Mark Zuckerberg admits settings had become too complicated but denies company is trying to force people to share their data

Facebook's founder Mark Zuckerberg unveiled a simplified method for controlling privacy on the giant social network tonight, acknowledging it had become too complicated but insisting his company was not trying to force people to share their data.

The new controls whereby a variety of different levels can be applied with a simple click of a button will be rolled out across the 450m users of the worldwide network over the next few weeks, said Zuckerberg at a press conference at the company's headquarters.

The controls will offer four basic settings: share data with everyone, with "friends of friends", "friends only" or "recommended" which shares certain information, such as family information, with everyone but photos and videos only with friends of friends.

However, Zuckerberg insisted privacy was still important and dismissed suggestions that Facebook relies on selling personal data to advertisers to grow.

"People think that we don't care about privacy, but that's not true," Zuckerberg said. "There's a balance. More and more people want to share information, and as long as they have good controls over that, I think that's where the world is going."

He insisted that Facebook does not use data gleaned from users' pages to sell to advertisers and that that means it does not matter what privacy settings are applied for Facebook to be able to sell adverts.

"The principle is that we don't give any information to advertisers. We target the ads to people ourselves. Advertisers come to us with adverts that they want shown to particular [demographic groups of] people, and we take the ad and show it to the person that we think will be interested in that information. So it doesn't matter who you're showing your data to. It doesn't matter whether you share it at all."

Zuckerberg acknowledged the intense criticism of the site's privacy settings had meant it was "an intense few weeks".

He also admitted that online criticism of the complexity of altering Facebook's privacy settings had hit home and that it had been changed as a result.

He acknowledged the discomfort that has been expressed but said it has not had any noticeable effect on user numbers.

"We track what's called the promoters the people who would recommend others join Facebook. They're a good indicator of whether we're going to grow. We find that whenever we change something anything for the whole network, the level of promoters goes down. But then over time it slowly comes back up until it goes above the level it was before," he said.

The mighty Microsoft colossus has been toppled by Apple

In January 2000, Steve Ballmer took over as head of Microsoft. It was a company that bestrode the technology world, with a market capitalisation of $556bn compared with its one-time deadly rival in personal computers, Apple, whose returning chief executive Steve Jobs was gradually nursing it back to health. Even so, Apple was a minnow: its market value was just $15.6bn.

But today at 4pm New York time, the final step in the transformation was complete as Apple's market cap of $222.1bn ( 155bn), and rising, passed Microsoft's $219.2bn, which has been on a slow downward path for months. Taking debt into account, Apple's business had already passed Microsoft's in value.

That trend looks like continuing. This week sees the launch in Britain and eight other countries of Apple's iPad tablet computer, a format that Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates touted in 2001 but could never persuade manufacturers to make, or customers to buy. By contrast Apple has already become the biggest tablet computer company in the world since the iPad's launch in the US on 3 April. Next month Jobs will unveil the next generation of iPhone the device that Ballmer dismissed back at its launch in 2007 as having "no chance". Since then sales of the iPhone have rocketed; it has become the gateway to the mobile internet and led to an explosion in downloadable mobile "apps".

Digital music

David Yoffie, a Harvard Business School professor, told the Wall Street Journal that Microsoft has suffered in comparison with Apple because the consumer market, Apple's focus, has outpaced the growth of spending on technology by businesses, Microsoft's traditional area of strength. "Apple has had the wind at its back," said Yoffie. "Microsoft is playing catch-up."

But as well as the astonishing success of Apple's products, Microsoft's downfall has been caused by Google. In Ballmer's 10 years, Google has gone from a loss-making startup to a huge company that dominates the online search industry. In January 2000, Google was just a search engine and did not have an advertising platform. Its AdWords product wasn't launched until October. AdSense, which lets publishers use Google to sell ad space on their sites and is the real money-spinner, only appeared in 2003. On Ballmer's watch, Google has gone from almost nothing to an open wound in Microsoft's profit stream.

It is a substantial wound, too. Microsoft's online services division encompassing search, Hotmail and its "Live" services last made a profit at the end of 2005; since then it has lost almost $5bn. Google has been sucking up all the advertising revenue, and profit, from that sector. The division made a loss of $713m in its latest quarterly results published in April, up from $411m a year ago. Former Wall Street analyst Henry Blodget, now head of the Businessinsider.com site, was withering: "If this business [online] weren't hidden within the belly of a monstrous cash-generation engine, Windows and Office, shareholders would have long since revolted and shut it down."

Microsoft still makes more profit than Apple or Google, but the question is, can it make profits from anything other than its Windows operating system and Office software suite? They still bring in the vast majority of those profits.

Microsoft has other, internal, problems. This week it announced a radical shake-up in the entertainment and devices (E&D) division which makes its Xbox 360 games console, Windows Mobile Phones and Zune music player. E&D has been another frustration. First there is Microsoft's failure to catch the iPod, launched in 2001, whose success allowed Apple to dominate the market for digital music players and then make a grab for the online music market with the launch of iTunes in 2003. Its grip is so tight that the US justice department has recently been interviewing music labels and internet music companies with a view to possibly launching a competition inquiry. Second, there were problems with Microsoft's Xbox 360; manufacturing flaws meant a $1bn writedown and thousands of frustrated customers, as machines overheated and had to be swapped.

The reorganisation of E&D is expected to refocus on Windows Mobile, which has been hurt again by HP's decision to abandon Windows for its forthcoming tablet computer after buying ailing US smartphone company Palm. Tablet computers have also started to appear that use Google's rival Android operating system. Next month, mobile phone company O2 will start selling the Dell Streak, which runs Android, in the UK.

Niche player

Matt Rosoff, of Directions on Microsoft, a private firm devoted to tracking the US company, said the shake-up at E&D looked like Ballmer was "taking tighter reins over Microsoft's mobile strategy". He added: "You see press reports where it is Google v Apple, and Microsoft isn't even considered a player. It has got to be frustrating for them."

In stark contrast, Apple's stock is expected to keep growing, especially with the iPad launch and then the release of the so-called iPhone 4G. The release of the latest version of Apple's phone will also present the Cupertino-based company with the same dilemma it had in the home computer market: whether to remain a fashionable, but lucrative, niche player or go mass-market. After a shaky start, Google's Android platform has become a real challenger as more handset manufacturers embrace it and create cheaper devices.

When the iPhone appeared, Ballmer argued it would never be anything other than a niche player. And he could yet be right; but Microsoft has done no better. Sales of its Windows Mobile software for phones have slumped in the past three years, and the platform has been rapidly overtaken first by the iPhone and then by Android, which is given away free to handset manufacturers.

For Microsoft, which depends on paid licences for its software, Android presents an even bigger potential problem than the iPhone. HTC, formerly Microsoft's biggest customer for Windows Mobile, is now one of the biggest for Android. In February, Dan Frommer, of Business Insider, called the idea that Microsoft could charge for Windows Mobile "joke of the week".

"Microsoft is dead in the water in this business. If it wants to get moving again, it needs to do everything it can to help itself. And in mobile software, that means competing for 'free' with 'free'."

Whether Ballmer will have the stomach to do that is not clear. But without a winning mobile or search strategy, the market is clearly continuing to write Microsoft down. If Ballmer cannot turn it around, shareholders may finally grow restless.

The Streak is a big Android touch-screen tablet that you can take anywhere instead of your current mobile -- as long as you don't mind carrying a giant smartphone.

Early next month, Dell's Streak -- its first Android tablet -- will go on sale in the UK. The device formerly known as the Dell Mini 5 is what Intel calls a MID (mobile internet device). It has a 5 inch capacitative multi-touch screen and it works as a mobile phone, so it's not a direct competitor for the Apple iPad or iPod Touch, which are not phones. It also has built-in Wi-Fi, and turn-by-turn navigation using Google Maps.

The Streak does look big if you hold it up to your ear, but most buyers will probably use it via a Bluetooth earpiece.

It's also different from the iPad in other useful ways. It has a front-facing 5 megapixel autofocus camera with flash, multi-tasking with a 1GHz Snapdragon processor, a removable battery, and a MicroSD card slot that can handle 32GB.

Dell says the system will get an over-the-air update to Android 2.2 and Adobe Flash 10.1 later this year.

The Streak's 16:9 WVGA widescreen has a resolution of 800 x 480 pixels, which provides more of a letterbox view of web pages. Dell describes it as "a full screen browsing experience", which is pushing it a bit. It looks more comfortable than most mobile phones, but obviously doesn't compete with larger devices such as the iPad, netbooks and notebook PCs, which typically have 10 inch or larger screens.

"The Dell Streak hits the sweet spot between traditional smartphones and larger-screen tablets. Its unique size provides people new ways to enjoy, connect, and navigate their lives," says Ron Garriques, president, Dell Communication Solutions Group.

He could be right. What remains open to doubt is just how big this "sweet spot" might be.

