the most important reason for keeping Flash off his devices was that "letting a third party layer of software come between the platform and the developer ultimately results in sub-standard apps and hinders the enhancement and progress of the platform."

He contrasted Flash, over which Adobe has control, with open web standards that Apple has adopted - HTML5, CSS (Cascading Style Sheets, used to format sites) and the programming language Javascript.

Today's adverts follow the large "We love Apple" with a pointed list of 13 other things that the company loves: "We love creativity. We love innovation. We love apps. We love the web. We love Flash. We love our 3 million developers. We love healthy competition. We love touch screens. We love our Open Screen Project partners. We love HTML5. We love authoring code only once. We love all devices. We love all platforms.

"What we don't love is anybody taking away your freedom to choose what you create, how you create it, and what you experience on the web."

The adverts appear to have been prompted by Apple's decision last month to change its iPhone Developer Program License Agreement so that all developers have to write applications for the iPhone and iPod and by inference iPad so that they run directly on the device, a move that effectively bans software translation solutions like Adobe's CS5.

Adobe's founders, Chuck Geschke and John Warnock, have posted an open letter on the company's website to which the online version of the "We love Apple" advert links arguing that "freedom of choice on the web has unleashed an explosion of content and transformed how we work, learn, communicate, and, ultimately, express ourselves".

They warn that Apple is trying to control the world wide web, something which would damage its evolution.

"We believe that Apple, by taking the opposite approach, has taken a step that could undermine this next chapter of the web the chapter in which mobile devices outnumber computers, any individual can be a publisher, and content is accessed anywhere and at any time."

Apple responded: "Yes, we believe in open web standards too, like HTML5. Flash is not an open web standard like HTML. It is a proprietary Adobe product. Just ask the W3 consortium that controls web standards they have chosen HTML5 as the open web standard to move forward with."

Alan Rusbridger, the editor of the Guardian, complained that the lack of Flash on Apple products - which means no video content is accessible of websites including guardian.co.uk and the BBC - was an "extreme irritant at the very least" in a review of the iPad in the Observer last month.

If you care about your privacy and that of your real friends, unfriend Facebook now. We are its product, not its customers

There is a wonderful graphic on the New York Times site showing how Facebook's privacy statement has got larger and larger to cover the growing holes in its privacy policy. The mapping isn't perfect: if it were, the declaration of Facebook's dedication to privacy would have to be of almost infinite size, since the default amount of privacy Facebook now offers is practically zero. When the site first started, very few people could join, and nothing became public, even to them, without the users' express permission. Now everyone can join and everything is public to almost all of them unless you make a determined effort to hide it. This effort has to be renewed every six months or so when Facebook revises its privacy policy to make it more opaque and less effective. There is a wonderfully graphic animation of the process at this site.

If you decide it isn't worth it, Facebook turns out to be very difficult to leave. It is very easy to "deactivate" your account, but it's also almost meaningless. Nothing is deleted by deactivation. If you return a year later, your account is still there, with the same password, the same friends and all the same data.

It is difficult to overestimate how much a Facebook user tells the company about his or her life. I've just had a friend (in real life) look me and my children up on the system. She's not a friend of either on Facebook, and both are reasonably cautious about privacy. Nonetheless, it was immediately obvious what their interests were, and each had most of their social networks listed. Ten years ago, when the British government proposed to make traffic data available to a wide variety of agencies under the Regulation of Investigative Powers Act, there was an outcry from civil libertarians. Their point was that you hardly need to know what people are saying to each other if you know who they are talking to. And now Facebook knows and makes this information freely available to almost anyone.

This may seem like a bad way to treat customers, but the whole point about Facebook is that users aren't customers. Anyone who supposes that Facebook's users are its customer has got the business model precisely backwards. Users pay nothing, because we aren't customers, but product. The customers are the advertisers to whom Facebook sells the information users hand over, knowingly or not.

Google, which collects less information about its users, is far more scrupulous about the uses to which it is put. Google also makes it much easier to remove your traces from the system. There is no equivalent on Facebook to Google's dashboard page, which shows you all the information you have made public across Google's sites; nor is it as easy to get back from Facebook information you have once put in. This isn't to diminish the extraordinary record of how we think that Google collects by simply tracking our queries, but Facebook collects more. That's what it's designed to do. The games and apps available there are an important part of this process. Almost all of these are simply devices to harvest information about players and use what they have found to sell themselves to everyone else on their contact list.

How can all or any of this be stopped? Facebook won't change. Its entire business model depends on selling privacy to advertisers. If public revulsion forces a halt, or a retreat it will start again in six months' time. This shouldn't really be surprising.

What is to be done? The kind of computing infrastructure needed to run a global service like Facebook isn't cheap, and somebody has to pay for it. Perhaps a service more ethical about privacy than Facebook is being hatched in a garage somewhere right now. It's certainly possible, as the example of Google shows.

But the fundamental problem remains. Ever since money was invented, the people who have made money out of aimless chat have been the landlords, whether they were selling beer, coffee or a space on the web. You may think that your Facebook friends care what you're up to, but they'd drop you like a stone if it cost them money to learn you had just become imaginary mayor of an imaginary town, or even that you had just had a row with your mother and slammed the phone down. The only people to whom that information is worth even a fraction of a penny are those who want to take advantage of it to sell you something you don't need except, that is for your real friends, but imaginary ones are so much more reassuring.

Popular peer-to-peer platform found liable for infringing copyright of America's four major labels

US record labels have claimed another victory in their war against filesharing, winning a major court case against LimeWire. On Tuesday, a federal court ruled against the popular peer-to-peer platform, finding LimeWire's owners personally liable for copyright infringement.

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), which represents the four major US labels, brought the case against LimeWire in August 2006. Almost four years later, the service is still perhaps the most popular software for exchanging files allowing users to search each other's music libraries for songs they would like to share. According to CNET, LimeWire has been downloaded more than 200m times including 340,000 downloads last week. A survey by the NDP Group found that LimeWire was used by 58% of people who have downloaded music from a peer-to-peer network in the last year.

Like Napster (and AIMster and Grokster) before them, LimeWire's owners denied they were responsible for the legality of files shared by their users. Unlike Napster, LimeWire does not host any shared files on their own servers the material is distributed among users. But Judge Kimba Wood was not convinced by the argument. "The evidence demonstrates that [LimeWire] optimised [their] features to ensure that users [could] download digital recordings, the majority of which are protected by copyright," she said.. "[Lime Wire] assisted users in committing infringement."

In a summary judgment, Wood ruled that LimeWire founder Mark Gorton, as well as parent company Lime Group, had committed copyright infringement, engaged in unfair competition, and induced copyright infringement. By finding Gorton personally responsible, Wood's decision will be particularly terrifying to other "edge case" entrepreneurs. In other words, Facebook's owners had better make sure people don't start uploading illegal MP3s.

The court has not yet determined the issue of monetary damages, though the RIAA has claimed they are owed up to $150,000 for every infringing work. With millions of files in question, that number could become huge. "[LimeWire] thumbed its nose at the law and creators," the RIAA's chairman said. Labels will now likely move for an injunction against LimeWire, forcing the service to go offline.

According to George Searle, chief executive of LimeWire, the company "remains committed to developing innovative products and services for the end-user and to working with the entire music industry, including the major labels, to achieve this mission".

New facial recognition and motion sensor technology to roll out across more models, saving energy in the process

The next time you fall asleep in front of the TV, someone, or rather something, could be watching you and all in the name of saving energy.

Sony last year launched a new addition to its Bravia range of TVs, which features facial recognition technology similar to that found in the electronics giants' most advanced cameras. As a result, the TV is able to "watch" you and can turn the picture off if you nod off in front of Match of the Day, saving the energy used by the backlight.

The Bravia WE5 also features a heat and motion sensor that similarly allows the system to turn off the picture if it is left playing to an empty room, and an ambient light sensor that reduces the output from the TV's backlight depending on the brightness of the room.

A spokeswoman for the company said that the new sensor technology will now be rolled out to other models in the Bravia 2010 range, delivering significant energy savings to those viewers guilty of leaving their TV on when it is not being watched.

"If you wonder off to make as cup of tea you will still be able to hear the TV but it won't be wasting energy showing the picture," she said, adding that the picture returns as soon as someone walks into the room.

According to Sony, the new micro-tubular HCFL backlight also cuts the amount of power consumed by the TV by 50 per cent compared to previous LCD TVs.

The new innovations are part of a company-wide initiative designed to cut annual energy consumption of Sony products 30 per cent against a 2008/09 base line by 2015.

The company spokeswoman said that its most recent TV had already met the target and that many product lines would aim to exceed the target. "The 30 per cent target is an average so a lot of products like TVs will look to go far further than by 2015," she said.

The plan to roll out the sensor technology across new products follows Sony's recent high profile commitment to deliver a "zero environmental footprint" by 2050, eliminating eliminating carbon emissions and the use of non-renewable materials in its products and manufacturing.

Oscar-winning film director Scott Hicks wishes that he could use his iPhone when travelling to foreign lands

What's your favourite piece of technology, and how has it improved your life?
My favourite is my Gator which, if you're not familiar with it, is a six-wheel independent transmission all-terrain vehicle that I use at my vineyard. It has a light footprint, huge fat tyres, and it's endless fun. In springtime, we're dogged with kangaroos which come out of the bush and nibble the new vine shoots. Because we don't want to shoot them, I get my Gator out and go up and down the rows chasing kangaroos. There's no more contemplative experience than watching kangaroos bouncing along in front of you.

When was the last time you used it, and what for?
I used it last weekend when my family came up camping at the vineyard. I took my grandsons for a spin.

What additional features would you add if you could?
I would put on a klaxon horn that did a fanfare. I think that would be quite a feature. Something really grand announcing your presence. That would teach the roos a lesson.

Do you think it will be obsolete in 10 years' time?
Absolutely not. It's now 10 years old and it's as good as the day I bought it. Barring disaster, I think it'll still be going strong.

What always frustrates you about technology in general?
Built-in obsolescence. The minute you buy something, it's already out of date. With most hi-tech products, it's all built-in. You just know that with the iPad they already know what the better ones are going to be like. But they have to sell it in layers.

Is there any particular piece of technology that you have owned and hated?
Beyond a potato peeler? I've got to admit, I'm struggling with my iPhone. It's a glorious thing, but because I travel a lot I've found it very difficult in the US with the network restrictions on it. It's locked into a telephone company. That's been a real shame; the idea of getting it was getting something that would work wherever I go, but the US is a huge stumbling block to that.

If you had one tip about getting the best out of new technology, what would it be?
You have to have my eldest son at your beck and call. I pay him a retainer because he's a technological genius. He can troubleshoot me wherever I am, take over my computer with terrifying software, and I just sit and watch things moving on my own desktop.

Do you consider yourself to be a luddite or a nerd?
A born-again luddite. I'm definitely not a nerd. I'm competent with what I need to do, for the most part, but I do find myself hankering for simpler technologies.

What's the most expensive piece of technology you've ever owned?
Apart from a car, I guess it would be two Leica 35mm cameras. I expect someday my grandchildren will be using them. I love the old range-finding focus technology: the images are stunning.

Mac or PC, and why?
It can only be Mac. Otherwise I'd be completely in the dark. Macs help you to blunder your way around. The great bugbear with modern tech is that usually the instructions are inside the actual thing. There's no manual any more. You have to be able to use the thing in order to find out how to use it. It's very frustrating.

Do you still buy physical media such as CDs and DVDs, or do you download? What was your last purchase?
I do download, but I'm one of that dying breed that has to own the physical object too. Funnily enough, the last CD I bought was the soundtrack to [my 2009 film] The Boys Are Back. My youngest son's band is on it, and I wanted to get that track to somebody.

Robot butlers a good idea or not?
I think if it was modelled on Stephen Fry's Jeeves, with the voice, that could work. My wife for my birthday gave me a clock which wakes you up with the Jeeves character in those dulcet tones laced ever so slightly with contempt. A whole robot ... as long as you could turn it off.

What piece of technology would you most like to own?
I need a Tardis. Something I could just step into and be somewhere else. Enough of all this travel. Just a Tardis. That would be fantastic.

The Boys Are Back, directed by Scott Hicks, is out on DVD on Monday

Released in 2008, LittleBigPlanet remains perhaps the most original and innovative title on PlayStation 3 and the sequel is even cuter and more loveable than its predecessor

China brings Xinjiang back online after blocking access over ethnic riots last summer amid fears that the ban has hit trade

China has restored full internet access in the north-west Xinjiang region, ending 10 months of blocked or limited access following ethnic rioting there last July that led to many deaths.

The curbs had been widely criticised by western human rights advocates. Besides restricting communication, the restrictions hurt commerce in the region, home to about 20 million people, mainly Uighurs a Muslim people native to Xinjiang.

The local government said it restored services "to meet the needs of maintaining stability, boosting social and economic development and the calls from all ethnic groups", according to an announcement on its website.

Xinjiang cut off local access to the internet, international phone calls and text messaging after members of China's Han majority ethnic group launched revenge attacks for riots by Muslim Uighurs in the regional capital, Urumqi. In all, 197 people, mostly Hans, died in the fighting.

"Since the situation in the region has stabilised, and Xinjiang is in a big construction, open and development stage, we need web users to contribute their wisdom," the announcement said.

