iGeneration

February 9th, 2010

Microsoft, CEOP adds panic button to IE8 to fight online child abuse

Posted by Zack Whittaker @ 8:38 am

Categories: Breaking news, Downloads, Events, Government, Legal and political, Microsoft, Security, Web 2.0

Tags: Children, U.K., Microsoft Internet Explorer, Button, Microsoft Corp., Web Browser, CEOP, Web Browsers, Internet, Zack Whittaker

Child Exploitation and Online Protection Center, the UK’s national police/government department dedicated to protecting children, has launched a panic button integrated into Internet Explorer 8, to help children report online abuse.

Today is the UK’s Safer Internet Day, and this joint initiative with Microsoft is one of their ways of helping protect children not only in the UK but around the world. The two have been working together for some time - and this is another step in promoting the Report Abuse technology, introducing a single button which rolls out across a number of popular sites with children.

Disclosure: I worked for Microsoft some time ago on child safety measures, and am fully aware of the relationship that Microsoft and CEOP, along with other public sector police and governmental bodies have.

The panic button can be installed either directly from the IE Add-On’s site or through a dedicated installation of IE8 which it includes. In the form of a Web Slice, it allows children to hit one dedicated button to report a range of online abuse from bullying to child grooming.

As I have said before, the Internet has created a borderless set of nations where information passes physical borders without customs, excise or immigration and no one dedicated governmental entity can single-handedly fight the online child sex abuse battle. CEOP is a small fish in a large sea of governmental and police organisations working together to combat this illicit market.

Rory Cellan-Jones, the BBC’s technology reporter, highlights an interesting point though. With Internet Explorer (specifically IE6) receiving quite a bad rap of late, CEOP as a government department seems to be rather eagerly promoting Microsoft’s browser.

Jim Killock, Open Rights Group, spoke to Cellan-Jones, saying:

“It’s important that CEOP doesn’t persuade people to use a single browser, particularly one which has had a history of security lapses causing other threats to home users.”

The panic button is not yet available for non-IE users and those using Firefox, Chrome or Safari will have to do without, with no clear plans to develop a similar solution for these browsers.

I asked CEOP to comment on whether they have any specific thoughts on expanding this to other browsers, as well as whether they are officially endorsing Microsoft products as a UK government department - which they seem to be doing so - but have received no word back yet. Updates will be here in due time if/when they get in touch.

Will this panic button make children safer? Will you, as a parent, switch to IE to use this panic button? Have your say.

February 9th, 2010

Quantum exploit revolutionises pressure-touch phones

Posted by Zack Whittaker @ 6:47 am

Categories: Hardware, Major breakthroughs, Mobile computing, Next-generation technology, Research, Skills development, Space

Tags: Quantum Physics, Phone, Quantum Corp., Quantum Mechanics, Quantum Tunnelling Composite, Zack Whittaker

New mobile devices may soon be fitted with a new technology which detects pressure sensitive touch, exploited by a quantum physics “trick”.

Quantum tunnelling composite (QTC) are metals and non-conducting elastic polymers which when pressure is applied, the conductive elements move closer together and allow electricity to flow through the insulating area.

Essentially, this will allow phones and mobile devices to have this technology fitted which enables users to scroll down a page, an e-book or similar, faster or slower depending on the pressure applied.

The BBC explains the technology further:

“The composite works by using spiky conducting nanoparticles, similar to tiny medieval maces, dispersed evenly in a polymer. None of these spiky balls actually touch, but the closer they get to each other, the more likely they are to undergo a quantum physics phenomenon known as tunnelling.

Tunnelling is one of several effects in quantum mechanics that defies explanation in terms of the “classical” physics that preceded it. Simply put, quantum mechanics says that there is a tiny probability that a particle shot at a wall will pass through it in an effect known as tunnelling.”

The cost of QTC is low making it a viable technology to have in newer devices. Samsung are already including the technology into newer phones, primarily the center function buttons for email scrolling features and suchlike.

So soon, your new phone could have a simple enough looking navigation set of buttons which in fact exploit a phenomenon not fully understood by quantum physicists.

February 7th, 2010

Facebook mobile: 5m users, 1 month, 2.2bn minutes

Posted by Zack Whittaker @ 5:09 pm

Categories: Discussion, Mobile computing, Productivity, Research, Social networking, University fun

Tags: Facebook, Phone, Mobile, Cell Phone, Cellular Phones, Telecom & Utilities, Consumer Electronics, Personal Technology, Zack Whittaker

Mobile web use is on the increase as more and more users spend time away from the traditional desktop computer or broadband connection to access sites through their mobile phones and devices.

The BBC reported that through December alone, 2.2 billion minutes were totalled up from mobile phone users from three of the five major UK phone networks. This also includes just under 5 million unique users to the mobile site, along with over 2.6 billion pages viewed using a mobile device.

This goes to say that Facebook has gone beyond all other websites in the UK, and many parts of the world also, overtaking other social networks, Twitter, major news networks and even Apple’s App Store.

The mobile media metrics were released late last week by GSMA and comScore, but only include a few of the main mobile network operators including O2, Vodafone, Orange, T-Mobile and 3.