Prices and 3G data plans will be announced at the UK launch, with a US launch to follow. That means it will appear after the Android-powered HTC Evo 4G superphone, which Sprint has announced for June 4.

In a commentable online site, the coalition government announces its main plans - which include plans to publish contracts with ICT suppliers and government data

The coalition government says that it will "create a level playing field" for open source software in government projects, and split large computing projects into smaller ones - which will give smaller companies a better chance to compete in tenders.

In details laid out in its Programme for Government, the coalition also outlines sweeping changes which will introduce a new "right to data" - and oblige government and councils to publish more data in standard forms so that they can be examined and analysed.

The programme's section on government transparency - which also allows, and has attracted, comments - sets out a number of key steps that will be implemented under plans outlined in the Queen's Speech to Parliament.

The coalition says it will:
• take steps to open up government procurement and reduce costs;
• publish government ICT contracts online.
• create a level playing field for open-source software and will enable large ICT projects to be split into smaller components.
• require full, online disclosure of all central government spending and contracts over 25,000.
• create a new 'right to data' so that government-held datasets can be requested and used by the public, and then published on a regular basis
• require all councils to publish meeting minutes and local service and performance data
• require all councils to publish items of spending above 500, and to publish contracts and tender documents in full
• ensure that all data published by public bodies is published in an open and standardised format, so that it can be used easily and with minimal cost by third parties.

Although the previous Labour administration had set out an aim to encourage the use of open source software and methods in government projects, it gained little traction. Its statement in February 2009 (now archived) said that open source should be on an "equal footing" with proprietary systems. That said that "Procurement decisions will be made on the basis on the best value for money solution to the business requirement, taking account of total lifetime cost of ownership of the solution, including exit and transition costs, after ensuring that solutions fulfil minimum and essential capability, security, scalability, transferability, support and manageability requirements." It also added that the government "will, wherever possible, avoid becoming locked in to proprietary software".

The coalition does not specify which departments will be in charge of implementing each of the plans. However, the "right to data" would probably be most easily effected through the Office of Public Sector Information, which is part of the National Archives - which is in turn managed through the Ministry of Justice.

However data about contracts may be published through the Cabinet Office. Meanwhile the Department for Communities and Local Government may have to bring in the laws relating to local councils - and there is so far no clear agreement on the formats in which data should be published.

Washlet lavatories from Japan show the future of the bathroom

A quiet and achingly stylish hygiene revolution kicked off in the bowels of a shop in east London today, where rows of futuristic white pods crouched patiently, hoping to attract the attention of passing buttocks.

The pods some functionally square, others gently contoured like the bills of tubby ducks are among the most luxurious, modern and expensive toilet units in the world. Beneath their seamless exteriors, the machines conceal an arsenal of intimate hoses, sudden dryers and invisible deodorisers that make most loos seem like medieval long-drops. Together with elegantly minimalist basins and baths big enough to launch fighter jets off, they make up some of the stock of the new Toto store in Clerkenwell, central London.

Although the Japanese sanitary ware company is big at home, and in Asia and the US, it is almost unknown in the UK, where many harbour ancient suspicions about highly automated toilets.

But Toto believes all that will change with the establishment of its first British outpost. "People tend to think Britons don't want to experiment, but they do," said the firm's UK general manager, Jill Player-Bishop, sweeping her hand towards the pristine bowl of an all singing, all dancing Italian-designed loo competitively priced at 2,500. Britons are "a very experimental race", added Player-Bishop, especially those who had undergone toilet epiphanies in Tokyo. "Once people have tried them," she said, the gleam of the evangelist in her eye, "they'll wonder why they never tried them before."

For the uninitiated, trying one of Toto's hi-tech Washlet loos can be an experience as odd as straddling a car wash and as nerve-racking as attempting to befoul a tame Dalek. But once you get past the scary control panel "rear cleanse/front cleanse/wand cleansing (not what you think)/seat temperature" it is undeniably refreshing. The only drawback is the price: a top-of-the-range Washlet will set you back 8,000. Little wonder, then, that Koji Nakano, president of Toto Europe, said the company was positioning itself to be "the first choice of the professional person in the UK".

In Japan, where Toto controls 60-70% of the market, society is apparently subject to a kind of lavatorial apartheid. The journalist and publisher Tyler Br l , who hosted a symposium on clean technology as part of today's launch, explained there were two kinds of people in Japan: the Washlet haves and the Washlet have nots. "It's at the point where if you know someone who doesn't have a Washlet, or you go to a restaurant that doesn't have one, it seems odd," he said. "[It's] like the rest of the world is unwashed."

On this week's Tech Weekly, Aleks Krotoski and Charles Arthur say a fond farewell to Jack Schofield, the Guardian's longest-serving technology writer, who's heading into freelance pastures at the end of the month. Jack takes us down memory lane, through his days with Mosaic, Oracle and IBM, and tells us who he wishes he could have interviewed in his 25 year with the newspaper. Here's a hint: it's not Apple's Steve Jobs.

In the news, Jemima Kiss gets answers from Google CEO Eric Schmidt about the recent privacy scandal surrounding the search company's collection of our personal data, and the studio team discuss what the company must do to protect the sanctity of our online identities.

Aleks, Charles and Jack also scrutinise the technology strategy that's emerged in the fortnight of the coalition government: the Digital Economy Act won't be repealed, educational technology body Becta is being scrapped to save 80m, and Tim Berners-Lee's semantic web project, earmarked for an influx of cash through Labour via the web science initiative, is canned. What signals does this send to the UK's digital tech industry?

US technology retailer Best Buy has set up shop in the UK, but is this really the right move when all indicators suggest that technology consumers have migrated online? Producer Scott Cawley reports from the shop floor.

And finally, what are Google's plans for TV? The team tackles the announcements made at the company's annual IO conference, held last week.

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Upgrade to iPlayer video-on-demand service designed to link with social media, and drive traffic to other broadcasters

What do you think of the new iPlayer?

The BBC has unveiled the latest version of the iPlayer video-on-demand service, a customisable upgrade that includes deals with Facebook and Twitter allowing users to share content via the social media networks.

Broadcasters including ITV, Channel 4 and Channel Five will also benefit from iPlayer's user traffic for the first time, with the service offering links through to the VoD players of commercial rivals.

The tie-up with Facebook and Twitter, which will allow iPlayer users to recommend programming to their friends as long as they log into the BBC website first, forms part of a strategy to make the service more social.

However, users will have to sign up to the BBC's own website ID service, already used for posting comments on the site, so that the corporation can maintain a "complete social eco-system" with iPlayer users. The corporation has more than one million users already signed up to BBC ID.

Huggers stressed that this was not the first step in turning the BBC iPlayer into a full social networking website.

"Does the BBC need to build its own social network? I think the answer is no. We want to integrate with other services," he said.

The new version of the iPlayer, which goes live in a beta testing version from today, will see the channel icons of rival broadcasters appear in the online electronic programming guide alongside the BBC's own TV services.

In addition, rivals' shows will appear if a non-BBC programme, such as "Coronation Street", is entered into the iPlayer's search engine and can be added to an constantly updated favourites list of content.

Deals have been struck with the ITV Player, Channel 4's 4oD, Five's Five on Demand, S4C's Clic and the VoD aggregation service SeeSaw.

The new links to commercial rivals will go live on the iPlayer service later this year. The deals with rival broadcasters will not see the sharing of content or technology.

Erik Huggers, the director of future, media and technology at the BBC, said that there was "no particular reason" that BSkyB's Sky Player was not one of the launch partners.

"It is an open programme, if Sky wants to be part of this it is no particular problem. They are considering it," Huggers added.

The partnerships form part of the BBC's pledge in the strategic review of online activities to be more of a "window on the web" and double the number of clickthroughs to rivals' websites from 10m to 20m per month.

Huggers said that one reason that director general Mark Thompson's original plan to form partnerships with commercial broadcasters using the iPlayer, which fell apart last year, failed was because it involved the sharing of BBC technology.

The BBC has also struck a deal with Microsoft's Windows Live Messenger chat service so that iPlayer users can message each other at the same time as watching shows.

Huggers said that the iPlayer, which was previously criticised for not launching products simultaneously on multiple technology platforms, was in "exploratory discussions" with operators of other chat services including Google and Facebook.

"The fact we chose Microsoft [first] was because they have the largest installed base [of users]," he added.

Huggers said that the "interlinking" service with rival broadcasters would apply to "premium, long-form video" and represented "just the start" of partnerships.

A spokesman for Five said it would consider providing links to online video content from other public service broadcasters on its own Demand Five service. "It makes sense if done in the right way. It is something we will actively consider," he added.

Huggers also said that a long-delayed international version of the iPlayer, which would be operated by the corporation's commercial arm, BBC Worldwide, was still in the works.

"It is still very high on the agenda. We are working closely with BBC Worldwide on it. It is absolutely something we are looking into," he added.

Huggers also lent his support to Google TV, the service that will allow viewers to search the web and eventually download VoD content while watching their TV set, arguing that he does not see it as a competitor.