Earlier this month, Zhang Chunxian was named Communist Party secretary of Xinjiang a position outranking the provincial governor replacing the hardline Wang Lequan, who had run the remote region since 1994.

Xinjiang has about 7 million internet users, state media said. But the announcement also threatened severe punishment for anyone caught spreading harmful information online.

"The web users should not do anything that hurts the internet environment or harms ethnic unity, social stability and national interests," it added.

Last December, Xinjiang allowed access to two state-run websites, and in March allowed access to two portal sites. International long-distance calls and mobile text messages have gradually resumed also.

Oracle chief Larry Ellison says he is already turning around Sun, but can a software maker figure out the hardware world?

In the movie Iron Man 2, Larry Ellison makes a cameo appearance as a billionaire, playboy software magnate. It is a role he knows well. He is playing himself chief executive of Oracle, one of Silicon Valley's most enduring, successful and flamboyant figures.

At the age of 65, he is undertaking one of the biggest challenges of his career, and it's not playing Hamlet on Broadway. Oracle, the company Ellison founded three decades ago and built into dominant force in the software industry, is making a go at hardware with the acquisition of money-losing Sun Microsystems.

This is not entirely unlike MIT deciding to field a competitive football team, but Ellison being Ellison, he could not be less worried. "We have a wealth of technology to package into systems," said Ellison, who won the America's Cup in February. "I see no reason why we can't get this to where Sun under Oracle should be larger than Sun ever was."

In a rare interview he discussed his turnaround efforts at Sun so far, revealed plans to buy additional hardware companies and detailed new products that will launch in the near future. And he did so with his usual in-your-face style heaping all manner of abuse, for example, on Sun's previous managers.

During the 1990s, Sun prospered by selling high-end computers at top dollar to large corporations and dotcom startups. Its business peaked in 2001, then slid with the collapse of the internet boom and never recovered, though the company is still widely respected for its technological prowess and the brain power of its engineering staff.

Sun came into play in November 2008 after IBM chief executive Sam Palmisano made an overture to buy it. Oracle, which had been strictly a software maker, unexpectedly jumped in to outbid IBM by just 10c a share, paying a total of $5.6bn ( 3.8bn)in cash.

Now Ellison says he is going to rebuild Sun's hardware business by using a strategy that helped IBM prosper in the 1960s selling computer systems built with standardised bundles of hardware and software.

Plenty of skeptics doubt Ellison can pull it off. Sun lost $2.2bn in its last fiscal year as an independent company. Conventional wisdom holds that he will end up divesting the company's hardware business.

Ellison has a pretty good track record when it comes to predicting where the industry is headed. Besides innovating the wildly lucrative relational database that bears Oracle's name, Ellison was quicker than most in creating software that works with both internet technology and the widely used Linux operating system.

He also started buying up smaller software makers in 2003 when critics said his consolidation strategy was doomed to fail. It hasn't. "People have lost a lot of money second guessing Larry about IT strategy," said Dave Roux, co-founder of Silver Lake, the world's biggest private equity firm focused on technology, in which Ellison was an original investor.

"He's a very thoughtful and reasoned observer of the big tectonic forces that kind of go rippling through the industry," said Roux, who worked for Oracle before setting up Silver Lake.

Ellison has maintained his status as the leader of a powerhouse in the topsy-turvy, protean technology world. IBM, which pioneered business computers, nearly collapsed in the 1990s, but then recovered as it aggressively expanded in services and software. Ellison's close friend Steve Jobs was forced out of Apple, only to return a decade later to resurrect his company with the iPod. Meanwhile, Google has replaced Microsoft as the "ubertech company" and occasional villain.

Although his products are used by businesses only and not nearly as recognisable as Apple's Macs or Google's search engine, they've made Ellison the world's sixth-richest man, worth an estimated $28bn, according to Forbes. Oracle counts the bulk of the world's major corporations as customers, and the company's market value now tops that of Hewlett-Packard, the world's top maker of personal computers.

Ellison says he has already stopped the carnage at Sun, less than four months after the sale closed in January.

"Their management made some very bad decisions that damaged their business and allowed us to buy them for a bargain price," he told Reuters. He added that he expects profit from Sun's operations to boost Oracle's earnings in the current quarter, which ends May 31.

The integration has proceeded swiftly, says Ellison, because a protracted antitrust review in Europe gave Oracle time to draw up an exhaustive plan for resuscitating Sun. In typical Ellison fashion, he took a hands-on approach to the integration, choosing to meet directly with technical managers at Sun as often as four days a week to diagnose its problems, rather than delegating the work to underlings.

Mark Barrenechea, a former Oracle executive who used to sit in on weekly engineering meetings with Ellison and is now CEO of specialty computer maker Silicon Graphics, says this is what Ellison does best.

"He doesn't write the code. He doesn't solder resisters onto motherboards. But he understands how all the pieces fit together and how he wants the building to look," Barrenechea said.

BT developing own touchscreen device similar to iPad and plans to offer on-demand computer games

BT has developed its own version of the iPad, which it will start selling next year, as it seeks to persuade people to dump their mobile phones when they get home and turn instead to a touchscreen version of the traditional landline telephone.

But the telecoms company is not stopping its assault on some of the biggest names in technology there. It is also planning to bring on-demand computer gaming to Britain this year. Gamers will be able to play the latest releases without having to own a video games console, such as an Xbox360 or PlayStation3. They will play via the internet, using just a gaming controller and a TV.

Both products are an attempt by BT's retail business, which has suffered from years of declining revenues in its core business of calls and phone lines, to kickstart its growth.

The plan for BT to produce a tablet computer was revealed by BT Retail chief executive Gavin Patterson at the company's strategy day today. He showed a prototype of the unnamed device to an audience of City analysts. It is considerably larger than the iPod Touch, but smaller than the iPad and can be used as a phone either with a Bluetooth headset or on its speaker. It resembles O2's Joggler but to some the thinking behind it evoked Amstrad's ill-fated emailer. Launched to great fanfare in 2000, the emailer looked like a cross between a telephone and a computer and promised to bring email to the mass market. As computer prices plummeted and broadband take-up increased, it quickly became obsolete and was killed off in 2006. Its most high-profile appearance was in the Apprentice TV show, used by then Amstrad boss Alan Sugar.

"It is not at all like the Amstrad emailer," said BT chief executive Ian Livingston after the meeting. "It is like a mini-PC with the telephone of the future. Someone also made a reference to it being a bit like the iPad but it is not. It is a different size and shape apart from anything else, but it is meant to stay in the home. "

BT developed the software and services for the device in its own labs and has refused to name its hardware partner. It has been testing prototypes in Cardiff before wider trials this year.

"Clearly people want to use their phone in a different way. We have seen that with smartphones outside the home," said Patterson. "So we have been developing a concept around how you get that sort of capability into an in-home environment. Obviously you can make phone calls through it, but it also has a touchscreen."

There are a number of similarities to the iPad. The BT device will have Apple staples such as visual voicemail and give users access to email and text messaging. It also uses "apps", like the Apple device, providing one-touch access to information such as weather forecasts.

"What we have seen is people really like to use it in the kitchen because it is always on and they can just snack on their communications and snack on their video clips," said Patterson. BT would sell the device direct to consumers but it was most likely to be bundled with broadband and home communications packages.

In a similar fashion, BT is likely to bundle its computer games service into a series of new entertainment packages. The company announced it had taken a small stake in a Silicon Valley internet firm called OnLive. The company was founded by Steve Perlman, who used to work at Apple and created the technology behind its QuickTime media player.

OnLive has created an on-demand gaming service which allows customers to get the latest titles through their broadband connection. It is launching its computer-based service in the US in June and later in the year it will begin a service that allows gamers to play their favourite titles through TV sets. Patterson said consumers would no longer need to buy expensive video games consoles and said this might not actually be a bad thing for the likes of Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony.

"They all make money through publishing, not through set-top boxes or games consoles. The games market is an unhappy combination at the moment and moving to a cloud [internet] based delivery mechanism might suit them because there is piracy [of physical product] and consoles are very expensive."

But Livingston, a former executive with high street retailer Dixons, added: "I am not sure that [computer game retailer] Game Group will see an upside."

Promise to bring superfast internet to two-thirds of UK
BT announces profit of just over 1bn for the year

BT today pledged to bring the next generation of high-speed broadband internet access within the reach of two-thirds of British homes within the next five years. The move will cost 2.5bn and extend its scope beyond that of bitter rival Virgin Media, which covers half of the UK.

Unveiling a return to profit, BT also announced plans to offer cut-price access to Sky's premier sports channels as part of a 200m revamp of its BT Vision service. Following regulator Ofcom's ruling last month that the satellite broadcaster must reduce the price it charges rivals for access to Sky Sports 1 and Sky Sports 2, BT intends to offer both plus ESPN to its customers for under 20 per month in time for the next Premiership football season.

"We want to offer Sky Sports to our customers. We know it is a hole in our proposition at the moment. We know some customers do not come to us because we have not got Sky Sports and now we have access to it," said BT Retail chief executive Gavin Patterson. "I am not going to tell you exactly what the proposition is going to be, but it is going to be sharp and under 20."

There are fears, however, that Sky will use the leeway it has under Ofcom's ruling from last month to move some key football games away from Sky Sports 1 and 2. At the weekend, for instance, the crucial Manchester United game was shown on Sky Sports 3, which is not part of the regulator's deal and would not be available to BT Vision customers.

BT group chief executive Ian Livingston warned Sky that such behaviour would not be tolerated and that it would complain to the regulator if the satellite broadcaster attempted to "game" the system. "If they do use Sky Sports 3 and Sky Sports 4, that would lay those channels open to exactly the same remedies as Sky Sports 1 and Sky Sports 2," said Livingston. "I think the phrase is there should be 'no material movement' in the content and we will be keeping a very close eye on them."

BT also announced plans to launch an online gaming service in the UK, having taken a 2.6% stake in a Silicon Valley internet firm called OnLive, founded by former Apple executive Steve Perlman. OnLive has created an on-demand gaming service which allows customers to play the latest video games titles through their broadband connection without needing an expensive gaming console such as an Xbox 360.

It is part of BT's attempt to expand its business after a disastrous year in 2008 and a year of cost-cutting and writedowns in 2009. BT announced that its cuts helped it claw its way back into the black, making a pre-tax profit of just over 1bn in the year ending in March, compared with a loss of 244m a year ago. The previous year's plunge into the red was caused by writedowns to the value of BT's IT business, Global Services, which had made wildly over-optimistic profit projections.

Livingston said the improved performance demonstrated the credibility of BT's turnaround plan. "What we wanted to do was create some solid foundations and they are a lot more solid today."

BT's core business is still in decline, with revenues down 2% to 21bn for the whole year. But while the company expects that trajectory to continue into 2011, with annual revenues for this year expected to be 20bn, from then on it expects to see a return to growth, powered by new products such as high-speed broadband and BT Vision.

BT announced that it would pump an extra 1bn into its fibre-optic rollout, pushing the network to roughly two-thirds of the UK 16m homes by 2015. A quarter of those homes will get speeds of 100Mb per second. BT has yet to launch a 100Mb per second service, but earlier this year started selling BT Infinity, which runs at 40Mb. It expects 4m homes to have access to this service by the end of the year.

Shares in BT rose by more than 10% as BT said the increased investment in fibre optics could be managed within current spending plans and that BT Global Services would make more cash than it spent in two years' time. But some in the City were sceptical about the figure: in a note, HSBC reckoned the fibre-optic rollout would cost 3.5bn to 4bn.

Exchange 2010 offers an improved user experience, but it still doesn't offer full functionality in all browsers

Running Exchange and thinking about upgrading to 2010? There's a myriad of new stuff in the latest version of Microsoft's enterprise mail and calendar app including greater mailbox resilience, higher availability and simplified compliance.

However, what's really improved is the user experience. You don't have to search very hard to find that one of the biggest grumbles about Exchange has been the pitiful cross-browser support for its webmail client, Outlook Web Access (OWA). With full drag-and-drop and right-click functionality only available in recent versions of Internet Explorer, it's been a very unattractive option for Mac users or, indeed, anyone who prefers or has to use a browser other than IE.

The biggest advance in Exchange 2010 is that finally OWA works properly in more, but not all, browsers. It offers all the functionality in Firefox on Mac or Windows, Safari for Mac and Chrome for Windows but not Safari for Windows, nor Chrome on the Mac, nor in Opera. In those cases, you'l l see the same Light client as Exchange 2007.

If you like threaded conversation views, you'll love OWA 2010 as they're on by default; and if you're syncing with a Windows Mobile device, you'll get threaded emails there, too. Fortunately, for those of us who don't like it, you can turn it off and you can specify it on or off for each folder.

For an admin, the new OWA client also lets you manage users, roles and groups under the options tab, meaning that if you're away from base you won't have to log on to the server remotely. Users too can do more for themselves via OWA, including joining public groups and wiping a device paired via ActiveSync if it's lost or stolen.

OWA can also handle voicemail and texts, and by adding Office Communications Server to your Exchange infrastructure, your users can communicate via instant messaging in the OWA client.

On the downside, the default theme for OWA 2010 is hideous a bilious yellow with two-dimensional buttons that feels like a step back from the elegant default blue theme of OWA2007. Out of the box it does have a couple of other themes, including an ugly Zune one, but for now only an admin can change the theme, and only for all users. However, SP1 a beta of which will be available in June promises to restore the choice of themes to individual users.

