Microsoft to end Android smartphones

Technology Reporter

The Nokia X2 features an Android user interface that resembles Windows Phone

Microsoft is to stop developing Android-powered smartphones beyond those already available

Nokia X models will now become part of the Lumia range and run the Windows Phone operating system, although existing Android handsets will continue to be supported.

The move comes as Microsoft announced 18,000 job cuts across its workforce.

The tech firm acquired Nokia's handset division earlier this year.

Nokia unveiled its first family of Android phones at the Mobile World Conference in Barcelona in February.

The release of the smartphones, which were priced at the lower end of the market, was described as a "perplexing strategic move" at the time, given that Microsoft had its own mobile operating system, Windows Phone.

In an email to employees on Thursday, Stephen Elop, Microsoft's executive in charge of mobile devices, announced that Android handsets were being phased out.

"In the near term, we plan to drive Windows Phone volume by targeting the more affordable smartphone segments, which are the fastest-growing segments of the market, with Lumia.

"In addition to the portfolio already planned, we plan to deliver additional lower-cost Lumia devices by shifting select future Nokia X designs and products to Windows Phone devices.

"We expect to make this shift immediately while continuing to sell and support existing Nokia X products."

Microsoft had hoped the Nokia X would appeal to customers in emerging markets

Ben Wood, an analyst at CCS Insight, the move was designed to drive sales of Microsoft's Lumia range, which has lagged behind handsets from competitors such as Apple and Samsung.

"Everybody was scratching their heads when the Android phones were unveiled in February," he said, adding that the decision had been made before Microsoft's takeover of Nokia.

However, Mr Wood said, phasing out the Android devices was a strategic decision, designed to "take the work Microsoft have done on the hardware [of Nokia X models] and drive the Lumia price points to much lower levels".

In pictures: Germany football heroes

Germany's national football team received a hero's welcome on Tuesday as they returned from Brazil after beating Argentina to win the World Cup for the fourth time. Thousands of fans lined the streets of the capital dressed in national colours to greet the team members who paraded the city by bus before celebrating on stage at the Brandenburg Gate.

Fans started gathering at Berlin's Tegel airport from dawn to witness the team's arrival on the specially-branded "Fanhansa" jet.

Thousands also arrived early to secure the best viewing spots at the main venue of festivities in Berlin, the landmark Brandenburg Gate.

The team travelled the streets of Berlin in an open-top bus emblazoned with the years they have won the competition - 1954, 1974, 1990 and 2014.

Hundreds of thousands gathered in front of a stage installed for the team's victory parade at Brandenburg Gate.

The players performed an impromptu dance to celebrate their fourth World Cup win and the first since reunification in 1990.

"Without you we wouldn't be here. We are all world champions," Germany coach Joachim Loew told the crowd.

Mario Goetze (right), Germany's 1-0 goal scorer in the final, was greeted with deafening cheers in Berlin's Fanmeile (fan mile).

Players kicked out mini-replicas of the World Cup football to members of the crowd, before performing the Conga on stage.

German midfielder Bastian Schweinsteiger, who got a battering during Sunday's final against Argentina, addressed the crowd wrapped in a German flag.

Germany's Manuel Neuer had even more reason to celebrate after winning the Golden Glove as the best goalkeeper of the tournament.

Emmamalle © 2014

Site lists pages blocked by Google

A website has been set up to list items Google has removed after the European Court of Justice ruled people could have articles about them deleted from the results of specific search terms.

Hidden From Google claims to have had "hundreds" of tip-offs from its users.

Searches on Google in Europe for some of the articles listed now return links to Hidden From Google by virtue of their mention on it.

Campaigners have called the court ruling an attack on free speech.

"There is an information gap there and, where you can verify examples, you can curate a list," said Afaq Tariq, the US web developer who set up the site in June this year.

He said he had asked for help from other developers in curating his list, which stood at 15 examples on Tuesday.

Mr Tariq said that, at first, he was just looking for an excuse to set up a website to test some software.

But, after settling on the "right to be forgotten" issue, he said he had realised that no-one had stepped forward to curate a list of articles removed from search engine results.