"I think Google TV is an interesting new product that shows the level of competition in the marketplace and that living room innovation is moving fast," he said. "I welcome it. I see GTV, if it is successful, as a fantastic receiver for BBC services... the iPlayer, news, sport, childrens whatever. We want to provide on a platform neutral basis."

The new-look iPlayer aims to remain both simple for users that just want to watch TV or radio while also allowing a massive amount of functionality so advanced web users can customise their iPlayer experience.

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.

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Web crackdown began last week when Facebook page invited users to post images of the prophet Muhammad

Pakistan will restore access to YouTube but will block videos offensive to Muslims posted on the website, the government said today.

A number of high-profile sites were blocked last week over offensive content, such as a Facebook page that urges users to post images of the prophet Muhammad. Many Pakistanis supported the crackdown, but some questioned why whole sites were blocked rather than specific pages or videos.

The government seemed to move in that direction today by deciding it would restore access to YouTube but continue to block videos "displaying profane or sacrilegious material", said NajibullahMalik, the secretary at Pakistan's information technology ministry.

Videos displaying "profane or sacrilegious" material would be blocked, said the information technology ministry. Most Muslims regard depictions of the prophet, even favourable ones, as blasphemous.

Large and sometimes violent protests erupted in Pakistan and other Muslim countries in 2006 when a Danish newspaper published cartoons of Muhammad and again in 2008 when the cartoons were reprinted.

'Top kill' process pumps mud mixture into well forcing oil back down but could make leak worse if it goes wrong

BP's latest plan to stop oil leaking from its subsea well is called a "top kill". The procedure, which could last two days, has been successful in the past, but has never been attempted at such depths before.

The process works by forcing "heavy mud" into the well to overcome the rising oil and shut down the flow. If the mud does the job, engineers will follow up by pumping concrete into the well to plug the leak.

BP has several boats in the region holding a total of 50,000 barrels of heavy mud, far more than the company believes it will need. Heavy mud is made by mixing a natural mineral called barite with water and sometimes polymers to thicken the mixture.

To kill the well, the heavy mud is pumped from one of the surface vessels to BP's offshore platform that floats above the well. From here, it is channelled down a drill pipe into two narrower hoses, which pass into a manifold on the seafloor. The manifold controls the flow of mud through two more hoses into the "blowout preventer" unit that sits on top of the well on the sea floor.

BP plans to pump mud into the well at a rate of 50 barrels a minute, enough, the company hopes, to overwhelm the pressure of the rising oil, forcing it back down into the well.

If the procedure goes wrong, it could make the leak worse. Mud that is pumped into the well might be forced out of the top of the blowout preventer and into the riser, from where the oil is leaking. The sudden rush of mud may cause more oil to leak out.

If engineers think too much mud is being forced out of the top of the blowout preventer, instead of going down into the well, they can use the manifold to pump in what is called a "junk shot". The junk shot contains pieces of tyre, golf balls and bits of rope, which should clog up the blowout preventer and stop the mud and oil leaking out.

BP puts the chances of the top kill working at somewhere between 60 and 70%. One difficulty is that the leak is a mile underwater, far too deep for divers to do the complex work of checking that all the pipes are connected properly.

If the top kill fails, BP will move on to its next plan, which is to use what is called a lower marine riser package (LMRP) cap. In this option, engineers cut the damaged riser pipe from the top of the blowout preventer and lower the LMRP on top. Provided the cap forms a good enough seal, the LMRP can direct oil coming up from the well through a fresh section of piping to the Discoverer Enterprise ship on the surface.

Another option BP is investigating involves lowering a new blowout preventer onto the old one to shut off the leak.

Outspoken Yahoo boss Carol Bartz tells TechCrunch blogger to 'fuck off' if he thinks her company should be performing better

Beleaguered and overshadowed by powerful competitors, the internet company Yahoo and the mobile phone manufacturer Nokia are pooling their expertise in an effort to regain an edge in crucial services such as maps, chat, navigation and email.

But an alliance between the two companies got off to a rocky start as Yahoo's chief executive, Carol Bartz, lost patience with criticism of the speed of her firm's turnaround and delivered a four-letter rebuke to an interviewer at an industry conference.

"I don't want to hear any crap about something magical that the fine people of Yahoo are supposed to do in this short time, so fuck off," Bartz told Michael Arrington, editor of the influential blog TechCrunch, in front of an audience of technology gurus at the annual TechCrunch Disrupt gathering in New York.

Bartz, who took the top job at Yahoo early last year and has a reputation for salty language, made it clear that she had little time for complaints about the pace of change at the Silicon Valley company, which has fallen second fiddle to Google in internet searches.

"I've been at this company 16 months," said Bartz, complaining that her critics seemed to expect her to turn Yahoo into the next Apple computer empire overnight. "I'm supposed to have an iPod, an iPad, an iBlah."

Lukewarm

Her outburst came amid a lukewarm reaction to the latest step in Yahoo's attempted resurrection following years of tepid growth and investor frustration. Bartz has forged a deal with Finland's Nokia to create co-branded applications, partly aimed at the millions of new mobile users in the developing world who use their handsets as their sole way to connect to the internet.

Under the agreement, Yahoo will provide chat and email services on Nokia handsets. For combined offerings, the European phone firm's present internet brand, Ovi, will by supplemented by the words "powered by Yahoo". Meanwhile, Nokia will bolster Yahoo's mapping and navigation services on the web, which presently lag far behind Google's global mapping.

"This is two powerful consumer brands working together to bring even better services to potentially billions of people around the world," said Nokia's chief executive, Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, at a press conference held at the Nasdaq stockmarket in Times Square.

On the surface, the tie-up seems a formidable combination. Yahoo is the web's leader in display advertising, while Nokia is the world's biggest manufacturer of mobile phones, making roughly four out of every 10 handsets globally. But both companies are under fire for being outmanoeuvred by rivals.

Nokia last month warned of weak profits as it struggles to produce a compelling smartphone to match Apple's iPhone and Research in Motion's BlackBerry. Meanwhile, Yahoo has been outflanked by Google on online search and has failed to keep up in maps, which have become a crucial element in online information.

No game changer

The alliance garnered only weak accolades from Silicon Valley commentators. Yahoo's shares edged up by 1.8% to $15.75 during early trading on Wall Street.

Michael Gartenberg, a technology analyst at Altimeter Group in California, said: "It's two companies that have both lost a lot of relevance in their relative spaces that are both looking to reclaim that. There doesn't seem to be a whole lot here to indicate how they're going to do that."

Gartenberg said that although the combination makes sense, it was difficult to see it as a game changer: "The centre of gravity has shifted to Google, Apple, Research in Motion, Microsoft. I'm not sure how combining these things together helps them gain ground on those competitors."

At Yahoo, a new management team is trying to shift a perception that the internet firm is simply a smaller, less successful version of Google. The company's share price is far below a $33-a-share takeover offer tabled by Microsoft two years ago but vigorously opposed by Yahoo's board.

Bartz was installed to succeed Yahoo's co-founder Jerry Yang and it is not the first time that her impatience has bubbled over into intemperate language.

During a conference call with Wall Street analysts in April last year, she complained of the poor productivity she encountered on arrival at Yahoo: "We had a lot of people telling engineers what to do but nobody fucking doing anything."

The author and blogger explains why he publishes his books free online

Politically engaged and disarmingly geeky, Cory Doctorow is one of the better-known faces of the digital revolution: co-editor of the celebrated blog Boing Boing ("a directory of wonderful things"), he is also author of half-a-dozen science fiction novels and a journalist. Born in Canada, the 38-year-old writer now lives in London, although when we speak, he's in the US, promoting his latest book, For the Win. This tells a story of teens rebelling against global corporations and is pitched at the "young adult" market. As with all his fiction, the book has been released simultaneously in bookshops and, for free, online.

You've released For the Win using a Creative Commons licence, giving it away for free. Why?

I give away all of my books. [The publisher] Tim O'Reilly once said that the problem for artists isn't piracy it's obscurity. I think that's true. A lot of people have commented: "You can't eat page views, so how does being well-known help you earn a living as a writer?" It's true; however, it's very hard to monetise fame, but impossible to monetise obscurity. It doesn't really matter how great your work is; if no one's ever heard of it, you'll never make any money from it. That's not to say that if everyone's heard of it, you'll make a fortune, but it is a necessary precursor that your work be well-known to earn you a living. As far as I can tell, these themes apply very widely, across all media.

As a practical matter, we live in the 21st century and anything anybody wants to copy they will be able to copy. If you are building a business model that says that people can only copy things with your permission, your business is going to fail because whether or not you like it, people will be able to copy your product without your permission. The question is: what are you going to do about that? Are you going call them thieves or are you going to find a way to make money from them?

The only people who really think that it's plausible to reduce copying in the future seem to be the analogue economy, the people who built their business on the idea that copying only happens occasionally and usually involves a giant machine and some lawyers. People who are actually doing digital things have the intuitive knowledge that there's no way you're going to stop people from copying and they've made peace with it.