Under the hood, Exchange 2010 is only 64bit and demands Windows Server 2008, so it's a significant upgrade if you've skipped Exchange 2007. Also, it doesn't run on Small Business Server, as Exchange 2007 does, so that's not an upgrade path for a smaller company. However, you'll spend less time nagging your users to keep their mailboxes under control as 2010 can use cheaper storage than previous versions required and also lets users have much bigger folders.

That's just scratching the surface. At the end of the day it's a big upgrade in terms of functionality, user experience and hardware requirements, and no IT admin embarks on such a move lightly. However, if you gave 2007 a miss and your hardware is creaking, now is as good a time as any to make the jump.

Pros: vastly better user experience; more self-service options for users, reducing the load on a help desk; less exacting storage requirements

Cons: Ugly and hard to change OWA default theme; requires Windows Server 2008 and 64bit hardware

Microsoft Exchange online

The US president is sadly out of touch with technology

Oh, Obama, we thought you were cool. Or rather, with your Twitter campaign and your BlackBerry, we thought you were a geek like us. So how could you say this, at a graduation speech at Hampton University? "With iPods and iPads; Xboxes and PlayStations none of which I know how to work information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment, rather than the means of emancipation."

Obama gave the Queen an iPod last year, so if he doesn't know how to work one he really should ask her for a lesson. After an aide has dialled her number for him on a newfangled telephonic communication device, of course.

Sadly, his focus on consoles panders to a popular belief that games are pointless. That, unlike novels, newspapers, sculpture, classical dance or opera, they are a waste of time. It's rubbish, of course. There are worthless novels and highly intelligent games. But as Cicero knew a politician can't go wrong exclaiming, "O tempora, O mores!" decrying modern times and declaring that things were better in the past.

But, maybe, underneath Obama's confused statement there's a grain of truth. Winifred Gallagher's recent book Rapt says we're suffering because so many forms of entertainment are squabbling for our attention. With Twitter, Facebook, IM, RSS, email, our world is constantly beeping.

In fact, what games do better than almost any other medium is to hold our attention. I've never listened to opera for four hours straight without noticing the time, but that happens frequently with a great game. Perhaps the growing popularity of games is partly a desire for the focus we've otherwise lost.

Between government policy and deliberate vulnerabilities in the technology, citizens of most countries can be monitored online

Not since the 1990s has the internet been so exciting. With its use by political activists and journalists around the world, we can now again entertain the discussions that the internet brings freedom. Digital data traverses routers with little regard to national boundaries and so traditional constraints not longer apply. So it is no surprise that protestors on the streets of Tehran or Cairo are using the internet to organise. We like to believe in the freedom of the internet again, after the rush of "freedom" in the 1990s was replaced with "free downloads" provided by file-sharing and "free services" provided by internet companies.

Our dreamy thoughts of freedom are roughly awoken when these political activists and journalists are hunted down by their governments, imprisoned or worse. Could this wonderful internet actually make these political movements vulnerable? Indeed, it does and it is our fault. Our technologies are intentionally designed with vulnerabilities embedded within, as we design our technologies for ease of use rather than caution and protection.

Through a simple subpoena or unwarranted access, vast amounts of personal information on individuals may be accessible to government authorities, much of which would have been previously inaccessible. Tactics such as these are regularly used to discover the identities of journalists' sources by gaining access to telephone and email logs so surveillance creates a hostile environment for free speech.

Over the years, governments in the US and Europe permitted our law enforcement and intelligence agencies to design vulnerabilities into our systems. Starting with the Clinton administration and later by standards developed by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute, we designed our communications systems to provide wide-scale surveillance capabilities to law enforcement and intelligence agencies.

The Wall Street Journal reported last year that Nokia Siemens Networks had provided the Iranian government with backdoor access to the communications of Iranian opposition groups. Everyone got angry at Nokia, while forgetting that they had built those backdoors by demands from our own governments. Yet when human rights groups protested these standards and policies in the 1990s we were dismissed as paranoid, and some policy-makers, like the former home secretary, Charles Clarke, impugned our motives as though we were defending terrorists and child pornographers.

Policy changes have also permitted expansive surveillance. Policies devised by the UK government were pushed through the European Union to require the retention of location, call and email transactional data for up to two years, to ensure that the governments can find you and identify with whom you have been speaking. Governments across Asia and Africa are keen to follow this European model of wide-scale unwarranted surveillance.

Companies are not without fault. We have permitted companies to design products that disregard privacy, and change their policies to suit their commercial interests. Recent changes on Facebook now make your interests more public; and we hear complaints of people being embarrassed by what is now publicly available. If you are an activist who lists a political affiliation, this information has gone from being private to dangerous.

Much of the recent debate about Google and China has focused on free speech. Let's not forget the rocks that started the avalanche: someone tried to hack the Gmail accounts of Chinese dissidents and human rights groups. What have internet and telecommunications companies done to make the internet more free, rather than merely making it more profitable? Remember that privacy is not just a consumer right, it is a political right, created to ensure that we have open and free political systems, the ability to organise and protest, and speak out without fear of retribution.

I've always been curious why countries bother to implement censorship technologies on the internet when instead they can let individuals freely use Facebook, YouTube, access websites of controversial organisations, read articles from banned newspapers and then keep track of everything their citizens are doing. Informants and covert surveillance are no longer required when we have vast databases, telecommunications companies and internet service providers all accumulating information on our political interests, hobbies, loves, hates and fetishes.

Today, I'll get a chance to put my concerns to executives from Google and Facebook when Index on Censorship hosts an event asking Is The Internet Safe For Free Speech? And so may you.

To fix the recent problems with our Guardian iPhone app simply delete the app and reinstall the app (please note you will not be charged again should you do this)

Users of our Guardian iPhone app have experienced loading issues over the past 12 hours so I wanted to write a short note - first to apologise and second to alert all our users to a fix.

First, the problem.

Our app works by using a series of 'tags' to determine how to display content. So, for example, galleries are produced and published with a 'gallery' tag which allows our audience to delve instantly into that content type, and also provides a simple way for us to feed content into our various products appropriately.

Unfortunately, last night we accidentally forgot to tag an article containing a Flickr Flash interactive with the 'interactive' tag. We ordinarily strip any 'interactives' out as they cannot be displayed on an iPhone. As a result our iPhone app was attempting to pull this into our gallery carousel. The results weren't good.

All users who attempted to open the app during the hours of 23.00BST and 10.30BST (Tuesday 11 May - Wednesday 12 May) would have seen the app loading screen followed by a crash. We appreciate this is frustrating in the extreme, particularly on a news day such as today.

We have since fixed the issue. The second problem is that because the app is crashing at such an early stage it is not updating the feed. This, again, means that users will continue to experience problems.

It goes without saying that we are working on a fix that we will upload to Apple today. However, in the meantime, the app can be updated simply by deleting and reinstalling. Please note - you will not be charged again should you do this.

We fully appreciate how frustrating this is, particularly to users as engaged as our iPhone audience are. We have been consistently amazed by the number of people using the app, the frequency of visits and the positive response since we launched in December 2009.

I hope that this brief problem has not dented your enjoyment of our content too much and rest assured we are putting plans in place to ensure this does not happen again.

Thank you again for all your support since we launched app. We realise this is a serious issue and I would like to apologies again for the problems over the past 12 hours.

Please do email me at jonathon.moore@guardian.co.uk if you have any further thoughts or issues you wish to discuss.

'Internet' president, who used social media in US election, admits he can't operate an iPad, iPod or Xbox

US president Barack Obama, whose 2008 election victory has been acclaimed as the first to be "won on the internet", has warned university graduates against relying on technology for information.

In a commencement speech to more than 1,000 graduates, and thousands of their family and friends gathered at Hampton University, Obama said the era of the iPod and the Xbox has not always been good for the cause of a strong education.

The president's election campaign has been seen as the first to rely heavily on social media. His team used Facebook Obama had over 8m fans at the time of writing YouTube, MySpace, Twitter, Flickr, Digg, BlackPlanet, LinkedIn, AsianAve, MiGente, Glee, and other web sites to get information to voters.

The campaign also saw an iPhone "Obama app", which allowed supporters to spread the message to their contacts.

Yesterday however, the president admitted he could not operate an iPod or iPad, as he warned the students against becoming distracted by technology when they are already graduating "at a time of great difficulty for America, and for the world".

"With iPods and iPads; Xboxes and PlayStations none of which I know how to work information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment, rather than the means of emancipation," Obama said.

"All of this is not only putting new pressures on you. It is putting new pressures on our country and on our democracy."

Graduates face a tough economy for jobs, two wars and a 24/7 media environment not always dedicated to the truth, the president added, as he stressed the importance of a good education to adapt to what he called "a period of breathtaking change, like few others in our history".

However Obama said education can fortify students to "meet the tests of your own time".

Addressing graduates at the historically black university in south-eastern Virginia, Obama said black students face more difficult headwinds than others and are typically outperformed by their white classmates.

He urged the Hampton graduates to be role models and mentors to younger people to teach them the importance of education and personal responsibility.

Obama also said an education can help people sift through the many voices "clamouring for attention on blogs, on cable, on talk radio" and help them find the truth.

"Let's face it, even some of the craziest claims can quickly gain traction. I've had some experience with that myself," Obama said.

IBM researcher Matt McKeon has illustrated in a few brief slides quite how far Facebook has shifted in its treatment of users' personal data.

Facebook has two issues here. One is making sure its technology delivers; that wasn't the case last week when, as TechCrunch reported, someone found a security hole that exposed private video chats.

That latest problem was grist to the mill of people concerned with the bigger issue of how Facebook deals with private data through a perpetual balance of how it thinks data could be used and what users will accept.

The level of openness that users will accept has shifted very fast since Facebook became mainstream, but the site continues to push that boundary forward. Since the first high-profile controversy around publishing data in news feeds back in September 2006, a string of redesigns and re-configurations have pushed users' information further and further into the public space.

O2's combined broadband and landline bundle is cheaper than TalkTalk and BT

Are you paying separate bills for your landline and broadband? If so, it may be time to switch to a combined deal.

Mobile phone giant O₂ this week launched one of the UK's cheapest bundles, undercutting the likes of TalkTalk and BT.

For 17 a month, it will supply your landline and phone package including free calls in the evenings and weekends, alongside 8Mb broadband.

Most people, though, will want to opt for the 20-a-month deal which includes all the phone calls you can make to other landlines and 0845 numbers, as well as calls to 20 popular international destinations.

O₂ says it is open to anyone with a BT line into their home some Sky and TalkTalk customers may be able to switch depending on their local exchange, assuming they are out of contract.

To get these prices, households have to be an O₂ mobile customer. All those with a contract can access the deal. Pay-as-you-go users have to top up at least 10 every three months. Non-O₂ customers pay 5 a month more.

You have to sign a 12-month contract and the only downsides that we have spotted are that you have to pay an extra 1 a month for the 1571 answer phone package, and that those on the 17-a-month deal have to pay for calls to 0845 numbers.

Unlike most other basic internet packages, O₂'s home broadband is not subject to download limits. And the offering is certainly going to cause some shockwaves. Until recently, TalkTalk prided itself on the UK's cheapest home phone/broadband packages. They start at 18.48 a month but you need to add 4 a month for unlimited calls any time and a further 2 a month for international calls. BT's similar package costs in excess of 30 a month compared to O₂'s 20/ 25.

One of the advantages of signing with O₂ is that it provides good customer service meaning any problems should get sorted out relatively easily not always the case in the market.

Matthew Wheeler, communications expert at uSwitch.com, says: "O₂ has been voted best broadband provider for the last two years in our independent Customer Satisfaction Awards.

"If it's able to maintain these very high standards with its home phone service it will provide an extremely viable alternative to existing bundle suppliers. Obviously O₂ mobile customers get the best deal, but 25 a month is still a great deal. The other really good thing is that they are upfront about the line rental cost which is wrapped into the price they promote."

He says home phone and broadband bundles usually bring better value to consumers, "but they are also very easy for people to get wrong. If you are dissatisfied with one element of your bundle you may not be able to cancel that part of the service without sacrificing the rest of the deal," he warns.

Customers can text their home phone number to 61202, call 0800 954 1427 or visit O2's website to check if they can get O₂ Home Broadband and Home Phone.

Web addresses will now be available in Arabic in a move being billed as a 'milestone in internet history'

In a move that is being billed as a historic achievement for one of the world's leading languages, web addresses will now be available in Arabic as part of a wider move to open up cyberspace to domain names in multiple, non-Latin scripts.

Egypt, the most populous of Arab countries, announced today that it has begun registering names under the .misr domain. "Misr" is the Arabic name for Egypt. The first three companies to use it are TE Data, Vodafone Data and Link Registrar, said the country's communications minister, Tarek Kamel, hailing "a milestone in internet history".

Instead of using the old .eg domain name, organisations in Egypt can use ."misr", written from right to left in Arabic script as the default country code for domestic websites. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are also introducing the new codes, respectively ".Al-Saudiah" and ".Emarat".