"It is not as if the links are going away, it is just Google results within Europe that they are removed from, so you have this before-and-after picture with Google US," he said.

"Some seem to have been removed, but are not any longer - that is part of the reason the list remains short. Until I can verify that an article is being censored consistently across European domains, I cannot put it on the list in good conscience," he said.

Streisand effect

Mr Tariq said he had not yet made up his mind on the issue in general. But the inclusion of articles removed from search engine results on Hidden From Google raises the possibility of the "Streisand effect" - when demanding silence on a subject only serves to draw more attention to it.

The term was coined after the singer unsuccessfully attempted to suppress publication of photographs of her home, inadvertently drawing more attention to them.

Articles about Chancellor George Osborne's brother were removed from Google search results

One request was to remove a 2010 article about a child abuse trial in Portugal from the results for "Carlos Silvino". Silvino, who admitted to 639 charges relating to the abuse of children or procuring them for others, was given an 18-year sentence.

The other request was to a blog by economics editor Robert Peston, although the website was unclear why the article had been removed.

Google was unable to say, but inquiries made by Mr Peston suggested that it was most likely at the request of someone who had left a comment on the blog, rather than at that of its subject, former Merrill Lynch chairman Stan O'Neal.

The result of a search for the name Robert Daniels-Dwyer, an archaeology expert caught shoplifting in 2006, and the city of Oxford is one of those listed as having been censored.

Instead of returning a contemporaneous Oxford Mail news story on the case, the search now returns a link to the Hidden From Google site as its eighth result. Seven of the top 10 search results refer to the removal of the Oxford Mail story from Google's results.

Also among the terms removed was the name of the Chancellor George Osborne's brother. The search terms related to an article on the Daily Express' website about Dr Adam Osborne's conversion to Islam.

The new law was the result of a test case in May this year, in which the the European Court of Justice's found in favour of Spaniard Costeja Gonzalez. He had unsuccessfully tried to make Google Spain remove references to an auction notice of his home dating from 1998.

Mr Gonzalez argued that the matter, which came about because he had had to auction his home to cover his social security debts, had been resolved and should no longer be on his online record.

'Judge and jury'

The ruling gave people the right to ask for articles to be removed from search engine results if the piece included their names, as well as "inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant, or excessive" information about them.

It does not include a requirement for articles to be taken offline altogether. However, because of the popularity of search engines, it has been argued that the effect is similar.

On Monday, Google said it was being made to "act as judge and jury" on search results about individuals by the ruling.

Speaking to a Media Society conference in London, the company's spokesman Peter Barron said: "It's not a task that we ever wanted.

According to the Daily Telegraph, he told the Rewriting History conference: "Our background is that we are firmly in favour of free expression. The way that it's worked hitherto is that an individual with a grievance would go to the publisher or to a court - we don't think we should be judge and jury but today we face the law."

He said that Google had received 70,000 takedown requests since the ruling in May this year, adding that the firm was now getting another 1,000 per day. He said the ruling meant "the right to privacy now trumps freedom of expression", the paper reported.

The government has also expressed opposition to the new law.

Somalia's security chiefs sacked

One of the attackers blew himself up in a car at the gates

Somalia's police and intelligence chiefs have been sacked following militant Islamist group al-Shabab's assault on the presidential palace, a government minister has said.

Three of the attackers were killed and a fourth captured, the minister added.

Al-Shabab fighters entered the compound in the capital, Mogadishu, on Tuesday before being driven out by African Union (AU) and government forces.

This was the second assault on the heavily fortified compound this year.

The police and intelligence heads - Abdihakim Saaid and Bashir Gobe respectively - have been replaced with immediate effect, said Information Minister Mustafa Dhuhulow.

The militants have vowed to step up attacks during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan

President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud was not at the palace at the time of the attack.

Al-Shabab said 14 government soldiers had been killed in the assault but government officials have not referred to this claim.

The raid started with a suicide bomber detonating a car at a barrier near the entrance to the compound, after which the militants attacked from two directions, correspondents say.

At a press conference at the palace after the attack was repelled, Mr Mohamud said the government would not be intimidated by al-Shabab.