Your young adult novels are concerned with the political issues surrounding new technologies, such as questions of privacy. Why?

Kids' relationship with privacy is really confused; they're told by teachers and adults that their privacy is paramount, that they should stop disclosing so much information on Facebook and so on. And then they go to schools where everything they do is monitored; there's mandatory spyware that takes every click they make, every word they utter and sends it back to teachers and headmasters for disciplinary purposes.

When they go out in public, they're photographed every five minutes and there are signs that prohibit taking any affirmative step to hide themselves from scrutiny or maintain any privacy.

So on the one hand, we're telling kids that their privacy is the most important thing in the world and that they have to guard it as jealously as anything that matters to them. On the other hand, we're systematically depriving them of their privacy and punishing them for asserting it.

The problem with privacy is the same problem as with smoking: the consequences of doing something that's bad for you are a long way from the action itself and so you don't learn.

If we want kids to give less information to Facebook, then we should start by having them give less information to everybody. That means giving them the tools that help them to understand that privacy really matters and that giving up your privacy is something that's hard to stop doing once you start.

Do you see young adult fiction as an effective way of getting a message across?

Young adults treat literature with a lot more seriousness and often see literature as a call to action whether that's to go to the library or to try to write some software or even to found a protest group. I do hope to have this alerting presence about the risks of technology. I want to inspire kids and adults to ask how we can start seizing the means of information again, how we can use technology to liberate us as it did when I was an adolescent.

PS3 (reviewed)/PSP; 49.99; cert 7+; United Front Games

Shall we get the cynicism over with first? Cutesy kart-themed ModNation Racers is, essentially, a hybrid of Mario Kart and LittleBigPlanet. From the former, you have daft weaponry to help you win at all costs. From the latter, you have a sense of community and various creation modes for characters, karts and tracks.

So, yes, if you want to be cynical, it's not terribly original. However, if you're going to be influenced by two games, those are probably two of the best you could choose. Also, when you get down to it, just how many games are entirely original? Hell, even Alan Wake doesn't escape that criticism. Enemies that can't be harmed until you've used a bright light? Isn't that PacMan?

The name derives from the racing characters, or Mods as they're known here, and any initial disappointment that it's not a Vespa-based rocker beat-em-up is short lived. For the most part, whatever its heritage, ModNation Racers is a cracker. It's often funny, it's easy to pick up and the flexibility of the creation modes is impressive. The three levels of weaponry collecting additional weapon pods before firing gives you instant upgrades is also a fine novelty.

On the downside, it frequently displays Spectrum-like loading speeds (why, United Front? Why?) and the AI of your opponents is not so much punishing as criminally insane: it's all too possible to be cruising towards the finish line in first place, be hit by a barrage of missiles and end up in 12th.

Typically, to progress you need to finish at least third, although there are three extra challenges per race finish first, score 20,000 slide points, that sort of thing which unlock extra details for the creation mode. Getting all of these will take you several months of play and, probably, therapy so only the hardcore completists need apply.

The real joy of this title, though, is online which is accessed, like all the game's elements, via the central hub area known as The ModSpot. Uploading your Mods, karts or tracks is a doddle and you'll instantly have access to thousands of tracks etc, uploaded by others. There are still flaws you can wait for several minutes to get enough racers for a ranked match but kick into the casual races, which can be on official tracks or any of the thousands of uploaded ones, and you'll understand the potential of MNR. It's simple, it's quick, it's enormous fun and it's going to be huge.

Rating: 4/5

We grumble about privacy on Facebook and Google, but the sharing of personal information online is second nature

I'm an inveterate oversharer. I tweet what I eat, I blog my baby photos, I check in on foursquare. It is second nature to me now. But even early adopters didn't start out this way. Most of us are resistant to new technology, and pick it up a few months, or years, down the line, when it seems more mainstream and relevant and when friends seem to be using it. That never happened more dramatically than with Facebook, which credits this "network effect" for an exponential increase in users after its launch in 2004 to the 500 million it is about to announce.

Five years ago a pseudonym was de rigueur, yet now we share the minutiae of what we're reading and thinking, and who we're seeing. We are all sliding up the adoption curve to a future where this behaviour will only become even more extensive, more normal. How did our perception of what is an appropriate public identity shift so far, so quickly?

Concern over the dilution of our privacy came to a head in the last week with a sizable faction of Facebook's users rebelling against users' profiles being made publicly accessible by default. Their action may just have pushed Facebook into simplifying its bewildering 150-option privacy settings. Google, meanwhile, confessed that some remarkably lax code-pasting led to its Street View cameras accidentally recording personal data from domestic WiFi networks.

Both have rightly prompted outrage and an interrogation of the state of our digital privacy and are being scrutinised by regulators. But Facebook and Google are fashionable and intriguing targets for sensational headlines. In truth, most Facebook data is meaningless and conversational while most of us are still listed by our home address in BT's online phone book.

Assuming none of us this side of the digital divide are willing to disenfranchise ourselves socially and professionally by giving up the internet altogether, we have to be prepared to give up something. The free lunch is over; we pay with money, time or behavioural data. There is a benefit, too, because sharing information about ourselves opens the door to the semantic web; the powerful, personalised internet of the future.

Already, from your internet connection to the sites you use, everything you share, search, comment, email, read and watch every social signal you make is recorded. The only rule you need to protect yourself online is to commit something to the web only if you would be happy for anyone to read it.

The internet is indelible. I put a lot online, but I filter. I don't post my home address or about my childminder. Eric Schmidt, Google's chief executive, reminded us this week that much of the five exabytes of digital information the world generates every two days equivalent to 100,000 years of DVD-quality video is created by our social signals.

If you want to experiment and, like me, understand what's possible, you could try Blippy, a Twitter-like service that records every purchase you make and shares it with friends. If you want to take control, try Garlik or ReclaimPrivacy.org. For startups, there's opportunity at every turn.

Mark Zuckerberg, the fresh-faced Facebook founder, has a demanding audience he needs to impress, and increasingly expectant investors who want to see a return on those 500 million users. Facebook, in particular, is constantly pushing and testing the boundaries of what its users will accept as public information. It has normalised much of the information-sharing we were once uncomfortable with, and will continue to act as an agent for change.

In Google's case, it is tempting to characterise this uniquely influential company as a vast corporate machine with $25bn in the bank, questionable ethics and a world-dominating agenda, quite possibly operating from a hollowed-out volcano somewhere near Mountain View.

The truth is far less dramatic. Neither company has a malevolent agenda, but both operate in the fast-moving, demanding bubble of Silicon Valley, with the world's smartest engineers and both appear at times almost naive to the implications of the technology that they wield.

Google famously wants to index the world's information and, with 65% of the world's search market, is better placed than anyone to help us find and manage what we put online. In the past it has provided advice and created centralised profiles to give users more control, but this all needs to be much more comprehensive and conspicuous.

It is beholden on both these companies to educate, inform and empower their users to take control of their digital footprint. The web will only keep developing and keep challenging us in this way. This is not just a phase we are going through. All these issues are only going to intensify, and as they say on Facebook: it's complicated.

Gadget Show presenter Suzi Perry unveils her favourite gizmos

What's your favourite piece of technology and how has it improved your life?
I'm going to generalise and say the smartphone. Starting from Nokia's N95, I've had a bunch of smartphones since they came along they're feature-rich and bring everything from the office to your pocket. They've made life so much easier.

When was the last time you used it, and what for?
I've got a BlackBerry Bold and an iPhone. I'm on the BlackBerry right now, talking to you, and I've been using my iPhone this morning to arrange a virtual sporting event.

What additional features would you add if you could?
I'd like a little projector built in, to project pictures on to any surface. I think we'll see them in the next year or two.

Do you think the smartphone will be obsolete in 10 years' time?
No, but I think it will move on. There will always be a need for a hand-held phone.

What always frustrates you about technology in general?
I think the industry can be seen as pretty geeky and quite nerdy. I've been working with Train2Game providing courses for people who want to work in the gaming industry. It's a sexy industry, the tech industry, and these days it's quite chic to be a geek.

Is there any particular piece of technology that you have owned and hated?
I did once throw a Motorola handset against the wall, because it drove me mad, but I think ugly, obsolete tech is terrible. For me, the Amstrad Emailer is the piece of tech I dislike the most.

If you had one tip about getting the best out of new technology, what would it be?
I'm a big embracer of new technology, but I do try to only buy tech that I'm going to use I try not to be a magpie and swoop up everything shiny or new.

Do you consider yourself to be a luddite or a nerd?
I consider myself a she-geek!

What's the most expensive piece of technology you've ever owned?
I haven't really spent an enormous amount of money on anything... probably my MacBook Pro.

Mac or PC and why?
I'm in the 4% I'm a Mac girl. I think over the years PCs have improved massively to meet the requirements and their ease of use. But for me, it's always a Mac I love how it looks, I love the user system and all the software works so well together. And with my iPhone and my iPod touch, it all syncs really nicely.