One of the first of these "internationalised domain names" leads to the Egyptian communications ministry. If a browser has the correct fonts installed, the user should see an Arabic name. When you mouse-over or click on the link, what you see will depend on the browser. "Confusing for us, a relief for the Arab world," commented the specialist IT site THINQ.co.uk.

The move comes six months after the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, Icann, approved the use of non-Latin domain names.

The innovation is a significant moment for the internationalisation of the world wide web half of whose users do not use a Latin script as their primary language.

Arabic accounts for 1% of all web content though its estimated 280 million speakers constitute 5% of the global population but until now it has had to be hosted under Latin addresses, creating practical problems and conveying a sense of linguistic discrimination.

"This great step will open up new horizons for e-services in Egypt," said Kamel. "It will boost the number of online users in the country and will enable internet services to penetrate new market segments by eliminating language barriers."

Internet access in Egypt is becoming cheaper and the use of internet on mobile devices is blossoming. The government is planning a $1bn ( 673m) upgrade to its broadband capacity over four years to quadruple penetration to 20%.

Announced on the Icann blog, the new system improves previous workaround solutions in Thailand and China, which are not recognised universally. Icann said it expects some teething troubles, but software updates for web browsers, such as downloading additional language packs, should help.

Blogging is popular in many Arab countries. Arabic users on the internet have increased by more than 2,000% over the last decade. But content still punches below its weight and spending on advertising remains tiny. Microsoft and Google include Arabic in their top 10 languages in need of prioritised attention and are working hard to increase access: one glaring example of its underdevelpoment is that the Arabic portal of online encyclopedia, Wikipedia, carries less words than its site in Catalan, which is spoken by 9 million people.

On this week's programme, we look back on the past 14 days of politics, and the uncomfortable love triangle that unfolded between the three main party leaders. Their allegiances flipped faster than the MP housing market, and we've been watching it all on the web.

So to what extent has the UK general election of 2010 been a digital election? Discussing this are the Guardian's new media correspondent, Jemima Kiss, and Matthew McGregor from Blue State Digital, the team that orchestrated the Obama new media campaign.

We also have a dispatch from the front line of online crime: Joseph Menn, the author of Fatal System Error tells us about his research into cybercrime that could end up bringing down the web.

And in the week that the iPad's UK pricing plan was unveiled, we take a look at one of Apple's most persuasive competitors, the JooJoo Tablet, with the CEO of Fusion Garage, Chandra Rathakrishnan. Originally this device was to be released as the CrunchPad as a pet project of TechCrunch's Michael Arrington but the relationship fell apart and lawsuits seem likely.

Don't forget to ...

Comment below
Mail us at tech@guardian.co.uk
Get our Twitter feed for programme updates
Join our Facebook group
See our pics on Flickr/Post your tech pics

Researchers projected men's sense of self into a virtual reality woman, changing the way they behaved and thought

Scientists have transferred men's minds into a virtual woman's body in an experiment that could enlighten the prejudiced and shed light on how humans distinguish themselves from others.

In a study at Barcelona University, men donned a virtual reality (VR) headset that allowed them to see and hear the world as a female character. When they looked down they could even see their new body and clothes.

The "body-swapping" effect was so convincing that the men's sense of self was transferred into the virtual woman, causing them to react reflexively to events in the virtual world in which they were immersed.

Men who took part in the experiment reported feeling as though they occupied the woman's body and even gasped and flinched when she was slapped by another character in the virtual world.

"This work opens up another avenue for virtual reality, which is not just to transform your sense of place, but also your sense of self," said Mel Slater, a virtual reality researcher at the Catalan Institute of Research and Advanced Studies and University College London. "There isn't any other technology that allows you to look down and see another body that isn't yours and give you the illusion that it is," he said.

"If you can temporarily give people the illusion that their bodies are different, then the evidence suggests it also affects their behaviour and the way they think. They can have new experiences: a person who is thin can know what it's like to be fat. A man can have an experience of what it's like to be a woman."

In the study, 24 men took turns wearing a VR headset that immersed them in a virtual room. Some men saw the virtual environment through the eyes of a female character who was sitting down, while others had a viewpoint that was just to the side of her.

During the experiment, a second virtual female approached and appeared to rub the person's shoulder or arm. Researchers in the lab mimicked this sensation in the real world for some of the volunteers by rubbing their shoulder or arm, helping to reinforce their feeling of occupying the character's body.

Later in the study, the second character lashed out and slapped the face of the character the men were playing. "Their reaction was immediate," said Slater. "They would take in a quick breath and maybe move their head to one side. Some moved their whole bodies. The more people reported being in the girl's body, the stronger physical reaction they had."

Sensors on the men's bodies showed their heart rates fell sharply for a few seconds and then ramped up a classic response to a perceived attack.

As expected, the body swapping effect was felt more keenly by men who saw their virtual world through the female character's eyes than those whose viewpoint was slightly to one side of her. In all cases, the feeling was temporary and lasted only as long as the study.

The study, which appears in the online science journal PLoS One, suggests that our minds have a very fluid picture of our bodies. The research is expected to shed light on the thorny neuroscientific puzzle of how our brain tells the difference between a part of our own body, and something else in the wider world.

The work might also improve rehabilitation for patients who have experienced strokes and other medical problems by immersing them in a world that helps them to use their bodies to the full again.

The ongoing court case has brought new revelations and more pressure on companies that host content

As Viacom's lawsuit against YouTube inches through the US judicial system, YouTube's chief counsel, Zahavah Levine, posted a bombshell to the company's weblog: writing after the release of previously sealed documents, he said that even as Viacom was suing YouTube for allowing infringing copies of its content to be posted by YouTube users, Viacom was also using at least 18 marketing agencies to secretly upload its videos to YouTube. It even had the agencies "rough up" the clips before uploading, wrote Levine, so that they'd appear to be illegitimate, smuggled copies, imbued with forbidden sexiness. He claimed that in a moment of Pythonesque petard-hoisting, Viacom even sent copyright complaints to YouTube over some of these videos, which it subsequently followed up with sheepish retractions when it became clear that the infringer in question was another arm of Viacom.

Viacom has dismissed YouTube's statements as "red herrings" and alleges that YouTube is negligent in its duty to proactively police user uploads for infringement (never mind that there is 100 years' worth of content uploaded to YouTube every day, far more than all the copyright lawyers in America could carefully vet, even if they all worked for YouTube). Viacom says that YouTube, not Viacom, should be responsible for identifying infringing material and taking it offline (YouTube has a copyright filter that rightsholders can use to automatically search and destroy material, but it requires companies such as Viacom to upload copies of all the video they want checked for).

And Viacom says that YouTube's failure to proactively police its content cost the company billions, which YouTube should now pay to Viacom.

How to explain such behaviour? Could it be that Viacom is suing YouTube for depriving it of revenue by allowing short clips from its properties to be viewed online, even as its production people are desperately trying to get as much of their video as possible on to YouTube?

I don't think it would be that hard to understand.

What if Viacom's frontline production people and even its mid-level execs have a theory about how to maximize shareholder value: they will produce things, make them well known, and stick ads on them to gain profits? They will seek out every conceivable opportunity to make their productions well-known, because though it may be hard to make money from popularity, it's impossible to make money from obscurity.

What if Viacom's senior execs have a different theory about how to maximize shareholder value: they will move against YouTube and other tech companies, using legal threats to extract maximum cash, even if this comes at the expense of popularity and income to the things that the company produces?

So if Levine is right, Viacom has two factions: one that wants to create and profit from television; and another that wants to create and profit from lawsuits.

Like the Ford execs who decided that selling cars was nowhere near as interesting as making car-loans, securitising them and selling their derivatives in the financial markets, Viacom's executive suite is in danger of taking the company out of the making stuff business and into the making hot air business.

In this, Viacom would be a microcosm for the entertainment industry. Even as thousands of artists and labels are embracing the internet and next-generation services such as BitTorrent, Last.fm, Pandora and the like, the top management at the big labels are behind laws such as the Digital Economy Act that could give their companies the power to shut down any tech firm that attempts to out-innovate their own sluggish online also-rans.

From the Digital Economy Act to the anti-counterfeiting trade agreement, Big Content's top brass are looking for ways to increase the liability borne by "intermediaries" the companies that host and transmit user-uploaded material in order to give them the footing from which to put pressure on tech firms to pay them off and go into bankruptcy.

The lawmakers who say that they favour these draconian copyright powers are not on the side of creators. The creators are the ones busily shovelling their creative works on to YouTube. These laws are designed to provide full employment for the litigation industry, and to encourage the moral hazard that has TV and record companies turning into lawsuit factories.

It may not be meant for off-road duties, but cars like this take speed bumps in their stride

Strange to say, but it was only while driving the Subaru Forester 2.0D XS NavPlus that I finally realised the true purpose of an SUV. Over the years, I have considered more obvious possibilities: that SUVs are simply meant to annoy people neighbours, other drivers, pedestrians; that SUVs are a symbol, like brown corduroy trousers, of a faulty fashion sense; that SUVs are for those who want to identify with countryside but are too busy or bored by the prospect to go there; that SUVs are for those who want to suggest an active lifestyle without getting out of the car.

No doubt all of these explanations are valid and play some part in shaping design and informing consumer demand, but none of them focuses on what really sets an SUV apart. Cruising along a wide urban road in the Forester, I experienced an epiphany. Cars like this, I realised, are ideal for going over speed bumps. That's what they're for.

It used to be that there were more roadworks in London than speed bumps, but now there are many more speed bumps than roadworks. Together the cones and the bumps, and the craters left after the cones, form an assault course of sorts that many cars are not built to endure.

Happily the Forester is not included among their number. It may not be meant for off-road duties, but it's remarkably well-adapted to contend with a variety of on-road obstacles. Take the speed bumps, for example, that's exactly what it does, in its stride, without any need to brake or swerve. It seems ironic that speed bumps slow down small, light cars that are likely to do least damage to a pedestrian, yet fail to inhibit large, heavy cars that do most harm to anyone unfortunate enough to come into physical contact with them.

But you can't concern yourself with that kind of injustice when you're flying over the bumps as if they were trompe l'oeil paintings. After all, what else are the shock absorbers for, and what better reason to appreciate the comfy leather seats, than to block out the rude intrusion of purpose-built humps and accidental holes?

Now fitted with the "boxer" diesel engine, the flat four-cylinder design previously introduced in Subaru's Legacy and Outback models, the Forester is a smooth city drive with plenty of power for the open road. It doesn't look smooth. Indeed, there's something a little busy and nerdy about it, with its bonnet vent and pinched nose, that suggests a car not entirely confident of its identity.

Still, if the car betrays a certain overeagerness or design anxiety, its inhabitants should feel a good deal more relaxed. This is traffic calming that won't give you the hump.

Subaru Forester 2.0D XS NavPlus

Price 27,820
Top speed 115.5 mph
Acceleration 0-60mph in 10 seconds
Average consumption 44.1mpg
CO2 emissions 170g/km
Eco rating 5.5/10
Bound for The bump in the road
In a word Becalming

We should be enjoying a flood of new ARM-based mobile internet devices, but we're not. Apparently they've been stalled while waiting for Adobe to release Flash Player 10 and AIR

Like other people briefed by ARM, I really expected one or two dozen ARM-powered netbook-style systems or media tablets to appear at the Consumer Electronics Show in January. They didn't, but why not? Why aren't there loads already in the shops?

ZD Net's David Meyer reports that, according to ARM's marketing vice president, Ian Drew, "events have conspired to stall this plan". A story headlined Smartbooks have been delayed by Flash issues, says ARM, quotes Drew as follows:

"I think one reason is to do with software maturity. We've seen things like Adobe slip we'd originally scheduled for something like 2009."
ARM and Adobe signed a partnership in late 2008 that was intended to see Flash Player 10 and Air both rich web platforms optimised for ARM-based systems. That work is only likely to come to fruition in the second half of this year, when an optimised version of Flash comes out for Android smartphones. As Apple's Steve Jobs recently pointed out, Flash was originally supposed to ship for smartphones in early 2009.

Shanzai.com's response is that ARM bashes Flash Unfairly for Lack of Smartbooks, and it points out that the media see "Flash as the new kid on the block to bully". Yes, the sudden shift of interest from netbook-style devices to tablet formats probably slowed things down. Still, lack of Flash for ARM chips can't have helped.

Another factor is the failure of Linux on netbooks, because to ARM's chagrin ARM chips cannot run Microsoft Windows. Meyer writes:

"Some of it is also related to there not being many Linux [netbooks] out there either," Drew added, pointing out that ARM's architecture cannot support x86-based applications from the PC. "We've only got Linux. If you look at forecasts for Linux netbook sales last year, not as many were sold."

However, this shouldn't matter much to the nascent tablet market, where Apple's iPad has demonstrated that you can sell loads of machines without running Windows. And in ARM's case, as in Apple's case, Windows shouldn't matter. The iPad is basically a big iPod Touch (or a big iPhone without the phone part), and an ARM-based tablet is most likely to be a big Google Android phone. In other words, a system written to be driven by the end of your finger, rather than (like Windows) a stylus or a mouse.