"I say to them, you will not kill us, and nor will you demolish our spirit," he added.

Some 22,000 African Union troops are helping the UN-backed government battle al-Shabab, which wants to create an Islamic state.

Al-Shabab lost control of Mogadishu in 2011, but often carries out attacks in the city.

The group has vowed to step up attacks during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.

On Saturday, a suicide car bomb exploded near the parliament building, killing at least four people.

BBC © 2014

Blast hits Tanzania restaurant

The scene of the blast has been cordoned off

Eight people have been injured in a bomb blast at a restaurant in the Tanzanian town of Arusha, officials have said.

Police said an improvised explosive device was thrown through the window of the Indian restaurant frequented by tourists and wealthy locals.

The northern town is a gateway for tourists visiting Mount Kilimanjaro and the Serengeti national park.

Last week a bomb was also thrown into the house of a Muslim cleric.

Police said they had arrested two Tanzanian nationals in connection with this latest attack. Although they are not sure what the motives were, they said they did not think militants from the Somali Islamist group al-Shabab were to blame.

"We do not know who the attackers are, but we do not suspect any involvement with al-Shabab," police officer Issaya Mngulu told the AFP news agency.

On 3 July, two people were wounded when an improvised bomb was hurled into the home of a leading Muslim cleric in the town.

The police have not been able to confirm whether the two incidents were related.

Memories 'need space' in brain

Similar memories overlap physically in the brain and this produces less confusion if the brain area responsible is larger, according to new research.

Scientists scanned the brains of 15 people recalling four similar scenes, in a study published in PNAS.

They spotted overlapping memory traces in a specific corner of the hippocampus called "CA3", a known memory area.

If their CA3 was bigger, the subjects were less confused and there was less overlap in the traces.

Most of us store many similar memories, relating to the places we spend most time and the people we know best. Normally we can tell them apart, though some of us may be better at it than others.

The CA3 region was thought to process each memory using distinct sets of brain cells. These findings suggest, however, that when two episodes incorporate similar content, they may in fact be "remembered" by physically overlapping networks - and more space could be beneficial.

"Our results may help to explain why we sometimes find it difficult to differentiate between similar past memories, and why some people are better at doing this than others," said Prof Eleanor Maguire, the study's senior author, from the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging at University College London (UCL).

The 15 subjects watched four short movies, showing two different actions happening in each of two different places. They were then prompted to remember each one, 20 times over, inside a brain scanner.

Scans revealed distinguishable memory activity in the CA3 region, but not three other compartments of the hippocampus. Importantly, the four different memory traces showed significant overlap.

Furthermore, that overlap was more apparent in people who said they were more confused by the similarities between the four memories.

Greater capacity

The scans combined fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) with detailed structural measurements of each brain, so as well as getting a read-out of brain activity, the team could measure the exact size of each person's CA3.

That was how they discovered that the size of this region, relative to the rest of the hippocampus, affected both the amount of overlap in the traces and the level of people's confusion.

"A larger CA3 may contain more neurons or more connections between neurons, which could allow greater physical separation of the different memory traces," Dr Martin Chadwick, who conducted the experiments, told BBC News.

Although overall brain size is not related to different individuals' mental abilities (Einstein's brain was smaller than average), the relative dimensions of different components have been linked to various characteristics.

An earlier study by Prof Maguire famously showed that as they hone their impressive mental street maps and navigational ability, London cab drivers develop a larger hippocampus, on average, than the rest of us.

Dr Hugo Spiers, a neuroscience lecturer at UCL who was not involved in the research, described the new paper as a "really useful" addition to that classic finding. "[The hippocampus] is quite a lot of brain," he told the BBC. "What they've now found is that this particular bit within it, the CA3, which is a very exciting bit of the brain, is larger in some people."

"The taxi driver study is about the overall size being related to navigating a big city, but that's very different to remembering what each of you said in an argument you had with your partner the other day. Most of us are really bad at that - it ends up as 'You said this' 'No I said that' - it might be the size of CA3 that influences who's going to win that argument!"