Do you still buy physical media such as CDs and DVDs or do you download? What was your last purchase?
I'm a downloader. I have an Apple TV at home, which is fantastic for downloading and renting movies. I buy streamed TV shows, using the season pass on iTunes I recently bought True Blood season two, Damages season three and 24 season eight. As for music, I downloaded Paul Weller's album, Wake up the Nation.

Robot butlers a good idea or not?
Anything that does things for you is a good idea, but not yet. We're not ready.

What piece of technology would you most like to own?
I would like to own a teleporter and have it built into a 1950s American Airstream trailer. I love them. Inside, I'd like it tricked out fully with gadgets. Travel bores the pants off me and I have to do it so much.

Suzi Perry co-hosts The Gadget Show on Five. She has also been working with Train2Game to launch its new artist and animator course

Theresa May agrees adjournment of judicial review to consider whether Gary McKinnon is fit to be extradited to US

The extradition of the computer hacker Gary McKinnon has been put on hold after the home secretary, Theresa May, agreed to an adjournment of a judicial review that was supposed to start within days.

The move will allow May to begin formal consideration of the medical evidence to see whether McKinnon is fit to be extradited. If it is established that he cannot be allowed to go, it paves the way for a prosecution in the UK.

A Home Office spokesperson said: "The home secretary has considered the proposal from Gary McKinnon's legal team and has agreed an adjournment should be sought. An application to the court is being made today."

McKinnon's lawyer, Karen Todner, said she hoped May would make a decision on whether he was fit to be extradited in a matter of weeks.

Todner said: "The secretary of state, having recently taken office and having received further representations from the claimant's representatives, wishes to have appropriate time fully to consider the issues in the case." She said she hoped the decision was "a signal of a more compassionate and caring home secretary".

McKinnon's lawyers were granted permission for a judicial review last week having failed to win one last year into whether a decision by the former home secretary Alan Johnson to allow extradition and trial in the US breached McKinnon's human rights.

The judicial review was supposed to start next week and was virtually a last throw of the legal dice. Its adjournment allows May to cast a fresh eye on what has turned into a cause celebre, and to make a close examination of the extradition agreement between the US and the UK.

Legal experts said May's main difficulty would be to override her Home Office advisers.

"They will, perhaps, tell their minister that if she reverses the [Jacqui] Smith-Johnson decision, the Americans might take her to court for judicial review. But this is unreal: the Obama administration is unlikely to challenge, on behalf of a local state prosecutor, a decision of the new British government," Geoffrey Robertson QC wrote on the Guardian's Comment is free website, this week.

McKinnon's supporters believe the new coalition government is sympathetic to their cause as David Cameron and Nick Clegg have in the past publicly criticised plans to extradite McKinnon. Last year, Cameron said any trial should take place in the UK. He said there was "a clear argument to be made that he should answer [any questions] in a British court".

McKinnon admitted to hacking into 97 computers in the US defence department and Nasa from his London flat, and said he was looking for evidence of UFOs between 2001-2.

Despite a lengthy legal battle and strong public support for the Free Gary campaign, McKinnon has so far failed in his seven-year fight against extradition. His supporters argue that McKinnon has Asperger's syndrome and was driven only by an obsession with UFOs. The US government argues that his hacking attempts were a deliberate effort to breach American defence systems.

McKinnon's mother, Janis Sharp, called the development good news and said it was significant that the court process is now on hold.

"Overall I'm cautiously optimistic," she said. "It's a step in the right direction, but we really need to know that Gary will be staying here. Only then can we relax. In some ways this is almost the most difficult time. I've got hope for the first time and if that hope was dashed I don't know what I'd do.

"We've had this hanging over us for eight years. Some murderers get less than that. All he was doing was tapping away on a keyboard in Crouch End, being curious."

Sharp added that McKinnon was not in a good way: "He can't go out, watch anything about the case on TV. He's under the care of a psychiatrist."

The controversial case has crossed the desks of six home secretaries.

Scores of zombie accounts on the social network are being used to try to install a banking and keylogging Trojan - and many have fallen victim already

A malware attack is being spread via Twitter using "zombie" accounts to push a site which claims to link to a fun video.

Using the tagline "haha this is the funniest video ive EVER SEEN!", and a wide variety of Twitter hashtags, the website instead uses a Java exploit to drop a keylogger program and a banking Trojan (which will search your hard drive for any banking details and watch when you log in to online banking sites) on Windows computers that visit it.

The large number of accounts are being used to try to push the link onto trend-mapping sites that show popular links on Twitter.

F-Secure spotted the emergence of the threat today, and explained how it works. And it had a suggestion for how to avoid the problem: "Lesson of the day is probably this: do you really need Java in your browser?" asks the company. "Seriously, do you? If not, get rid of it."

The breadth of the attack indicates that the linked problems for Twitter - that it doesn't seek any authentication of accounts beyond an email - and URL shorteners, which can make it hard for people to know where they are going mean that users of these services have to be cautious when using Windows systems.

Bit.ly has been alerted to the threat from the link; presently its statistics indicate that there have been more than 1,630 clicks on the link - each of which means an infected computer and someone whose banking details are therefore at risk, and whose computer is a potential spam generator and botnet member.

If you have clicked on the link, you should immediately take your machine offline and scan it with an antivirus system.

If you need to check the final destination for a bit.ly URL, it's easy with bit.ly links: add a + to the link you're offered (eg http://bit.ly/b6Z3BC+, which shows the statistics for the URL for the dangerous site).

Other URL-shortening services can make it harder to check where you're being sent. Tinyurl offers a "preview" function, but it's always wise to look at any available information before continuing to a link from a source you don't completely trust.

Next attack could come down fibre optic cable, warn experts
Russia seen as potential partner in missile defence against Iran

The world's most powerful military alliance is increasingly vulnerable to attack by unconventional weapons and cyberwarfare in particular, Nato governments were warned today.

"The next significant attack on the alliance may well come down a fibre optic cable", according to a draft new Nato "strategic concept". There are unacceptable "serious gaps" in Nato's cyber defences, it warns.

The warnings are contained in a report by a group of high-level experts chaired by Madeleine Albright, the former US secretary of state. They will provide the basis for an agreement due to be signed by Nato leaders at a summit in Lisbon in November.

Senior Nato military officials and diplomats say they are concerned about the lack of co-ordinated planning against cyber attacks. They are wrestling with the prospect of member states asking for help under article five of the Nato treaty, originally designed to provide mutual assistance to an ally faced with a conventional military attack.

Asked whether a cyber attack or the cutting off of energy supplies also cited in the report would in future be considered a military attack, the paper dodges the issue by stating that whether Nato's article five would be triggered would depend on "the nature, source, scope, and other aspects of the particular security challenge". Article five was invoked for the first, and so far only, time after the September 2001 attacks on the US. Three years ago, Estonia appealed to its Nato and EU partners for help against cyber attacks it linked to Russia.

"Already, cyber attacks against Nato systems occur frequently, but most often below the threshold of political concern," says the Albright report. "However, the risk of a large-scale attack on Nato's command and control systems or energy grids could readily warrant consultations ... and could possibly lead to collective defence measures under article 5."

Effective cyber defence, it continues, "requires the means to prevent, detect, respond to, and recover from attacks".

The most probable threats to Nato allies in the coming decade were unconventional, more volatile, and less predictable, according to the report. Three stand out, it says an attack by ballistic missiles from a rogue state, strikes by international terrorist groups, and cyber assaults of varying degrees of severity.

Other threats that pose a risk include disruptions to energy and maritime supply lines, the harmful consequences of global climate change, and financial crisis.

The report also recommended that Nato's new strategic concept should endorse "constructive re-engagement" with Russia, which should be embraced as a potential partner in a missile defence system directed principally at Iran. Nato must also win the war in Afghanistan and assure the security of its 28 members.

The report distances itself from some countries, notably those from eastern Europe, which enthusiastically backed Nato membership for Ukraine and Georgia, a prospect strongly opposed by Russia. Although the report reiterates Nato's "open door" policy, it says only that the allies "should make regular use of the Nato-Ukraine and Nato-Georgia commissions to discuss mutual security concerns and to foster practical co-operation".

It also states that "as long as nuclear weapons remain a reality in international relations, the alliance should retain a nuclear component to its deterrent strategy at the minimum level required by the prevailing security environment".

In a reference to US tactical nuclear weapons based in Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey, it says: "Under current security conditions, the retention of some US forward-deployed systems on European soil reinforces the principle of extended nuclear deterrence and collective defence."

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.

The Information Architects team have come up with a way of looking at Twitter that echoes maps of how the universe began

Back at the dawn of microblogging time, when Twitter had only just started, there were only three users who mattered: Biz Stone, Evan Williams and Jack Dorsey - the three key people behind the service. Now there are more than a hundred million users - but the key influencers in this huge network can be quite easily identified.