This kind of system should start to become widely available fairly soon. Indeed, Zedomax did a hands-on review of a prototype system this week at Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco. You can get some idea of what it looks like from Zedomax videos on YouTube, with the second one (Android Multi-Touch Tablet Prototype Hands-on Video Review! Part 2 - above) attracting particular attention. Apple fanboys and anti-Flash folks reckon it shows the browser crashing when running Flash, while Zedomax says it doesn't. On YouTube, he says:

Hey if u dont believe me I will go take another video tomorrow and prove u it didnt crash and show u all the "hidden" button I was using, u can see clearly in the video, there's a slight moment of pause where i am fiddling with the back button and I accidentally hit the home button, geez, #idontlie folks.

But really, a prototype crashes a browser: who cares? Apparently Steve Jobs reckons that Flash crashes on Macs running OS X all the time.

People who support Google's Android and Chrome OS ventures which are both based on Linux will value the fact that they are open source, so users can do whatever they like with them. Android tablets and other devices provide freedoms that will never be officially available in the iPad's closed, proprietary system. The freedom to run Adobe Flash could be just one of them.

Microsoft's Security Intelligence Report shows slight decline in the number of software vulnerabilities, but plenty of attempts to exploit them

The number of software vulnerabilities has gone down again, by 8.4% to about 2,500, according to the eighth edition of Microsoft's Security Intelligence Report (SIRv8), which is published twice a year. The latest edition was published today at Microsoft.com/sir

However, botnets continue to be a problem as they are hired out by cybercriminals in what Cliff Evans, Microsoft UK's head of security and privacy, calls a "black cloud". He says that in the second half of 2009, the top five botnets were responsible for sending more than 94% of all botnet spam.

Attacks are now motivated by financial gain, with a "black economy" of malware authors, botnet herders and other criminals working together to exploit vulnerabilities in Windows PCs.

As before, the numbers show that more recent versions of Microsoft Windows are less vulnerable to attack. In terms of vulnerabilities across the industry, Evans says only about 5% are in Microsoft software. This has led to a shift in emphasis to targeting third party programs and utilities. In XP, around 45% of attacks exploited third party (ie non-Microsoft) code, whereas with Vista and Windows 7 it's around 75%.

This means Windows Update is not enough to protect users, who must also install updates from Adobe, Apple and other software suppliers. (For Windows 7 users, Adobe Reader took three places in the top 10.)

However, Microsoft is now finding fewer infections when it scans PCs, which it does by running its Malicious Software Removal Tool before installing Windows updates. Evans says the number of "cleans" in the UK has dropped from 4.9 per thousand PCs to 4.1 per thousand.

In the UK, Win32/Renos was the top Trojan found by Microsoft security products, with 245,921 infections, and the Win32/Hotbar adware came second with 228,801 infections. The much-publicised Conficker worm placed 13th with 57,133.

Fake security software continues to be a major problem. Win32/Renos claims that your PC is infected with spyware and offers to remove it for a fee. Win32/FakeXPA, Win32/Yektel, Win32/Winwebsec, Win32/FakeSpypro, Win32/FakeVimes, Win32/FakeRean and Win32/InternetAntivirus all appeared in the top 25.

But game password stealer Win32/Taterf -- the world's most common bit of malware, as detected by Microsoft -- only ranked 24th in the UK.

As usual, most threats exploit vulnerabilities that have been fixed. For example, 75.8% of the attacks on Microsoft Office files exploited a single vulnerability (CVE-2006-2492, the Malformed Object Pointer Vulnerability in Microsoft Office Word), and you can see when that was found: 2006.

If you've been caught by a vulnerability when you've had more than three years to apply a free fix, whose responsibility is that?

Want to be a better street fighter? Ryan Hart answers your questions about Capcom's fighting game series...

Last week we invited you to put your Street Fighter questions and problems to European Street Fighter champion, Ryan Hart (who last week won Paddy Power's SFIV challenge). Here are his in-depth responses.

If you have any queries that haven't been covered, especially about the newly released Super Street Fighter IV, add them to the comments section, and we'll pass them on to Ryan!

"I've been playing SF since the first arcade machine came out but only recently got my hands on the top of the range arcade stick. While the Xbox pad sucks for SF I'm still having trouble getting used to the stick - do you have any tips for those making the switch? I usually play as Chun-Li, Sakura and Ryu but look forward to getting back in to using Guy and Ibuki in SSFIV"
djpray2k

When making the switch from pad to stick, getting your movement up to scratch is important, so I'd say to work on this. Use the training mode to practice your combos, this will get your fingers used to reaching for the larger buttons in their respective locations on the stick face. The more you use it, the more you'll adjust.

Try to choose a character that doesn't require complex commands frequently. Maybe start out with a charge character just to get used to the feeling of holding a stick. Then gradually advance from there. Later on, if you find you prefer the stick with some characters and the pad with others, try to look at what it is you find more comfortable on pad. If it's something that you find more demanding on the stick, use that as a way of improving your stick skills. The challenging aspects are what make it fun!

"I have a question about combos. I main as E Honda. I know his sumo head butt can be cancelled into his super Onimusou. If I am *right next* to the opponent I can usually pull this triple head butt move off. But if there is any distance between Honda and the other character I can never seem to get the timing right but I can't work out if I am being too fast or too slow! Any tips on cancelling?"
JenniferRuth

Super Onimusou? I think you mean Super Killer Head Ram? In any case, as this is a charge move, it can only be done close, as once you release the backwards charge in order to do the first sumo headbutt, you lose the charge for the super as well.

"Is there any way to make Abel a useful character instead of his usual overly slow, frustrating, French waste of space?"
timthemonkey

Yes, Abel is a very good character, but he requires patience as he does not have a projectile to fight a long distance game, and can't get in to play his close combat game easily. On the ground however, he does have a number of tools to help him get close. One of his best moves is his forward and medium kick then forward to dash, after which you have a few options. Two other moves which can help you get stuck in are his EX change of direction and his Marseilles Roll. The former can absorb one hit from an opponent and still continue moving forward, meaning if you predict a fireball, for example, you will be able to perform the EX change of direction, go through the fireball and then strike the opponent. After lots of practice this can be done on reaction.

If your opponent uses a lot of pokes from a distance, you may be able to hit his attack with a standing light kick or a crouching medium punch or crouching medium kick which you can then link into a change of direction.

Additionally his crouching hard kick has good range and can surprise opponents who are prioritising movement over a low guarding position as both cannot be done at the same time.

His best strategy is to get the opponent down and try to keep them down. With Abel, this is best done by using his Marseilles roll and his crossup game with his air medium kick. When you get the opponent down, use the roll and time it in a way that it becomes difficult for your opponent to know which side you will end up on. This makes things difficult for their defence. In the crossup game, once you land a crossup medium kick, you can go into a combo from his crouching medium punch.

If they block it, alternatively you have the tornado throw and the regular throw which isn't as demanding. A crouching light kick string will get an opponent who tries to stand guard or jump away. If they dash back then you have forward and medium which will catch some backdashes, and also a crouching medium punch into a combo will be useful here too. For anti-air, his good moves are jumping hard punch and crouching medium kick.

Lastly, don't forget that his ultra (Soulless) can be used as a long range tool to go through projectiles, and his new ultra in Super Street Fighter IV (Breathless) covers over half the screen, can be cancelled at will, can be held for delayed execution, is extremely fast and cannot be blocked. So Abel will be even stronger with this new weapon.

"Now I'm a half decent SFIV player (shut up Umboros). I can hold my own online with most people, and I've beaten the game on the hardest mode, with most characters. So why oh why can't I do the trial challenges? Even on the easy level, I can only get most characters up to the 3rd challenge. Is then any special method to these?"
JimBob78

The trials are not easy and many of these combos could take many days of practice to complete. Some combinations here are designed to challenge even the most technical of players. My advice here would be to breakdown the exact part of the combo you find most difficult and work out what you are having trouble with. Maybe even just practice this section separately until you see improvements, then go back and retry the combo all together.

"What are the best options for playing a ground game and mixing up strategies to confuse opponents? It's always tempting to jump in to start a combo on Street Fighter, but if your opponent blocks it leaves vulnerable. Getting past Ken when he's throwing fireballs usually results in a dragon punch to the face, how can you deal with these tactics and keep the opponent off guard?"
Umboros23

In Street Fighter and just about any fighting game being safe is a key factor in survival, and it must be prioritised. This fact is not really focused on, but combos are often a case of how good your reactions are. For example, if you jump over Ryu as he does a fireball it's down to your reactions whether you can capitalise on this opening and pull off your combo.

However, this also goes slightly deeper than simply jumping projectiles. Combos can also be used in block strings (which is a succession of moves that keep the opponent frozen in the block position after the first hit has been blocked). This is important as it applies pressure to the opponent, builds your super meter and helps to create openings.

Now, if you notice that one of your attacks has hit, you may be able to link this to another move and create a combo, but as mentioned earlier, it's all down to your reflexes whether or not you are fast enough to capitalise on this opening or not. This usually takes practice and gets easier with experience.

On the ground, it's important to understand your character's best tools to combat the opponent's ground tools. This is one thing that the training mode in Street Fighter IV is very good for. You can set the opponent to record and have him repeatedly perform moves you find tricky to get by. You can then playback your recording and then use your own character to see what beats the opponent's moves.

For Ken's fireball, you can simply stay back, jump over them all and none of them will hit you. Another method is to use the focus attack dash forward to go through the fireball which will give you the advantage if done with the right timing. Also depending on your character, there are a number of moves you may be able to do go through fireballs, so test these out too.

"This is more a history question but, long ago in my formative years down the local arcade, all the best players used to play with Guile for their serious matches, I even seem to remember a combo that froze the opponent, but that's by the by, anyway, these days I see very few play with Guile. Has he been deliberately weakened or is it just that everyone else has been improved?"
koolherc

In some areas Guile has stayed the same, and in others he has weakened. He is still a very good and playable character and shouldn't be underestimated in any version. In Super Street Fighter IV, he has new combos and a new ultra and is definitely stronger than in the predecessor.

By the way, Guile's handcuffs, which I believe you were referring to, was so funny. If the handcuffs were not removed before the time ran out, resetting the machine was the only way to get things back to normal. I still remember a guy walking in to the local cab station where we played, putting his 20p in, doing handcuffs on someone then walking out while everyone's credits were in the machine and no one knew how to undo the cuffs.

"With Ken's buffs in Super, are you going to be breaking him back out in tournaments or chancing out a new character?"
Owwmykneecap

Yes I will be keeping Ken in my arsenal of top characters and I will also be adding some new ones too.

"Where exactly do you look on the screen? Do you focus solely on the opponent or take in the screen as a whole?"
sunsetbeach

I focus on everything but not all the time. There are just so many factors to account for. My attention is divided and everything is broken down based on priority. For example, on Super Street Fighter IV as the clock is relatively slow, the time clock does not need to be checked regularly. However, as your opponent is moving all the time, your eyes need live updates constantly to keep up with their movements and to judge spacing, movement, etc, on the screen. The super meter of both you and your opponent is also important, as this can determine the next move or even next few moves. In some cases, I even think about what the opponent will do in a few moves once he has the super. When you are planning ahead, you need to take the health and time into account as well. But generally, as long as you keep a good eye on the main things your opponent and all gauges it should be okay.

"I was hoping to pick up Ibuki because I loved her in 3rd strike and never really found a main in SFIV. I was looking for a good way to combo after her kunai vortex; I know you can hit the c.jab (c.jab, s.jab, s.mk spinkick or whatever) but more often than not, it seems very punishable, even on hit. Any advice on getting the combo or making it safe on block? And any other general advice on someone looking to pick her up?

Also, are you planning on keeping Sagat as your main, or are you tempted by the new cast members?"
Kanped

After you land a combo with her spinkick, you have the advantage. Standing medium kick should beat most of the opponent's options bar the dragon punch or things which are invincible on startup. Another suggestion would be to end your combos with the neck breaker so that you floor the opponent and have a chance to set them up again. At least this way you won't have to feel like you're on a back foot even after landing a combo. Getting the opponent down and keeping them down is key so try out neck breaker combos and then see if that improves things.

As for Sagat, I'm in a bit of a dilemma right now. I'm picking up other characters who appear to be more fun than Sagat, but I'm not sure if I will drop him as main just yet. We will have to see at a later stage but it is possible. The new cast are very fun, different and interesting.

"What's the best strategy for fighting against Sagat online? I always meet fireball spammers and when I try and jump to get close, I'm met with a flying knee or uppercut.

Also, what type of controller do you use? Is the joystick really worth the money? I'm still on the PS3 pad."
cameroon95

When you fight against Sagat online it's important to take him out of his comfort zone, which is usually with you at the back of the screen. Try moving close to him (by blocking tiger shots then walking forward) but not right next to him: you need a range where, if he does a tiger shot, you can jump it and combo him. It's not to say that you will necessarily do that, but having that added as an extra option will make you more of a threat.

When you are both at the back of the screen, he can throw tiger shots all day and even if you jump over them you're out of range to inflict any damage, so try getting close and this extra pressure will force Sagat to change his gameplay. If he continues to spam tiger shots even up close, take advantage and jump in for a combo and take the most you can. Once you get close, Sagat will get wary of your range, he may try a jump in on you so make sure you have a solid anti-air move you can use against him. If he tries to move back to make more space then move in once again until he is in the corner with nowhere to run, then you can get the party started.

As for sticks, I'm currently using a number of option to try and find the best one, so this is to be continued. Generally, the most preferred sticks for Street Fighter IV are made by Hori and Madcatz.