The CA3 region is remarkable because its widespread connections to other pockets of the brain are accompanied by a vast number of interconnections within the CA3 itself. This marked it out years ago, Dr Spiers explained, as a potentially useful component for memory storage and retrieval.

"You want something to reconnect with itself a lot, to allow you to retrieve rapidly stored memories - but it's got a limit," he said.

"We've got a better understanding, from this new work, about what this particularly important bit of the memory circuitry is doing."

Bell Labs claims net speed record

Bell Labs hit speeds using copper cables previously only available to fibre optic links

A team of researchers has announced it has transmitted data over traditional copper telephone lines at a record speed of 10 gigabits per second (Gbps).

Bell Labs said it used two pairs of 30m (98.4ft)-long standard phone cables to achieve the speed in its laboratory.

It suggested the tech could eventually be adapted to offer 1 Gbps in real-world uses.

That could reduce the amount of expensive fibre optic cable needed to boost internet speeds in cities.

"It will enable operators to provide internet connection speeds that are indistinguishable from fibre-to-the-home services, a major business benefit in locations where it is not physically, economically or aesthetically viable to lay new fibre cables all the way into residences," said Bell Labs' owner, Alcatel-Lucent.

"Instead, fibre can be brought to the curbside, wall or basement of a building and the existing copper network used for the final few metres."

However, one analyst noted that the tech would not solve the problem of slow net speeds for many other users.

"The problem that rural properties have is that they are usually very far away from the nearest telephone exchange - you can usually measure it in miles," said Chris Green, principal technology analyst at the Davies Murphy Group consultancy.

Bell Labs achieved the high data speeds over normal pairs of copper telephone cable

"The speed jumps that Bell Labs have managed to achieve drop away at much shorter distances.

"In order to get any of these speeds you would need to be close enough to your exchange - or fibre optic cable connected to it - that you could pretty much throw a stone at it from your door."

Mr Green added that even in many parts of major cities, BT often only provides "fibre to the cabinet", rather than "fibre to the home" - and many properties would be too far away from a phone cabinet to benefit.

Even so, he acknowledged the tech could significantly cut the cost of offering ultrafast broadband to those who would qualify.

Faster, shorter

Bell Labs said a team of engineers at its Antwerp, Belgium offices developed a technology called XG-Fast to achieve the speed record, building on the existing G.fast specification.

To do this it developed kit that uses a wider frequency range of up to 500 MHz to transmit data, rather than the 106 MHz range used by G.fast.

The trade-off, however, is that XG-Fast only works over shorter distances than its predecessor.

So, while G.fast offers 700 megabits per second over 100m, XG-Fast can offer either a one-way data transfer of 10 Gbps over 30m or the prospect of a simultaneous 1 Gbps upload and 1 Gbps download over 70m.

While Alcatel-Lucent can claim this is a new record for copper cables, it is still a fraction of 1.4 terabits per second speed it achieved last November in a test carried out with BT over a fibre optic cable link running between London's BT Tower and a research campus in Suffolk.

Quick conversions

Data speeds are usually described in terms of bits:

1,024 bits = 1 Kilobit

1,024Kb = 1 Megabit

1,024Mb = 1 Gigabit

1,024Gb = 1 Terabit

Data storage is usually described in terms of bytes:

8 bits = 1 byte

1,024 bytes = 1 Kilobyte

1,024KB = 1 Megabyte

1,024MB = 1 Gigabyte

1,024GB = 1 Terabyte

So, a 10 Gbps connection would allow you to transfer 75GB of data over the course of a minute, or the equivalent of about 110 full CDs worth of music.

Google faces Motorola phone ban

Motorola uses a laser-based technology to help minimise the size of its phones' antennas

Motorola faces the prospect of being forced to remove its handsets from sale in Germany and to recall phones already bought by business customers.

A local court has ruled that the antennas used by the Google-owned business infringe a patent owned by a German laser specialist.

The firm, LPKF, now has the right to block the products from sale unless Google comes to some other agreement.

A German patent consultant said it was not a simple decision to make.

"If LPKF wants to enforce the action it faces economic risk," said Florian Mueller, who has previously advised Microsoft and Oracle.