Now the team at Information Architects have decided to come up with a neat Twitter visualisation, akin to The Independent's classic 1992 "How the universe began" graphic, of the top 140 Twitter influencers, "sorted by #name #handle #category #influence #activity" and by when they joined the service (which determines how close to the centre they are).

The size of the blob indicates how many followers; "influence" is measured by... actually, they don't explain, though possibly it's using something like the Twiinfluence algorithm.

Interesting to see who's in there: Stone and Williams, of course, but also latecomer Marissa Mayer (VP of search product and user experience at Google), who only joined in July 2009, and Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google (December 2009) - and of course there's always Bill Gates, who didn't get on board until January 2010. And of course Stephen Fry and indeed Jonathan Ross.

You can get the PDF (1.1MB) or buy it from them for $99 because, as they remark, "we're convinced that our print is way superior to what you can do with your plotter". And you will need a plotter - the graphic is 84cm by 119cm.

We're happy to see that @guardiantech is in there, showing up in something like the place where Kappa Velorum would be in the Milky Way. (We've highlighted it below to help.)

Does this make any difference? Well.. it might do, if this list of the top 140 were made into a list. Anybody up for that, we wonder?

The social networking website 'missed the mark' on privacy controls, says founder Mark Zuckerberg

Facebook is to revise its privacy settings within weeks to make it simpler for people to keep their information private, according to Mark Zuckerberg, its founder and chief executive of the giant social network.

Acknowledging a growing level of irritation among the site's 450m users, Zuckerberg said: "Simply put, many of you thought our controls [for determining who could see information about you] were too complex. Our intention was to give you lots of granular controls; but that may not have been what many of you wanted. We just missed the mark."

But Zuckerberg insisted that concerns that Facebook is selling personal data to advertisers were misplaced. "We do not give advertisers access to your personal information," he said. "We do not and never will sell any of your information to anyone."

Writing in the Washington Post, the 26-year-old insisted that Facebook will "keep listening" to users' concerns.

However, he stopped short of offering users the choice of opting in to having all their information spread throughout the social network and the internet which may mean that the new settings will not satisfy users after all.

Facebook makes money principally by selling advertising space on users' pages; the adverts can be tailored to the interests or experiences of the users without the advertiser knowing who it is being sent to. Thus someone who says their favourite band is U2 might see adverts for a new album or concert tour by the band, though the advertiser will not have known precisely who was targeted.

A rising number of people have expressed dissatisfaction with the social network's ever-changing privacy policy, which has grown in complexity since the site began in 2004 and has also seen the default settings for sharing information go from "friends only" to "the entire internet" for almost everything that people put on it.

The ease with which people can find out anything about people who are unaware of the settings has been demonstrated by a site which uses Facebook's new connectivity to its underlying database, launched on 21 April.

Youropenbook, which has the tagline "Facebook helps you connect and share with the people in your life. Whether you want to or not", says that it wants Facebook to restore the privacy of information "so that this website and others like it no longer work".

The site's creators say there are two fundamental problems with Facebook now: "First, they do not do a good job of indicating how public each piece of information you share on the site will be. Second, they change the rules far too often. If you understood Facebook's privacy settings two years ago (or even six months ago), that information would be worse than useless with today's bewildering settings."

Others think it is time to give up Facebook: one group has come up with a "Quit Facebook Day" idea, urging people to delete their accounts on 31 May.

Zuckerberg insists in the Washington Post article that Facebook will always be a free service which suggests that it will have to continue to rely on selling advertising space targeted at users' interests and activities. That, in turn, means that at least some of the user information must be shared with advertisers, even in anonymised form. And that, in turn, must mean a limit on some of the limits that users can put on sharing their data.

He does not retreat in the article from his frequently-expressed view that sharing information is beneficial. "Six years ago, we built Facebook around a few simple ideas," he writes. "People want to share and stay connected with their friends and the people around them. If we give people control over what they share, they will want to share more. If people share more, the world will become more open and connected. And a world that's more open and connected is a better world. These are still our core principles today."

No date has been put on the release of the new privacy settings.

How to control your Facebook privacy settings from sharing everything to locking down your photos to deleting your account.

Search giant securely storing data captured from home Wi-Fi networks by Street View cars pending more specific instructions

Google is to retain data captured from UK home wireless networks while carrying out its Street View mapping until it receives more specific instructions from the UK Information Commissioner, it said today.

Update: the ICO said it has already told Google that the data can be deleted - but Google stated it will not do so yet.

The company also faces the threat from the advocacy group Privacy International that it might be liable under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) for unlawful interception of users' data and that the group may try to get the police to instigate an investigation.

Google is already facing criminal investigations in Germany over its capture of the data from open Wi-Fi networks and faces further investigations from a number of European countries for possible breaches of data protection laws and, possibly, computer hacking.

It has deleted the data that was collected in Ireland, Denmark and Austria, according to those countries' wishes. That means there cannot be any threat of prosecution in those countries as any evidence for a court case is unavailable.

In a statement released on Friday, the company said: "Following requests from the Irish, Danish and Austrian data protection authorities we can confirm that we have deleted payload data identified as coming from those countries. We can also confirm that, as requested, we are keeping data from Belgium, France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Switzerland and the Czech Republic.

"Given that there is some uncertainty about deletion generally for example, one data protection authority changed its instruction from delete to retain in the last 24 hours we think it makes sense to keep the remaining country data while we work through these issues."

Google later clarified that it is retaining the data for the UK so that the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) can inspect it as required. The data is being held in secure isolation. However the ICO restated that it has not required its preservation, reiterating a statement from earlier this week: "there does not seem to be any reason to keep the data concerned for evidential purposes. Therefore, in line with the data protection requirement that personal data should be held for no longer than necessary, we have asked Google to ensure that these data are deleted as soon as reasonably possible."

Google has insisted that it was trying to map the existence of the networks, which use the Wi-Fi standard, but that it accidentally left in computer code which collected actual data from unsecured networks.

The German prosecutors data protection authorities have requested access to one of the hard drives used in the data gathering though Google has so far refused. German data protection officials have given the company until 26 May to hand over the system.

Google admitted last week that it collected 600GB of data from unsecured Wi-Fi networks around the world while collecting photos to Street View

The UK Information Commissioner Christopher Graham said on Thursday that the ICO did not want to "declare war" on Google over the matter and that it thought its response which was initially to accede to Google's offer to delete the data was "proportionate".

However, Google now appears to have decided to delay the deletion while it makes sure that no investigations have been opened; otherwise it might be deemed to have destroyed evidence.

Privacy International says that deleting the data would be "irresponsible" until its content has been investigated to see whether it does infringe the law. "We have directly put Google on notice that it is likely to be imminently subject to civil or criminal legal action as a result of the Wi-Fi interception," it wrote on its blog. "To eliminate the data would constitute destruction of evidence." It urged the ICO to rescind its earlier order to destroy the data: "We urge the commissioner to immediately rescind the order and allow Google to place the data in secure storage until such time as the legal questions are resolved.

"In the absence of a commitment from both Google and the commissioners to temporarily secure the data, Privacy International will seek a prosecution for unlawful interception under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act. In those circumstances there would be no question of destroying the data."

Updated with statement from UK ICO that it is not seeking retention of data.
Update with clarification that it is German data protection authorities, not prosecutors, who are seeking access to hard drive.

paidContent:UK Culture secretary Jeremy Hunt says the new government will not repeal the controversial Digital Economy Act

Apple appears to have run out of its stock of iPads for British customers, even though it will not start shipping the device this side of the Atlantic for two weeks.

The Californian company said just over a week ago that the iPad would go on sale on May 28 in the UK starting at 429 for the basic version with the top of the range 64GB device with both Wi-Fi and 3G network access costing 699. It opened up pre-orders on May 10.

But eager iPad owners visiting its website over the weekend were being warned that if they ordered an iPad now it would ship "by June 7th".

The delay is believed to have been caused by Apple running out of its initial supply of devices in just three days, with pre-orders being far higher than the company originally forecast.

Market research firm GfK NOP, whose pronouncements about the retail sector are well regarded, estimates that Apple will sell more than 2m iPads in the UK. It has carried out research that suggests around 5% of British consumers intend to buy an iPad.

Those gadgets fans who had registered for an iPad by the middle of last week are expected to receive their device on May 28, but anyone who has bought it more recently is likely to face an increasingly lengthy wait.

Apple has already delayed the launch of the iPad in the UK once, blaming "surprisingly strong" demand in the US, where it sold more than a million in the first month.

The device is already a faster seller than the iPhone in the US. It took 74 days for Apple to shift a million of its first mobile phone. It sailed past that milestone with the iPad in just 28 days.

There is also concern that shipments of the iPad could be further delayed if the cloud of ash spewing from the Eyjafjallajokull volcano in Iceland causes further disruption to international flights.