"Can Ryan give us any tips about how and when to use the focus attack? I rarely if ever use it and it's clearly a major gap in my game at the moment, but I'm never sure when to whip one out. I mostly play Ken and Vega and I only ever do it as Ken to dash cancel through fireballs or cancel a bodged dragon punch. With Vega I only use it if I'm cornered and can't think of anything else to do, or to cancel a claw roll. I never actually hit anyone with it!"
BeardOfBees

People generally want to attack before being attacked on fighting games, so if you use block strings on your opponent they will want to attack you once you leave an opening here is when you can aim for a focus attack to eat up their attempted offence. When you play, keep a close eye on what your opponent uses. For example, against a shoto, if you notice that they use crouching medium sweep into fireball on the ground you can focus the crouching medium kick and then release the focus to attack them before their fireball is released. This will result as a counter hit on their attempted fireball. Try walking into their crouching medium kick fireball and go for it!

FIRST LOOK: The brand new 'cinematic' trailer from Ubisoft's forthcoming Persian adventure looks staggering

Due out later this month, Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands is perhaps the most eagerly awaited PoP title for five years.

Returning to the storyline begun in 2003's masterful Sands of Time, the prince must now save his brother's kingdom from an apocalyptic force. Ubisoft is promising epic battles, an intriguing new set of elemental powers and of course, lots more acrobatic mayhem and here we have the brand new trailer...

It is, quite frankly, staggering. Astonishingly detailed desert environments, intricate character modelling, utterly fluid animation. Jerry Bruckhiemer, producer of Disney's movie adaptation of Sands of Time (also due out at the end of May) said recently: "I really believe in the next 10 years you won't be able to tell the difference between movies and games. Games will be so realistic."

Okay, so none of it is in-game (and naturally, earlier game footage trailers don't impress quite as much, visually), but even as a piece of CGI it's incredible stuff, regularly tricking the eye into perceiving photographic realism. I'm not sure I believe Bruckhiemer I'm not sure I even want to. But I know I want to see more of this game, and I thought I wouldn't be excited by this franchise again.

How about you?

Audience figures likely to lag behind early rush to buy 3D-ready televisions, analysts predict

More than 800,000 households will have bought a 3D-ready television before the end of this year, but fewer than one in eight will actually be watching 3D programmes on it, a new report predicts.

This year has been predicted to have a "3D summer" as consumers flock to buy 3D TV sets following the hype surrounding the hit film Avatar and the promise of viewing sport such as football via the new technology from BSkyB. But the report from Informa Telecoms and Media forecasts that while 845,000 households worldwide are likely to have 3D TV-ready sets by the end of the year, just 101,000 homes will be watching 3D shows.

By the end of 2015, 3D-ready sets will have reached 70m households, some 5.1% of all homes that have a television. But once again a huge number up to 68% or 48m will not actually be watching 3D TV shows on them. Just over 30%, or 22.2m homes, will be watching 3D TV shows.

The report lists a number of factors contributing to the gap, including a significant number of viewers not realising that they must also have the right set top box and/or subscription package.

A similar issue plagued the surge of interest at the arrival of high-definition TV in time for the 2006 World Cup, with many viewers not realising they needed the right equipment to receive it. Simon Murray, the analyst behind the report, said that this was not likely to be a major issue with 3D TV as it was instantly obvious when the programming is not multi-dimensional.

Other factors include consumers buying TV sets more for 3D DVDs or playing games in 3D than an interest in television shows.

The report says that while just 22.2m TV households globally, some 1.6% of all homes with televisions, will be watching 3D programmes by the end of 2015 the market will still be immature at that point, with "significant growth opportunities" to come.

Issues with the cost of 3D TV sets, lack of and cost of production should start to be alleviated with the promise of massive events, such as the London 2012 Olympics, set to be a sales showcase for the technology.

By the end of the year the number of homes watching 3D TV programming globally will be 101,000. Of those 60,000 will be in North America with just 22,000 in Western Europe.

By the end of 2015 6.8m of the 22.2m households worldwide that will be watching shows in 3D will be from Western Europe. The UK is expected to have 1.6m 3d TV households by the end of 2015. North America will have 9.2m homes with Asia Pacific at 4.6m.

To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email editor@mediaguardian.co.uk or phone 020 3353 3857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 3353 2000.

If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly "for publication".

If you want to be wired for sound without any wires, TDK's WR700 wireless headphones are a decent if pricey option

TDK's Life on Record WR700 wireless headphones sounded much better than I expected, but I admit I'd feared the worst: wireless headphones are not generally known for high fidelity. TDK has got close by following Sennheiser and using the Kleer (PDF) wireless system, which can carry full CD-quality sound. This is impressive, and depressing.

As with MP3 files, you need clever technology to get the sound quality back to the level that you could easily have started from.

With the WR700 headphones, the benefit is that your movements are no longer encumbered by a physical wire from your MP3 player, hi-fi, laptop or whatever basically, anything with a headphone socket. And in general, the greater the distance between you and your source, the nicer it is to be wireless.

There are also drawbacks. The most obvious is that the transmitter must be plugged in to your MP3 player to send the signal to the headphones (or to several WR700 headphones). The transmitter is bigger than some low-end music players, does not lock into place and, annoyingly, has a rounded base so it doen't stand up. If you carry it around, it's one more thing to lose.

Another disadvantage is that you become dependent on four AAA batteries: there are two in the transmitter and two in the headset. No power, no sound.

Plug in the transmitter, turn on the headphones and the sound comes though in a second or two, but you can still run into problems. You can listen to music while roaming the house, but the sound drops out when the signal runs into the wrong arrangement of walls. Using the headphones walking around town, I suffered dropouts even with my Sony MP3 player in a shirt pocket.

The WR700 headphones have a cushioned on-ear design: they don't enclose your ears to shut out external sounds, so you can still hear people talking. Also, there's no noise cancelling system to reduce tube or train sounds. This means you tend to turn the sound up (there's an up/down volume control on one earpiece), and find it sounds a bit too loud when the train stops.

The sound quality will impress people who are used to the sort of earbuds shipped with Apple iPods and iPhones. The WR700s have good midrange definition, don't overemphasise the bass, and provide a moderate but acceptably realistic stereo soundstage. However, they're expensive at 129.99. You can get better sound quality from wired headphones that cost less, or you can get better sound quality plus noise cancelling for a similar price.

In the end, it boils down to how much you value cordlessness. TDK's WR700 wireless headphones certainly do the job, but they're not a cheap option.

Pros: wireless operation; comfortable to wear; smart appearance; good quality sound.

Cons: large transmitter; need for AAA batteries; don't exclude external sounds; no noise cancelling for travel use; expensive relative to sound quality.

TDK.com

Hard Data

Package includes: Wireless headphones; 2.4GHz transmitter; jack extension cord; cloth bag for headphones; four AAA batteries.

Stereo Sound: Kleer does not compress the audio prior to transmission Wireless: Uses the 2.4GHz band. Transmitter monitors interference and switches to another channel if necessary.

Transmitter Range: 10m Power Consumption: two AAA Batteries provide 30-40 hours of listening time.

Headphone specification Driver Diameter: 34 mm Frequency Response: 20-20,000 Hz Sensitivity at 1 kHz: 106 5dB Input impedance: 32 10% ohms

The fight between Apple and HTC, maker of mobile phones using Google's Android platform, is growing increasingly acrimonious with the Taiwanese firm calling for the regulatory authorities to halt the sale of iPhones, iPads and iPods in the US.

HTC, which makes Google's Nexus one as well as its own-branded HTC Desire, has filed a complaint with the US International Trade Commission (ITC) calling for it to "halt the importation and sale of the iPhone, iPad and iPod in the United States."

The move comes after Apple sued HTC back in March, alleging that it had infringed 20 patents relating to "the iPhone's user interface, underlying architecture and hardware".

Calling for sales of a rival's products to be halted is common practice in patent disputes. As part of its legal action against HTC, Apple has also filed a complaint with the ITC, which would see sales of HTC's products - including the Nexus One - halted.

Nokia, the world's largest mobile phone manufacturer, is also embroiled in a patent fight with Apple alleging the iPhone infringes 10 of its patents. It launched the legal action last October after the collapse of long-running negotiations to agree a deal that would have seen Apple pay a licence fee to use technology Nokia developed, which is fundamental to the way a mobile phone works and is already in the iPhone.

Apple hit back in December claiming that Nokia had infringed 13 of its patents, singling out the E71 handset as being particularly egregious.

Nokia then took its complaint to the ITC saying the Californian company had infringed seven Nokia patents across its iPhone, iPod, and Mac products. In March a judge in Delaware ordered a suspension to both the original Nokia lawsuit and Apple's countersuit while the ITC deliberates.

Part of the reason for the current fight between HTC and Apple, meanwhile, is believed to be the fact that in February HTC released handsets which use "pinch-to-zoom" functionality which resembles that of the iPhone.

The legal spat, which could drag on for years, also comes as devices using Google's Android platform are starting to have a serious impact on the market for so-called smartphones.

Earlier this week market research by the NPD Group said Android devices have outsold the iPhone in the US for the first time, although the figures did not include iPod Touch devices. Android phones now make up the second most popular category of smartphone in the US. The market for phones that can send emails, access the web and download applications is still, however, dominated by the BlackBerry, made by Canada's Research In Motion.

Android sales in the UK, meanwhile, have also started to take off, with sales of mobile phones using the software platform increasing fourfold in March, according to recent figures from retail watcher GfK. Almost one in every five smartphones now sold in the UK is Android.

Last month, Microsoft seemed to weigh in to the fight by signing a patent agreement with HTC that provides "broad coverage" under Microsoft's patent portfolio for HTC devices running Android mobile platform. Under the terms of the agreement, Microsoft receives royalties from HTC, which created the first smartphones that ran its Windows Mobile operating system.

"As the innovator of the original Windows Mobile PocketPC Phone Edition in 2002 and the first Android smartphone in 2008, HTC believes the industry should be driven by healthy competition and innovation that offer consumers the best, most accessible mobile experiences possible," said Jason Mackenzie, vice president of North America, HTC Corporation. "We are taking this action against Apple to protect our intellectual property, our industry partners, and most importantly our customers that use HTC phones."

HTC currently sells a dozen smartphones in the US, including the HTC EVO 4G which is sold by Sprint, the DROID Incredible which is being sold by Verizon Wireless and the HTC HD2 which is stocked by T-Mobile.

Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales is encouraging a purge of indecent images, while publishers targeting the iPad may be trying to avoid gratuitous nipples

Wikipedia has been deleting images that could be considered pornographic including some used to illustrate articles on sexuality, which has upset some editors who felt they should have been consulted first.

On his Talk page, co-founder Jimmy Wales wrote that: "Wikimedia Commons admins who wish to remove from the project all images that are of little or no educational value but which appeal solely to prurient interests have my full support."

"Wikimedia Commons" is a "free media repository" and a sister project to the Wikipedia encyclopedia. It was set up so that all the Wikimedia projects could share photographs, cartoons and other materials. However, it had been accused of holding pornography.

Wikinews said Wales and some other administrators had changed policy so they would delete first and argue about it later. "Images that in the past had survived deletion reviews were speedily deleted, including many which were being used to illustrate articles on sexuality across the Foundation's projects," it reported.

Fox News said Wikimedia's actions were "in response to reporting by FoxNews.com". The US news channel said it was contacting some of the project's donors including Google, Ford Foundation, Best Buy and Craigslist Foundation. It would hurt Wikimedia financially if any foundations withdrew their support it because it was associated with pornography.

Meanwhile, Apple is keeping porn off the AppStore that serves the iPhone and iPad in light of concern about making undesirable content accessible to children.

Developers of iPhone apps have already become used to having their programs censored, while the iPad due in the UK at the end of this month is introducing more British magazine and ebook publishers to Apple's strictures.

This doesn't apply to pornography, which is already banned, but to fashion magazines such as Dazed & Confused. "A D&C insider revealed that the mag's iPad edition has been nicknamed the Iran edition by the people putting it together, given the parallels between censorship in the Muslim theocracy and the iTunes store," according to Anna Leach of the ShinyShiny blog.

Leach said she hadn't heard of any iPad apps being rejected, and it was a precautionary response. But, "I can see it being quite widespread in magazines that deal with edgier street fashions, such as Dazed & Confused, Vice, and Love," she said.

Apple's chief executive Steve Jobs has defended the level of censorship it applies. "We do believe we have a moral responsibility to keep porn off the iPhone," he told one customer in an email. "Folks who want porn can buy an Android phone," he said.

The problem for content producers is that they don't know exactly how far they can go, though established publications such as Sports Illustrated (which has a famous swimsuit issue) appear less likely to run into problems than less famous titles. Infamous ones probably shouldn't bother. They can still reach iPad and iPhone users via the Apple web browsers built into these devices, they just can't trouser the cash for selling apps.

Although some will cry censorship, British publishers operated for many years under a similar unofficial self-censorship regime, with editors wary of publishing content that would upset their main distributor, WH Smith.

Private chat messages and pending friend requests visible to other Facebook users

Facebook shut down its chat system yesterday after it emerged private conversations were visible to other users.

Any user was able to view the live chats of their friends, as well as their pending friend requests, until the social media site was alerted to the problem and took Facebook chat offline.