"If it makes Motorola pull and recall products today, LPKF could later be liable for wrongful enforcement damages in a year or so if Motorola appeals and ultimately prevails."

Google is in the process of selling its Motorola business to the Chinese tech firm Lenovo, but the deal has yet to be completed.

"We are disappointed in the decision but Motorola has taken steps to avoid any interruption in supply," said a spokesman for the firm.

China battle

LPKF has signalled that it could also take action against other tech firms.

The LDS process helps antennas be placed in phones and tablets where space inside the device is at a premium

The German company helped pioneer a process called Laser Direct Structuring (LDS), which offers a way to create antenna patterns.

It involves using a laser beam to create microscopic pits and undercuts on plastic, to which a metal coating can then be anchored.

This can prove cheaper than other options, such as hot stamping the pattern or using injection moulding, especially when more complex 3D antenna designs are desired to help keep components small and hidden inside a device.

The German firm's LDS patent was ruled invalid last year in China, which has encouraged others to use the process without paying LPKF a licence fee. The company is in the process of appealing against the decision.

"The more attractive a patent is, the harder you have to work to defend it," said Dr Ingo Bretthauer, LPKF's chief executive.

"We will continue to fight for our patent in China and systematically take action against infringers outside China. This is part and parcel of a technology company's everyday business."

Brazil defeat breaks Twitter records

Pictures illustrating the one-sided nature of the game were retweeted in their thousands.

Germany's 7-1 victory over Brazil in the World Cup semi-finals has become the most discussed sports game on Twitter so far.

A record 35.6 million tweets were sent during the 90-minute game.

It also broke the tweets-per-minute record, when the fifth goal triggered 580,601 in one minute.

Six of the 10 top-trending topics on Twitter were references to the match, with #BrazilvsGermany taking the top spot.

Miroslav Klose was the most tweeted German player, followed by midfielder Toni Kroos. Julio Cesar, Oscar and Fred were the most tweeted Brazilian players.

The previous record for a sporting event on Twitter was held by another World Cup match, Brazil v Chile, which recorded 389,000 tweets per minute.

Previous to that the 2014 Superbowl held the record, with 382,000 tweets per minute.

Photoshop overdrive

Many of the tweets took a wry look at the routing of Brazil, with some pointing out that Germany were scoring faster than they could type 140 characters.

Tumblr pages dedicated to "sad Brazilians" sprang up during the game. Some faked images purporting to show Brazilians rioting were also posted.

There were also plenty of Photoshopped images doing the rounds.

Pictures of Rio de Janeiro's iconic Christ the Redeemer statue crying and taking off into space were popular, as were images of people drinking 7Up.

A mock-up of Germany's goalkeeper sitting down and reading a book gained thousands of retweets.

Complaint over Facebook emotion test

Privacy campaigners want regulators to look into the Facebook experiment

An official complaint has been filed to the US Federal Trade Commission about a Facebook experiment that manipulated the emotional state of users.

The study was carried out for one week in 2012 and targeted almost 700,000 users by varying the personalised content sent to their Facebook pages.

The complaint was filed by digital rights group the Electronic Privacy Information Center (Epic).

Facebook said it had no comment to make about the complaint.

Damages call

In its complaint, Epic said Facebook had flouted ethical standards that govern experiments on human subjects.

The 2012 experiment involved Facebook collaborating with two US universities to see if changing the emotional content of stories and updates sent to users' Facebook profile pages had any effect on the people that read them.

It found that it was possible to influence people and that those who read fewer messages with negative emotional content were less likely to write a similarly negative personal update on their profile page.

"The company purposefully messed with people's minds," said Epic in its complain, adding that Facebook did not get explicit permission from users to carry out the experiment. The organisation's terms and conditions did not allow Facebook to carry out the test nor hand over data to experimenters.

Epic wants Facebook to pay damages and to hand over the algorithm underlying the work.

The social network's action amounted to a "deceptive practice", said Epic, and as such should be subject to enforcement action by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

Facebook's actions also violated a 2012 order imposed on it by the FTC, which required it to safeguard user data, said Epic.

The UK's information commissioner is also investigating whether Facebook broke data-protection laws when it carried out the psychological experiment.