Definitely not a venue for wing-wang squeezing

The thing about superminis, which appear to have adopted lapine habits of reproduction, is that they may be reasonably mini but they're not, on the whole, that super. The Citro n C3 gained a reputation when it first turned up, about eight years ago, as a sort of dull Ford Fiesta. Given that few people have ever required smelling salts as a result of driving a Fiesta, that's pretty damning faint praise.

Rather than cruelly raise false hopes, it's best to state straight away that the updated C3, in keeping with its predecessor, is also not a study in boundless excitement. There are improvements, but it's fair to say that when PJ O'Rourke penned his seminal National Lampoon article "How to Drive Fast On Drugs While Getting Your Wing-Wang Squeezed And Not Spill Your Drink" he didn't have the C3 in mind, and not just because the piece was published over 20 years before the C3 was created.

Of the various C3 set-ups, the 1.6VTi is the tastiest, with a sprightly 0-62 acceleration of under nine seconds. Yet somehow it doesn't feel that tasty to drive and nor is it a hatch that looks particularly hot. None of these points is a criticism, really, because there are plenty of people who want a smallish car that doesn't look as if it's supposed to be a mobile venue for wing-wang squeezing.

My only reservation is that my feet kept clipping each other. This could be because I've advanced further into failing middle-aged co-ordination than I'd imagined or that the clutch and brake pedals were too close together. If it's possible to damn a car with faint criticism, then the suggestion of pedal proximity may be one such case.

Otherwise, it's fine. Actually, there was one other thing. The gears are not entirely pleasurable to shift and there's a slight need to over-rev at low speeds. But that aside, it's a sensible, light-filled, well laid out car that has good fuel economy and nothing crass or off-putting in its design.

Nor, it's true, is there much that's on-putting, other than the kind of sound engineering that is taken for granted by today's consumers. In many ways, then, the C3 is a renunciation of just about every Gallic clich : it's unpretentious, undramatic and uncool (the French are often uncool, of course, but rarely do they recognise the fact, much less make a virtue out of it).

But its lack of presence is indeed the C3's most conspicuous virtue, in that it would make an ideal car for someone who doesn't much care about the joy of driving or the thrill of design, and who just wants something compact, mobile and reliable that won't look like a fashion statement. From A to B via C3.

Citro n C3 1.6VTi

Price 14,690
Top speed 118mph
Acceleration 0-62mph in 8.9 seconds
Average consumption 47.9mpg
CO2 emissions 136g/km
Eco rating 7/10
Bound for Marks & Spencer car park
In a word Straightforward

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange had his passport confiscated when he returned to his native Australia last week, according to The Age.

Arriving at Melbourne, immigration staff told Assange his passport was looking worn and would be cancelled. Thirty minutes after his passport was returned to him, a police officer then searched his bags and questioned him about his computer hacking offences he committed in 1991 when he was a teenager.


Julian Assange, left, speaking at the 26th Chaos Communication Congress in January this year. Photo by andygee1 on Flickr. Some rights reserved

Despite the search, Assange was then told his passport is still classified as 'normal' on the immigration database and could therefore travel freely.

Speaking on Australia's Dateline show, Assange said he is wary of travelling in Australia, where he was born, because of information that has been published on Wikileaks.

Assange had been told that the publication of a proposed blacklist of banned sites has been referred to the Australian Federal Police, who were investigating how it was leaked and then published on Wikileaks, though AFP told the Sydney Morning Herald yesterday that the case had been dropped.

Looking at the site, it's hard to believe there are many countries where travel is not a problem. Some light reading from the front page:

CIA report into shoring up Afghan war support in Western Europe
US Intelligence planned to destroy WikiLeaks
Cryptome.org takedown: Microsoft Global Criminal Compliance Handbook

Pentagon creates specialist online unit to counter cyber attack amid growing fears of militarisation of the internet

The US military has appointed its first senior general to direct cyber warfare despite fears that the move marks another stage in the militarisation of cyberspace.

The newly promoted four-star general, Keith Alexander, takes charge of the Pentagon's ambitious and controversial new Cyber Command, designed to conduct virtual combat across the world's computer networks. He was appointed on Friday afternoon in a low-key ceremony at Fort Meade, in Maryland.

The creation of America's most senior cyber warrior comes just days after the US air force disclosed that some 30,000 of its troops had been re-assigned from technical support "to the frontlines of cyber warfare".

The creation of Cyber Command is in response to increasing anxiety over the vulnerability of the US's military and other networks to a cyber attack.

James Miller, the deputy under-secretary of defence for policy, has hinted that the US might consider a conventional military response to certain kinds of online attack.

Although Alexander pledged during his confirmation hearings before the Senate committee on armed services last month that Cyber Command would not contribute to the militarisation of cyberspace, the committee's chairman, Senator Carl Levin expressed concern that both Pentagon doctrine, and the legal framework for online operations, had failed to keep pace with rapid advances in cyber warfare.

In particular Levin voiced concern that US cyber operations to combat online threats to the US, routed through neutral third countries, "could have broad and damaging consequences" to wider American interests.

Plans for Cyber Command were originally conceived under President George W Bush. Since taking office Barack Obama has embraced the theme of cyber security, describing it last year as "one of the most serious economic and national security challenges [the US faces] as a nation".

During his confirmation hearing, Alexander said that the Pentagon's networks were being targeted by "hundreds of thousands of probes every day" adding that he had "been alarmed by the increase, especially in this year".

Cyber warfare has increased rapidly in scale and sophistication with China accused of being at the forefront of prominent recent attacks, including the targeting of Google and 20 other companies last year as well as "Titan Rain" in 2003 a series of coordinated attacks on US networks. Russian and North Korean hackers have also been accused of large-scale attacks.

Moscow was accused of being behind a massive cyber assault on Estonia in 2007 the second largest cyber warfare operation ever conducted.

While Alexander has tried to play down the offensive aspects of his command, the Pentagon has been more explicit, stating on Friday that Cyber Command will "direct the operations and defence of specified Department of Defense information networks [involving some 90,000 military personnel] and prepare to, when directed, conduct full-spectrum military cyberspace operations in order to enable actions in all domains, [to] ensure US allied freedom of action in cyberspace and deny the same to our adversaries."

The complex issues facing Cyber Command were thrown into relief earlier this year when the Washington Post revealed details of a so-called "dot-mil" operation by Fort Meade's cyber warfare unit, backed by Alexander, to shut down a "honeytrap website" set up by the Saudis and the CIA to target Islamist extremists planning attacks in Saudi Arabia.

The Pentagon became convinced that the forum was being used to co-ordinate the entry of jihadi fighters into Iraq.

Despite the strong objections of the CIA, the site was attacked by the Fort Meade cyber warfare unit. As a result, some 300 other servers in the Saudi kingdom, Germany and Texas also were inadvertently shut down.

Of equally concern to those who had opposed the operation, it was conducted without informing key members of the Saudi royal family, who were reported to be "furious" that a counter-terrorism tool had been shut down.

The issue of cyber warfare and how to combat it has become an increasingly fraught one.

The need to have electronic warfare capabilities, say those who support them, has been proven repeatedly by the apparent success of hostile attacks on government networks, including last year's massive denial of service assault on networks in both the US and Korea.

Last year, hackers also accessed large amounts of sensitive data concerning the Pentagon's Joint Strike Fighter programme.

The difficulties facing the new command were underlined in March by former CIA director Michael V Hayden, who said that the Saudi operation had demonstrated that cyber warfare techniques were evolving so rapidly that they were now outpacing the government's ability to develop coherent policies to guide its use.

"Cyber was moving so fast that we were always in danger of building up precedent before we built up policy," Hayden said.

Ofcom report reveals users of sites such as Facebook have become more savvy about online security and are reluctant to reveal details online

UK internet users have become significantly more cautious about how much personal information they reveal on social networking websites such as Facebook, according to a report by media regulator Ofcom.

The twice-yearly report, a survey of the internet habits of 1,824 people aged 16 and over, found that since 2007 users have become more savvy about online security and are now more reluctant to provide personal information online.

Ofcom's report found that 80% of those surveyed who have a social networking website are likely to only allow friends or family to see it. This is a significant seachange in attitude compared to 2007 when just 48% of those surveyed took such steps.

The report has been published in a climate where the practices of social networking sites Facebook in particular have come under scrutiny for privacy and security practices. Earlier this month, EU data protection officials called Facebook's latest privacy changes "unaceptable" and the world's biggest social networking site has been embroiled in a controversy over "panic buttons" for child users.

Almost half of adult internet users in Scotland say they have set up a social networking profile compared with 46% in Wales, 44% in England and 31% in Northern Ireland.

However, about a quarter of internet users say they "lack confidence" in installing filtering software or security features.

The report found that the Scottish were the least likely to worry about entering personal details online with 50% "happy" to enter their home address details on the internet, compared with 23% in Wales and Northern Ireland. More than 40% of Scottish adult internet users are also happy to enter credit card details.