The glitch, reported by technology blog TechCrunch, meant that people clicking on the "Preview my profile" button which enables users to see how their information is shown to certain friends were given information from their friends' accounts.

The world's biggest social media network has been under scrutiny over fears its new system, which opens up users' activity to other sites, makes it too difficult to keep information private.

"For a limited period of time, a bug permitted some users' chat messages and pending friend requests to be made visible to their friends by manipulating the 'preview my profile' feature of Facebook privacy settings," a company spokeswoman said.

"When we received reports of the problem, our engineers promptly diagnosed it and temporarily disabled the chat function. We also pushed out a fix to take care of the visible friend requests which is now complete. Chat will be turned back on across the site shortly.

"We worked quickly to resolve this matter, ensuring that once the bug was reported to us, a solution was quickly found and implemented."

The company issued a statement on the Facebook fan page explaining the absence of the chat feature to users.

"Chat is unavailable as we work quickly to fix a bug reported to us," it said. "It should return to normal soon We apologise for the inconvenience."

This morning nearly 5,000 people had said they "liked" Facebook's comment.

Governments that fail to protect computer networks could face devastating attack, says former Pentagon director

The spectre of crashing power grids, stalled air control towers, hospitals brought to a standstill and defences left wide open was raised at the first cyber-security world summit that ended today, when politicians, officials, military leaders and industrialists warned that the US and other countries were failing to protect computer networks and were vulnerable to attacks of catastrophic proportions.

Harry Raduege, former director at the Pentagon agency responsible for the computer network, said cyber attacks were growing in intensity and sophistication. "We have experienced a number of attacks against the financial sector, on the power grid and against our defence capability," he told the meeting in Dallas.

Raduege, chairman of the Deloitte Centre for Cyber Innovation, added: "What we are concerned about most is the vulnerability of the system and that potential attackers are gaining more skills. So it never ends. It demands constant attention."

Patrick Pailloux, director-general of the French network and information security agency, said he had nightmares about attacks on the electricity system, transport, water supplies, the financial sector and hospitals, which are dependent on computers. "My biggest nightmare is not having enough time to prepare," he said.

The EastWest Institute summit was attended by 400 representatives of 30 countries, including the US and Estonia, which claim to have been victims of cyber attacks, and the countries they blame for perpetrating them, China and Russia.

Hundreds of thousands of attacks are launched round the world daily, with attackers including student hackers and criminal gangs, and these cost billions of dollars. But attacks launched by countries against other countries are causing the greatest concern. The biggest so far appears to have been on Estonia in 2007, when attacks on its computers brought parts of the country to a standstill, and Georgia in 2008. Both blamed Russia, which denies the charge.

There was a cyber attack on the US last 4 July, which Washington suspects North Korea was behind and which it claims was aimed at closing down federal agencies. The US has also accused China of launching attacks, mainly aimed at espionage.

A Republican congressman, Michael McCaul, who helped guide a bill through the House in February to improve the security of US networks against cyber attacks, said: "When you mention cyber security to most members of Congress, their eyes glaze over and yet it is one of the most serious threats this century. We are good at offensive capability but we are not good on defence."

A Cyber Storm simulation exercise is scheduled to take place this year to test US readiness. The US will for the first time invite 15 other countries to participate.

It is the most advanced country at conducting cyber warfare, followed by Russia, China and Israel.

The attack on Estonia in which millions of emails swamped the websites of the government, parliament, banks, and the media was described at the summit as a wake-up call, offering a glimpse of the potential devastation that can be wreaked through targeting computer systems.

The Estonian justice minister, Rein Lang, who was at the summit, said: "Everyone should be worried, not just Estonia."

Lin Zhengrong, deputy director-general of China's internet affairs bureau of the state council information office, dismissed suggestions that China was the source of cyber attacks and said China was also a victim of such attacks.

Michael Dell, chairman of the eponymous information technology company, hinted there might eventually have to be a two-tier web system, one that was secure and the other the current open and anonymous system that Americans often refer to as the Wild West. "We have an enormous number of bad actors who are able to act completely anonymously," said Dell.

Asked if the threat was overblown, Dell replied: "I do not think it is, unfortunately."

The second summit is to be held in London next year.

Row between giant technology company and website network highlights legal issues about bloggers

It is late morning in the New York headquarters of Gawker Media, the network of 10 savvy and gossipy websites that between them act as irritant-in-chief to the US establishment. Above the reception desk there's a flat-screen TV displaying automatically updated data about the network's traffic: Gawker's so-called Big Board lists the 10 posts across the Gawker Media empire that are at any moment attracting most reader attention. The No 1 slot today is an item headlined The Washington Post Cannot Tell Obama From Malcolm X, which the board shows has received 3,725 visits in the past hour. Second slot goes to Funeral Home Displays Shooting Victim, followed by Bigots Now Targeting Lesbian Teen's Graduation. But it's the article in fourth place that catches the eye This Is Apple's Next iPhone. It has attracted a modest 2,032 visits over the past hour, but an astonishing 4,014,535 since it was first put up two weeks ago.

That Big Board figure is testimony to the extraordinary saga that has recently gripped the world of Gawker Media, bringing it head-to-head with one of the world's most powerful corporations and culminating in a late-night police raid backed by the threat of criminal prosecution. It has been a David and Goliath confrontation set in motion by the audacious move by Gawker's technology arm, Gizmodo, to acquire a prototype of Apple's upcoming 4G iPhone and disclose its highly secret make up two months before its official launch. The breach of Apple's legendary wall of security revealed a great deal about the state of new media in the US today.

Beautiful products

At the centre of the conflict stands Nick Denton, a British web entrepreneur who has injected his irreverent brand of journalism into the US media for eight years. We meet in his apartment near Gawker's SoHo offices. He is playing last night's episode of John Stewart's Daily Show featuring the Apple v Gawker battle, on an iPad. For a man who has faced the ire of the great Apple Corporation, he is steeped in Apple admiration. "Apple makes beautiful products. I own a Mac Pro, a Mac Book, a Mac Mini, an iPad, an iPhone, pretty much the entire collection," he says. The office is full of Macs and other Apple products.

But, over the past weeks, Denton has witnessed a different side to the Apple behemoth. It began on 18 March when Gray Powell, an Apple software engineer, was drinking in Redwood City, California, to celebrate his 27th birthday. Somehow he left the prototype of the next generation iPhone in the bar. It was picked up by another drinker who took it home when nobody claimed it. The next day the phone wasn't working, but when its finder tinkered with it he found that its thin outer shell in the guise of an old iPhone peeled off to reveal a shiny square object unlike anything he had seen before. He contacted Apple helplines, but no one took him seriously, and eventually he went to Gizmodo and sold it to them for $5,000.

Gizmodo's editor, Jason Chen, and his team deconstructed the machine, analysed it, became convinced it was a genuine prototype, and posted articles about it.

It was an almost unheard-of blow for Apple, whose security is renowned. Denton says: "They have these incredible devices that everyone wants to buy and read about, and that gives them the power to be so controlling of their marketing."

But for once, such control was smashed by a determined media outlet. The backlash was quick and stunning. Steve Jobs himself reportedly called Gawker executives to demand the phone's return, and there was a flurry of legal letters. Then, four days after Gizmodo posted the story, Chen and his wife returned home to find police in their apartment, investigating, they said, a possible criminal offence relating to the receipt of stolen property.

The raid, in which Chen's computers were seized, was conducted by officers of the Rapid Enforcement Allied Computer Team (React), a taskforce set up a few years ago to deal with computer crime tied to Silicon Valley. It was later revealed that Apple Inc sits on React's steering committee.

"It is strange," Denton says, clearly measuring his words in the light of the ongoing legal argument. "It's extraordinary that one would have a police force that was so aligned with corporate interests." Denton, a steely character of part-Jewish, part-Hungarian extraction, goes on: "Jason Chen, one of our bloggers, had his house broken into by a police force close to Apple. I'm not usually flummoxed, but when I had a call in the middle of the night, I was absolutely shocked."

The police action, and the threat of possible charges, has raised a central question of this media age: are bloggers journalists? Under California and federal law, journalists are shielded from prosecution if they are protecting their sources from identification. But does that apply to bloggers?

Denton believes the authorities are unlikely to attempt to trample over the rights of bloggers on the grounds that they are not journalists. "Chen does more real tech journalism than 90% of the hacks in the valley who rely on doled-out press releases. I think it will be discussed, but resolved fairly quickly."

Denton refuses to comment on the possibility that Apple will take out a civil action against Gizmodo. His legal difficulties seemed likely to ease once it became clear that both Apple and the police have discovered the identity of Gizmodo's source the drinker who found the lost iPhone and have approached him, although he has not been named. That takes away the onus on Gawker Media to protect its source.

But Gizmodo has come under fire for naming Powell as the Apple engineer who lost the iPhone in the first place. One of Gizmodo's bloggers complained that this had been "tackily done". There has been further criticism of the $5,000 the blog paid for the phone, an action that has been derided as chequebook journalism.

Soul brothers

But Denton remains utterly unrepentant. "Powell lost the phone!" he says, in response to those who quibble with the decision to name the engineer. He wrote on his Twitter feed, nicknotned: "Yes, we're proud practitioners of checkbook journalism. Anything for the story!"

The peculiarity of the face-off between Apple and Gawker is that in many ways they are soul brothers: they have both cultivated a youthful, futuristic, hip image and enjoy an overlapping following. Gawker readers are three times more likely than the average person to own an Apple product.

But the iPhone saga and the raid have underlined for Denton the contrast between what he describes as the mischievousness of Gawker and Apple's control-freakery. He doesn't blame Apple for wanting to shape its own coverage that's what corporations do, he says. He reserves his disdain for the technology reporters who are prepared to go along with Apple's dictates in the hope of being thrown crumbs from Jobs.

Denton calls it "access journalism" and says he has been allergic to it since he first moved to the US in the 1990s to report on Silicon Valley for the Financial Times. "A few clueless geeks believe 'real journalists' wait for Steve Jobs or his publicists to make an announcement," he tweeted. "Screw that."

It's that kind of independence of spirit that has earned Gawker Media a loyal and growing support base of around 28 million unique visitors a month and revenue that analysts put at about $20m a year (Denton won't confirm this). That same spirit has informed Gizmodo's coverage of the iPhone drama - the site has continued to poke fun at Jobs, posting a Photoshopped image of Chen in chains in a torture chamber, even as the threat of criminal proceedings continues to hang over it. "It's been important throughout this to retain a sense of the ridiculousness of the whole affair," Denton says. "This is about a guy who lost a phone admittedly a very important phone after a night out celebrating his birthday. It's kind of preposterous that it's turned into such a gigantic deal."

Search giant makes first direct investment in large scale renewable project, ploughing $38.8m into two North Dakota windfarms

Google has made its first direct investment in utility-scale renewable energy generation, providing $38.8m to two North Dakota wind farm projects.

The search giant said in a blog post on Monday that it had invested in two farms built by NextEra Energy Resources, which together will provide 170MW of wind energy capacity.

The wind farms are expected to make use of cutting edge turbine technologies, pioneering the use of control systems that can constantly monitor output from each turbine and continuously adjust individual blade angles to improve efficiency and enable the use of blades that are 15 per cent larger than on standard turbines.

Rick Needham, green business operations manager at Google, admitted that the investment marked something of a shift in the company's green investment strategy after its earlier funding for a number of high profile renewable energy start ups.

"We've been dedicating resources to developing new technologies, including making investments in early-stage renewable energy companies such as eSolar and AltaRock," he said. "Smart capital includes not only these early-stage company investments, but also dedicated funding for utility-scale projects. To tackle this need, we've been looking at investments in renewable energy projects, like the one we just signed, that can accelerate the deployment of the latest clean energy technology while providing attractive returns to Google and more capital for developers to build additional projects."

Google's stakes in the wind farms are in the form of "tax equity" investments, in which investors take over a project and use federal tax credits granted to the project to offset their own taxes as a return.

NextEra the top US wind power generator with 7.5GW - said it sold approximately $190m of Class B membership interests in the two wind farms, with Google's stake represents about 20 per cent of the Class B shares. Other investors were not disclosed.

Experts have speculated for several years that Google will ultimately invest directly in large scale renewable energy projects. The company's data centres are amongst the largest corporate consumers of electricity in the world and the firm has long maintained that it is in its interests to secure affordable supplies of renewable energy.

In November 2007, it's philanthropic arm Google.org announced its RE

Under the project, the firm is already investing heavily in research in utility scale solar thermal energy and innovative forms of wind power.

Google has also signalled that it may play a more direct role in the US energy market, and it was revealed earlier this year that company has lodged a request with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) that would allow it to buy and sell electricity on the wholesale market, prompting analysts to speculate that the firm may ultimately become a supplier of green energy.

HP seems to be buying a route into the mobile phone market with its purchase of Palm, but it could also plan to emulate Apple's strategy with tablets and other media devices

Was it a good idea for Hewlett-Packard, the world's biggest computer company, to buy Palm which now specialises in mobile phones for $1.2bn?

The initial response from analysts has been as mixed as you'd expect see the comments from Forrester, Gartner, IDC, Informa, and Ovum below but almost everything depends on what HP intends to do with its new company.