While this time last year I believed the mobile web to be a letdown - a concept brought about as only a filler for those who couldn’t access a computer at the time and constructed by poor bandwidth. But as mobile usage has increased and smartphones flooding the market, with one fifth of the UK mobile market being a smartphone, mobile web access is growing at a massive rate.

Do you take advantage of the mobile site? Does it provide less of a distraction than the desktop version? Is mobile web use finally taking off? Leave a thought.

February 7th, 2010

The digital Cold War: Information is the new electoral ballot

Posted by Zack Whittaker @ 3:40 pm

Categories: Discussion, Events, Government, Legal and political, Major breakthroughs, Security, Social networking, Uncategorized, Web 2.0, Weird and wonderful

Tags: Web, Citizen, Internet, Public Relations, Government, Channel Management, Vertical Industries, Marketing, Corporate Communications, Zack Whittaker

With sociology being a modestly vague social science, the shift to the world wide web and the wider world - the world we see nowadays without tangible borders - generates understanding of how powerful citizens have become since only a few decades ago.

While my colleague Chris Jablonski considers the acts of space warfare to be likely as soon as in 2025, we are to face even sooner, if not imminently, a revolution of Internet power which brings back the power to the people through a collective of individual actions.

The web in collective form - citizens and ordinary people - are the biggest threat to their own governments and in repressed areas including but not mutually exclusive to China, Burma and Iran, the Internet is putting power back into the hands of those who’s electoral vote has been reduced to mere political hyperbole.

With the 2009 Iran elections as the best given case, twenty years after the country’s revolution which saw the entire political landscape change, citizens were reporting from inside their own boundaries. Through reporting the uprising and surge of governmental repression through social media and the wider web, replacing the blocked state-run media, the world became engrossed and astounded with the goings on.

Stephen Fry, freedom of Internet advocate and widely respected all-round gentleman, described Twitter in a recent BBC documentary series, as not only a social medium where one can spread inane self-indulged “news” about themselves, but recognised the further power of the socially interconnecting community:

“A social network probably couldn’t bring down a regime, but it certainly helps as it spreads ideas”.

And as censorship becoming a wider issue, though not restricted to repressive regimes, younger citizens who are feeling starved of truth and unrestricted knowledge are becoming more aware of the censors and what is specifically being held back, even though the content isn’t loading. China’s “50 Cent Army” spreads communist propaganda internally, promoting the political good of the party in power but acting in a way which results in looking like public-relations self-harm.

In the end, it falls down to simply that - public relations or “PR 2.0″ - using the web as a tool to keep people on side. For now, a lull in the impending storm sees a standoff between the government and the citizen; a relic of the Cold War holding back to be used as the first move.

As I see it today, in 2010 at this very moment of minutes and seconds, the next major battle we will see from a Cold War stand-offish way, exploding into a World War fashion will be through the use of the web. In repressive regimes, the next-generation will revolt and the democratic world will help. Governments may not, as they could not necessarily be seen to. But in a time of Internet battles, nationality will be almost entirely negated and the aftermath will redraw the map of the new digital world.

This imminent rise of brewing tension and political reform will be seen in our lifetime as it will be us, the next-generation, the student and the Generation Y who takes on this challenge as our own.

February 4th, 2010

Students: Don't get an iPad. Please.

Posted by Zack Whittaker @ 8:16 am

Categories: Gratuitous rant, Hardware, Money, Multimedia, Productivity, University, e-Learning

Tags: Material, iPad, Tablets, Notebooks, Corporate Communications, Hardware, Notebooks & Tablets, Marketing, Zack Whittaker

The iPad and the Kindle are two of the most banded-about tablet devices to date. With weeks of rumour and speculation finally revealing the Apple tablet, today Amazon is found to have invested further into mobile “Kindle-like” technology to rival the iPad.

My opinion of the iPad is not that of a positive one. It lacks Flash which whether you love it or hate it, is still an integral part of the web that we use today, irrespective of whether HTML5 video integration will have a major effect on the plug-in in years to come.

Satirist Charlie Brooker sums up entirely my feeling for the device, using words which I could only have dreamed of. (Some strong language, edited where possible).

Yet the kicker for me is the paperless student concept, and the ability to read and take notes. The whole point behind “reading” a degree instead of studying for one is because the vast majority of undergraduate degree programmes involve more reading than anything else. In theory and from my personal experience, you could probably scrape a high 2:2 at very least just from reading the course materials that are asked of you and nothing else.

The need for reading is massively important, and while I still believe a Kindle or an iPad will not negate the need for paper and physical reading materials, it could have a positive effect on storage space, overall costs and literature capacity.

But it still entirely depends on whether the necessary reading materials will be available for such devices. This is a big but, and not one that can be solved overnight no matter how hard Google tries to.

And students still don’t want to read books or materials on a screen. It isn’t in our nature to and with screen/eye fatigue and general rigmarole of having to become adept with the technology we are given, it’s far easier to scribble a note on the margin of a laboriously complicated chapter.

In my opinion, there’s nothing besides the fashion and the fun element behind the iPad that could justify even the relatively low cost of $499. It may seem to be aimed at students and academia but in practice, you’d be better off with the best of both worlds.