When it comes to trust in media, just 31% of internet users believe web content to be "reliable and accurate". This compares to about 50% of adults that trust television and radio content. However, news sites are trusted by 58% of web users.

Adults in Scotland say they use the internet at home the most at 10.6 hours per week, with adults in England at 8.3 hours per week and those in Wales at 6.8 hours per week. Adults in Northern Ireland say they use the internet at home the least at 6.5 hours per week.

BP attempts to stop Deepwater Horizon oil leak as rig staff accuse company of taking fatal shortcuts

BP embarked upon a high-risk "top kill" procedure using drilling mud last night to cap the catastrophic gush of oil in the Gulf of Mexico, as it faced fresh accusations of shortcuts in the hours before an explosion destroyed the Deepwater Horizon rig.

After hesitation by top BP executives as they analysed data from robot submarines at the site of the leak, and under intense pressure from the Obama administration, the US coastguard gave the go-ahead for the operation to pump a cocktail of mud and heavy fluid at high pressure into the Macondo well, 50 miles off the Louisiana shore.

Underwater TV cameras showed a live feed of oil billowing out while BP's heavy machinery moved into position. Chief executive Tony Hayward warned that the operation, never before attempted at a depth of 5,000 feet (1,500 metres), had only a 60% to 70% chance of success and could take several days. Barack Obama described the disaster as "heartbreaking" and expressed hope it would work. "If it's successful, and there's no guarantee, it should greatly reduce or eliminate the flow of oil now streaming into the Gulf from the sea floor," said the president.

After a boat trip to see the damage, Louisiana's governor, Bobby Jindal, displayed vivid photos showing that oil was killing cane plants along the state's offshore marshes, an area which he described as "the nursery of the gulf". "We've been fighting this oil nearly a month now, requesting resources. Too often, the response has been too little, too late," he said; absorbent booms to capture oil were becoming saturated. "We can't afford to wait another 24, or 48 hours."

The slick is estimated to cover 16,000 sq miles of ocean, It began on 20 April when an explosion and fire destroyed BP's rig, killing 11 people. Since then efforts by BP to stem the flow, first by placing a dome on top of the leak, have come to nothing.

David Summers, a professor at Missouri University of Science and Technology, said it would be clear within days whether the "top kill" procedure had worked. The method was straightforward and would have been started much earlier, were it not for the inaccessibility, he said: "It's relatively simple and been done many times before, but not at this depth."

In a massive operation, 22,000 people and 1,100 vessels are tackling the slick. BP's top executives are monitoring events from a control centre in Houston. But as investigations begin into the cause, BP is facing accusations of "short cuts" in the hours before the rig blew up.

In official hearings in New Orleans, several workers who survived raised questions about a decision shortly before the explosion in which rig bosses displaced heavy mud with salt water in the pipe rising from the seabed, potentially hampering the rig's ability to withstand pressure from the ocean depths.

At yesterday's hearings Truitt Crawford, a roustabout on the rig, told coastguard investigators: "I overheard upper management talking, saying that BP was taking shortcuts this is why it blew out." Another witness, Doug Brown, chief mechanic on the rig, said there was a "skirmish" between a BP "company man", a driller and engineers: "The driller was outlining what would be taking place, whereupon the company man stood up and said 'no, we'll be having some changes to that'," Brown said.

A memo given to a congressional committee by BP reveals events as workers prepared to put a cement plug on the well in preparation for the rig to be moved. Two hours before the explosion, tests showed a buildup of pressure and subsequent decisions to press ahead with the operation are under scrutiny. BP has pointed out that other firms were involved it was leasing the rig from Transocean, which owned and operated it, while the US firm Halliburton was responsible for a cement plug.

A poll by CBS News found 70% disapproval of BP's handling, and 45% unhappy with the Obama administration's response. Interior secretary Ken Salazar described it as a "massive and potentially unprecedented environmental disaster", and BP would be liable for costs beyond a usual $75m ( 52m) maximum liability for oil firms in clean-ups: "BP will be held accountable for costs of the government in responding to the spill and compensation for loss or damages."

As shrimpers, fishermen and tourism industry workers along the Louisiana coast see their livelihoods dwindle, BP has watched its share price slump by 28%, wiping $84bn off its market value. Some 1,200 vessels and 22,000 people are involved in the effort to temper the scale of the disaster.

The US agency overseeing oil companies is also under intense criticism. An official report found that the Minerals Management Service allowed staff at oil and gas firms to fill in inspection reports in pencil, with regulators later going over the answers in ink.

Mary Kendall, acting inspector general at the department of the interior, told a congressional committee yesterday that there were problems with "gift acceptance, fraternising with industry and pornography" at the agency. She suggested there was a problem with the closeness of ties between watchdogs and industry executives: "The individuals involved in the fraternising and gift exchange both government and industry have often known one another since childhood."

Company doubling number of engineers

The company that made millions when it discovered a new way of sucking is doing it again with a revolutionary range of blowers.

Wiltshire-based Dyson, the business founded by serial inventor and Conservative adviser Sir James Dyson, said it had "bucked the recession", doubling operating profits to 190m in the last 12 months thanks to new products including a bladeless fan and a hand dryer that has made paper towels redundant.

The company, which now employs 2,500 staff worldwide, is in the middle of a programme to double the number of scientists and engineers it employs to 700 to ensure it can keep pumping out the new inventions we never knew we needed. Despite the downturn, sales surged 23% to 770m last year.

The business made its name with its brightly coloured eponymous vacuum cleaners, which made dustbags history by using "root cyclone" technology centrifugal forces to spin dust out of the air.

The company now has 40% of British vacuum cleaner sales and has turned James Dyson into a billionaire. According to market research group Gfk it is also the market leader in the US, Canada, Australia, France, Belgium, Spain, Switzerland, Ireland and New Zealand.

Now a range of blowing machines are helping to boost profits too.

The Airblade, the 600 hand-dryer that uses a sheet of filtered air to "scrape" hands dry, has become a must-have for any upmarket public lavatory, even though its noisy roar has spelled the end of long conversations in the ladies'.

Now the Dyson Air Multiplier, a 200-a-go fan without blades which promises "no unpleasant buffeting" and was launched in the UK this month, is flying off the shelves thanks to its futuristic styling and the recent hot weather.

The circular fan-that-is-not-a-fan "uses patented technology to give an uninterrupted stream of air that doesn't distract or buffet", explains the company. Dyson said: "I've always been disappointed by fans. Their spinning blades chop up the airflow, causing annoying buffeting. They're hard to clean. And children always want to poke their fingers through the grille."

Chief executive Martin McCourt said the company was cashing in on its cutting-edge technology. He said it was a British success story, even though its factories are now in east Asia.

"Our success is down to new ideas and the work of teams around the world," he said. "It demonstrates that Britain can compete in hi-tech exports if it invests in long-term research and development. People want technology that works well, even in a recession."

Recruiting 350 new engineers and scientists, he said, was proving difficult: "It could be a damn sight easier. In the UK we do not push science and technology hard enough. Not enough graduates are qualified in those subjects."

McCourt's comments come in the wake of a report compiled by James Dyson for the Conservative party before the election that set out proposals on how to turn the UK into Europe's largest hi-tech exporter.

His suggestions ranged from more scholarships and bursaries to encourage students to study science at university, to national prizes for grand engineering projects and changes to the tax system to encourage science start-ups and boost research and development spending.

Dyson urged the new government to "take immediate action to put science and engineering at the centre of its thinking in business, industry, education and, crucially, public culture".

Last year Dyson filed the second highest number of patent applications in the UK, after Rolls-Royce but not all its inventions have been big successes like the dryer and vacuum cleaner.

Its washing machine was a failure, as was its "tank vac", which was supposed to suck up dust and water at the same time, but did neither effectively.

Hits and a miss

Ballbarrow

James Dyson's first success in 1974, when he replaced the wheel of a wheelbarrow with a plastic ball.

G-Force Dual Cyclone vacuum cleaner

Dyson had the idea for a bagless cleaner in the late 1970s. After five years and 5,127 prototypes the G-Force Dual Cyclone arrived. Unable to find a manufacturer in the UK, he launched it in Japan. Still unable to find a British maker or distributor, he set up his own factory in Malmesbury in 1993. A Dyson became a fashion statement when Sir Paul Smith started selling them in his London store. When Hoover copied the technology, Dyson won 6m in damages and costs. Today more than half the Dysons sold are Dyson Ball cleaners and they are the UK's best-selling vacuum, by value.

Desktop fan

Aka the Dyson Air Multiplier, just launched worldwide. In Australia it won 64% of market, by value, in seven months. It uses 'an air ramp instead of blades to deliver a smooth flow of air without buffeting'. Looks cool too.

Hand dryer

The Dyson Airblade: 'Sheets of purified air, travelling at 400mph to literally scrape water from your hands like a windscreen wiper.'

Washing machine

Not his finest hour. The Contrarotator, with two drums going in opposite directions, was too big, too costly and beset by problems. Withdrawn.