In earlier statements about the experiment Facebook said it had taken "appropriate" steps to protect user data.

In addition on Thursday Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg apologised for the way the study was carried out. "We never meant to upset you," said Ms Sandberg while talking to the press during a trip to India.

"It was poorly communicated," she said. "And for that communication we apologise."

Facebook buys video ad tech start-up

A large user base makes social media networks an attractive ad channel for firms

Facebook has acquired LiveRail - a tech start-up that helps companies place more relevant ads in the videos that appear on their websites and apps.

LiveRail also provides a real-time bidding platform for marketers looking to place ads on online videos.

The firms did not reveal the financial terms, but some reports indicate that Facebook paid between $400m and $500m (£233m and £291m) to buy the firm.

Online video advertising is forecast to grow robustly in the coming years.

"More relevant ads will be more interesting and engaging to people watching online video, and more effective for marketers too," Brian Boland, vice president of ads product marketing and atlas at Facebook, said in a blog post.

"Publishers will benefit as well, because more relevant ads will help them make the most out of every opportunity they have to show an ad."

According to LiveRail, it delivers more than seven billion video ads per month.

Growing importance

The online and mobile ad sector has been growing rapidly in recent years.

According to a study published in April, more than £1bn was spent on mobile ads in the UK alone in 2013, a rise of 93% on the previous year.

Some other estimates suggest that online video advertising revenues are likely to hit $6bn in the US this year.

As a result, a growing number of firms - especially social networking platforms such as Facebook and Twitter - have been looking at ways to attract more advertisers and tap into the sector's growth.

Earlier this year, Facebook said it would start serving ads to third-party mobile apps via a new advertising network.

Twitter, acquired MoPub mobile advertising exchange last year.

MoPub acts as a mediation service, allowing marketers to manage the placement of ads across several networks, including Facebook's.

Analysts said that given their large user base, social networks were likely to get a big share of this growing market.

"It is no longer about saying, 'My ad was was seen by so many people,'" said Sanjana Chappalli, Asia-Pac head of LEWIS Pulse, a firm specialising in digital marketing.

"But it is now about knowing who those people are and how they have responded to the information fed to them.

"And on that front, social networks enjoy a tremendous advantage over everyone else." she added.

Meanwhile, Google's AdMob and Apple's iAds platforms and several other smaller firms are also competing to provide the adverts shown on mobile phones and tablets.

Millennial Media, Flurry and Nexage are among the firms promoting their own versions of "programmatic buying" - a way for firms to target their ads at a specific type of consumer via a chosen type of app at an appropriate time and geographic location.

Samsung ready to scrap plasma TVs

Samsung will focus on producing curved and ultra-high-definition (UHD) TVs

Samsung is to stop producing plasma televisions (PDP TVs) by 30 November.

It said falling demand meant it would instead focus on producing curved and ultra-high-definition (UHD) TVs.

"We remain committed to providing consumers with products that meet their need," Samsung told the CNET website.

Panasonic, Sony, Hitachi and Pioneer have also pulled out of the sector in recent years. And, according to the Tech Radar website, LG is expected to follow suit soon.

Plasma screens, which use electrically charged ionised gases, are often applauded for their brightness, deep blacks, and high frame rates, considered ideal for watching sport and films.

But they tend to use more electricity and are considerably bulkier than the now more popular liquid-crystal display (LCD) and light-emitting diode (LED) TVs.

Stylish tellies

TrustedReviews website editor Evan Kypreos said: "It's not at all surprising that Samsung has dumped plasma.

"The main issue is that it's very tricky to make [UHD] plasmas, and [UHD] is the future of big TVs.

"While plasma is a lot better than LED/LCD TVs in terms of image quality, such as contrast ratio, and motion handling, it has a few drawbacks.

"Plasma TVs can't be made a thin as LEDs, for example. People like stylish tellies."

With the introduction of increasingly advanced organic LED TVs, which arguably have better black levels, brightness and colour gamut than plasmas, there was little reason to continue manufacturing plasma screens, Mr Kypreos said.

"Home-cinema connoisseurs will always have a soft spot for plasmas, but they have simply been technologically superseded," he said.