At one extreme, the takeover could just involve a change from a Palm that's struggling in the smartphone business to a Palm with the cash (and the resulting market confidence) to create a successful smartphone business. That's IDC's basic view. At the other extreme, HP could be more interested in owning its own operating system across phones and mobile devices (and being free of Microsoft in those areas), much like Apple. That seems to be the view held by Informa Telecoms & Media.

But in the long term, it also depends on how these market areas turn out.

Previously, Palm and many rivals including Microsoft and Nokia took the view that the mobile phone business would develop like previous technology platform businesses. Typically these start with one or a few small companies that supply an end-to-end solution, but develop into large industries to which many companies contribute parts. This involves a change from vertical organisation (where one company provides the hardware, software, online service, shops etc) to a horizontal organisation (where different companies provide the chips, operating system, services etc).

Palm split itself into hardware and software divisions, and Nokia helped set up Symbian, precisely to enable a move from a vertical (owned and mostly closed) organisation to a horizontal one (open licensing). Both wanted to avoid Apple's mistake in staying with a vertical organisation: that while the bits work together, you end up with 2% (or so) market share.

But the mobile phone and media tablet markets won't necessarily follow the sort of path that has become well known in the computer industry, and change from vertical to horizontal structures. They could, instead, reduce to a few vertically-oriented companies. That's how the games console business still works, with platforms owned and closely controlled by (currently) Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft.

Apple's iPad is another example of a vertically-organised highly-controlled system, exactly like Sony's PlayStation Portable, for example. This kind of structure works better in the consumer market than the business market, because businesses hate the prospect of being overcharged by companies who realise they don't have a choice. Consumers just throw their gadgets away.

If HP sees the market becoming Balkanised so that a handful of competitors (Apple, RIM, Microsoft, Nokia) own and control their own platforms, then buying Palm makes perfect sense. It will have its own platform.

But if the market is going to tip to a horizontal one, where a few companies compete to provide software (Google, Microsoft, Symbian), many compete with hardware (Samsung, LG, Sony, Dell etc), and many compete with services (AT&T, Verizon, Orange etc) then the Palm purchase may not work out too well.

HP is, of course, capable at both types of business. It's the world's biggest supplier of Windows PCs, a horizontal business, and it is also the world's biggest supplier of printers, where vertical lock-in drives profitability. At the moment, we don't know which way HP plans to go. Does it know itself?

What the analysts say

Charles Golvin, mobile analyst at Forrester Research
"The good news is that HP made a strong move toward becoming a player in the mobile market. The bad news is that it's the wrong move. Palm could be valued for its brand, its intellectual property, its platform, or its people. HP doesn't need the Palm brand; the IP helps an existing player not a new entrant; we don't think the WebOS platform is viable long term in the face of its competition; and HP could sweep up Palm's people individually at a much lower price. HP needs a strong presence in mobile, but Palm doesn't deliver that."

Carolina Milanesi, Gartner's research vice-president for mobile devices
"We believe HP's purchase of Palm shows a clear intention to enter the consumer mobile device market. The pairing has merit: HP brings financial strength and broad reach; Palm brings a set of consumer-focused hardware, OS, application store and intellectual property. HP has made a clear commitment to invest in Palm's technologies and has hinted at ambitious plans that go beyond smartphones. But neither Palm nor HP have a strong presence in the consumer market. Most significantly, they lack momentum around mobile application stores and a developer ecosystem. It will take time for HP to build up such an ecosystem, and it faces extremely strong competitors like Apple and Android. The consumer smartphone market moves quickly and HP will have to act fast."

Francisco Jeronimo, IDC's European research manager for mobile devices
"This is a good move for both companies. HP always struggled to grow its smartphone business unit because it never knew how to make mobile phones. The iPaq devices never were successful, and HP only achieved 0.1% market share in 2009. On the other hand, Palm developed a good operating system but was struggling to sell its new WebOS devices, Palm Pre and Palm Pixi, because money makes the difference at point of sale. Palm's worldwide market share was 1.5% in 2009. If HP didn't have the right products to become a smart phone player, Palm didn't have the money to compete with Apple and RIM in the US market and to make the brand known outside its home market. This deal takes a good operating system to the right hands and to the next level.

"In the short-term, the impact of this deal will be felt in the US market and Nokia will be one of the most affected players. When a company has a good product and the money for marketing activities, it creates a problem for its competitors. With money to invest, Palm will be able to leverage its brand, broaden its portfolio, and provide carriers with the money they need to sell devices. Money brings success if you have the right product, as Palm has. Palm's survival no longer seems to be a problem, for the time being, but one question remains: will HP allow Palm to drive the business the way it wants and back it up with cash? To HP, smart phones are not new it always had money, but it never succeeded. Will things be different this time? Yes, if HP takes advantage of the convergence with mobile, but sticks to the business it knows best printers."

Tony Cripps, principal analyst at Ovum
"After several seeming knock-backs from specialist handset manufacturers, HP's rescue of Palm will be great news for the Palm faithful and undoubtedly the best deal for Palm the Palm brand continues to receive a considerable following and goodwill from the North American public and HP is serious about boosting its image and presence in the connected consumer device space. WebOS could indeed become a major asset for HP and obviously has scope for use on devices such as tablets Palm's engineers and designers clearly put a lot of time and effort into creating a very slick user experience. However, HP will need to drive traction for WebOS among developers, if it is to truly capitalise on that potential.

"That may not prove easy as Ovum's recent survey of mobile application developers shows, application writers show an overwhelming desire to support three or perhaps four device platforms. With at least that many already dominating the space, HP may have its work cut out proving the revenue earning potential of WebOS devices to developers."

Dave McQueen, principal analyst at Informa Telecoms & Media
"The acquisition of Palm seems to be a good fit for HP; however, it will be interesting to see how the combined organisation will operate particularly as neither HP's Windows Mobile business focused devices nor Palm's webOS handsets have been particularly successful in the mobile handset market. I'm not convinced the Palm devices will add much to HP's portfolio (relatively poor sales, build quality, etc).

"It appears that HP intends to use webOS in other device types, much as Apple has extended iPhone OS X to the iPad. However, there are still issues with awareness and applications development, which is paramount to success in the smartphone market. Also, does that mean HP will not make Android smartphones and focus solely on webOS devices? This could prove to be a restrictive strategy in the fast growing smartphone market. Distribution is key, as Google recently learned. Traditionally, HP has a very good distribution network that will help channel to market but it will need to work closely with mobile operators, a weakness of Palm's, in order to succeed."

The new Yahoo chief executive Carol Bartz says search will grow in coming quarter and that location-based services are important to future growth

Carol Bartz, the new chief executive of Yahoo, says the company is "definitely" interested in acquiring small start-up companies in the coming year but declined to say how much money is in the pot, or whether the location-based social network Foursquare is in her sights.

Making her first visit as chief executive to the UK, Bartz said that Yahoo's target was to make the site's homepage more personalised even for users who haven't bothered to personalise it. That has been shown to bring advertising benefits, because more people click through to adverts and news items which are local.

"I won't comment on Foursquare directly, but what I'll comment on is that local information, where someone is, what's in your neighbourhood, that's very interesting," Bartz said. Location-based services are a major growth driver, she suggested.

Web reports have suggested that Bartz is in talks to buy Foursquare, which has a rumoured valuation of $80m ( 53m), more than a million users and said earlier this week it was considering whether to seek a buyout or more venture capital funding. But though she mentioned it unprompted, and notably did not mention its rival Gowalla, she would not say whether the companies are in talks.

Asked how much she would spend on such companies, she said "it depends how much they want".

Bartz has spent the past year defining and focussing the company on its mission statement which she described as "to combine your world and the rest of the world on the internet", contrasting it with Google's (to organise the world's information and make it accessible) and Microsoft's (to get a PC on every desktop).

Personalising the site's pages and services would bring big benefits, she explained. Allowing networks to target users with special offers, recommendations and other services depending on their location promises to open up the mobile market to advertisers, who have until now struggled to find value in mobile ads.

Bartz said Yahoo was neck and neck with Google in the number of mobile users it could reach mainly through deals with carriers and handset makers. Last week, it agreed to expand the role of its services on cellphones of the world's second-largest handset maker Samsung.

"My Yahoo" which lets users tailor the home Yahoo page as they wish "has been around for a long time, but only 15% of people have taken the time to tailor it to their needs", Bartz said. "The other 85% haven't. We should be able to do that by knowing what you're doing on the internet."

Bartz, a famously straight-talking Silicon Valley veteran who took over the helm of the company in January 2009 after it fought off a bid from Microsoft in 2008, did not hold back from criticising her own company's most recent efforts. "I was looking at the home page last week trying to find out about flights to the UK and it had a story from AP [the Associated Press] that was 17 hours old. That wasn't good enough, so I looked again and there was one from CNN that was 38 minutes old. That's better, I thought. Everything should come in as real-time as possible."

Bartz insists that Yahoo will regain some share in the search market, which is dominated by Google, this coming quarter. Yahoo stabilised its share last quarter after several quarters of losses and Bartz said last week it had hit bottom.

In March, Yahoo had 17% of the U.S. search market, the world's biggest, while Google had 65%, according to industry tracker comScore. Microsoft, which launched a revamped search engine, Bing, last year, had 12%.

Yahoo also said it had bought exclusive online rights in Britain to show highlights of English Premier League soccer for the next three seasons, until 2013. It will offer five-minute highlights packages of each match.

Asked whether she was worried that many developers have left Yahoo during her tenure and that the company might not be viewed as innovative as it had been in the past she indicated that she was not. "You're going to see us building up a lot more things with the social graph," she said. "I reject and resent the idea that you will never see innovation from Yahoo."

Internet spoofs showing Hitler raging against everything from sporting disasters to iPad envy are evidence of a creative spark that should not be snuffed out

What was Hitler like? I mean, what was he really like? To those who never saw him in the flesh, it's hard to imagine how an individual could have hypnotised so many intelligent people into doing and believing unspeakable things. What was the secret of the man's psychic grip on others?

The answer, it turned out, was provided not by historians, but by a German actor, Bruno Ganz, in the film Downfall, which charts the dictator's last few days in his Berlin bunker. The pivotal moment in the film comes when Hitler's senior generals reveal to him that the game's up the Allies have Berlin encircled, the Russians are at the eastern gates and German military resources are exhausted.

In the scene, Hitler absorbs this information in silence. Then he orders most of those present to leave the room, leaving only the most senior military people. He looks crushed. And then he explodes into life. As David Denby, the New Yorker's film critic, describes it: "Energy rushes up in galvanic surges from Ganz's pelvis or spine or some other mysterious source of actorly strength. The dark head, slumped over a map, suddenly rises, the arms wave about wildly, and the voice erupts in that familiar deafening bawl. The rages are mesmerising, appalling... and somehow Ganz pulls them off without lunging all over the room; he explodes and implodes simultaneously, and then subsides and becomes even smaller."

Ganz's performance is a real tour de force, so much so that the New Yorker critic wondered aloud if it would have the effect of humanising Hitler. But the scene had another, equally extraordinary, side-effect. It became the basis for a wildly successful and entertaining comic virus, in which people used everyday video-editing software to remix the scene in modern contexts (politics, sports, technology, popular culture). The German soundtrack was left unchanged, but new subtitles were added and then the results were posted on YouTube.

So we had Hitler raving about the defeat of the New York Mets, being excluded from Xbox LIVE or not getting an Apple iPad. After Irish voters rejected the Lisbon Treaty in a referendum, Hitler became the taoiseach, Brian Cowen, ranting about the venality and incompetence of his advisers and the stupidity of the electorate.

In one spoof, Hitler becomes Hillary Clinton who is enraged by Barack Obama's victories in the US presidential primaries; in another, he is John McCain being told the early results from the election. And there's even one based on the sub-prime mortgage crisis, in which Hitler is a property investor ("All over the map, mein f hrer, mortgages are resetting and homes are going into foreclosure"). And so on, ad infinitum.

Some of these parodies are tiresome. But many are side-splittingly funny, a testimony to the power of remixing as a way of enlivening cultural life. Nevertheless, not everyone is delighted by this new art form. Jewish organisations have been understandably disturbed by the way the architect of the Holocaust has been turned into a comic turn. "Hitler," said the director of the Anti-Defamation League, "is not a cartoon character".

Now the makers of the original film have decided that they've had enough. They have asked Google (which owns YouTube) to take down the remixes and it looks as though Google will comply though hundreds were still online when I checked late last week.

To an intellectual property lawyer, this will seem entirely straightforward. To normal human beings, however and especially those who are interested in culture the issue is more complicated. For one thing, there's the awkward fact that all artistic endeavour involves borrowing from other art works. Just think of Handel, who was a notorious borrower. And every song ever written has been informed by music that the composer has absorbed in his or her earlier life.

Or, as TS Eliot put it, one of the "surest tests" of the superiority or inferiority of a poet "is the way in which a poet borrows. Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different. The good poet welds his theft into a whole of feeling which is unique, utterly different than that from which it is torn; the bad poet throws it into something which has no cohesion".

The YouTube remix culture is thus a new take on a venerable tradition. I wouldn't argue that the Downfall spoofs are high art, but they are evidence of bottom-up creativity and intelligence in a new medium. And if we allow narrow considerations of intellectual property to stifle this creativity, then we may all, except for the lawyers, live to regret it.