Would you get an iPad, and why?

February 3rd, 2010

Universities vs. the high-tech exam cheats

Posted by Zack Whittaker @ 6:45 am

Categories: Discussion, Legal and political, Next-generation technology, Research, University, Weird and wonderful, e-Learning

Tags: Exam, Productivity, Telecom & Utilities, Zack Whittaker

Schools are resorting to buying specialist equipment to trace or disrupt devices such as mobile phones and other exam cheating technology to battle the dishonest student. But with the wide ranging technology available, from mobiles to MP3 players, iPhones and handheld devices with wireless and 3G access to the answers, perhaps the traditional exams are no longer feasibly possible?

Ofqual, the qualifications watchdog in the UK, undertook a study which showed more students were penalised for bringing unauthorised materials - which can range from high-tech devices to crib notes written on the inside labels of drinks bottles.

My opinions on exams are clear cut and to the point. I don’t like exams, and only seem relevant to testing the memory holding ability of the student. In schools, pupils are taught to pass exams whereas at university the general consensus is that students are taught because they want to learn. With dissertations being more often than not optional, an undergraduate bachelor’s degree can only be justified with a written dissertation, in my opinion, entirely negating the need for exams.

Mobile phone jamming equipment is illegal in the UK and US as it could interfere with other equipment. However there is a possibility for change with the rising number of phones being smuggled into prisons. Body language detectors could be installed to monitor the expressions and activities of students undertaking exams, similarly to those in airports looking out for suspicious persons.

Or maybe fight fire with fire. In my first year as a computer science student, I was allowed to bring in my textbook with my notes to write a written programming examination. The exam wasn’t to test memory but rather to test the research technique. Use technology openly by using resources such as the Internet to research the appropriate exam question - which tests research gathering and studying technique instead of memory.

But even with all the technology in the world, a good old fashioned Biro and your non-writing arm seems to be the best technique for university cheats.

What are your thoughts?

February 1st, 2010

3 years of lost work (and a music collection) boil down to six DVD's

Posted by Zack Whittaker @ 9:00 am

Categories: Discussion, Events, Hardware, Money, Productivity, University, Weird and wonderful

Tags: Hard Drive, DVD, Zack Whittaker

It took me only one second to accidentally kick the main power cord out of the back of my computer, mid-stretch, killing my hard drive on cataclysmic proportions. I had backed up my machine, but through my own sheer stupidity and incompetence, all the files and the system restore image were all on the same partition as I only had one hard drive.

Epic fail.

Through the power of social media and blogging, many of you attempted to throw me a life raft to pull me from the ever sinking ship of my university degree. One man and his company pulled through, offering me a full hard drive recovery by shipping it to one of their labs.

Each time I had moved machines over the last few years, reinstalled or upgraded operating system, I’d simply selected the same folders from the various locations and banged them on a DVD or two. Even though I had started a fresh with a new machine or operating system, I had the same old junk that I’d always had; stuff ranging back from years ago but never had the heart to delete, just in case.

I had a music collection, a bunch of videos and all the usual stuff you would expect of a student. Yet, I had my entire degree notes, seminar write-ups, lecture notes, exam preparations and research in a few folders scattered across my hard drive. I was also due to give a lecture in the coming week on my university campus, of which the PowerPoint I had prepared had been lost in the data genocide.

Some files had been uploaded to SkyDrive, some had been sent to and fro over email, and some had been stored in the cloud when I started playing with Live Mesh a year or so ago. But no matter how hard I looked, I couldn’t get the complete set together.

A kind gentleman in North America got in touch from Fields Data Recovery, and explained the process to me. The thought of having to send my hard drive across the Atlantic sunk my heart further as that would take precious time, time I hadn’t really got. Instead, he asked me to ship the drive to one of the worldwide field offices - in Wales - the other side of the UK. It would get there in less than 24 hours should I send it via recorded delivery.

A week later, a small package arrives and my next door neighbour knocks on my door and delivers it, as I was out most of the day. In there was my dead hard drive, and six DVD’s - full to the brim of my files, my data, my degree work, my operating system and my years of junk that I had collected over my computing lifetime.

It turned out that a common firmware fault appearing in the newer Maxtor and Seagate drives meant that once the power outage occurred, the firmware was not able to re-initialise itself causing the lack of access to the data. They had managed to repair the actual disk, so the drive was working again, but as a result of the issue still being a likelihood of returning, I opted to buy a whole new hard drive instead.

No invoice came. I enquired about this as frankly it concerned me, but the gentleman at the other end of the email had out of the kindness of his own heart, after reading my blog for many months, gave me the service for free - a one off, through exception circumstances. Consider this my disclosure.

I have no obligation to write about the company - because my policy is to never plug a product. There are far more things to do with this blog and readership than to promote products which will never gain ground in the wider world. But as an act of kindness on my behalf, I’ll throw in a generous plug in their direction as to show mutual professional affection.

So while in some ways, it is slightly depressing to know that everything I have worked for over the years boils down to half a dozen DVD’s, similarly to a will which reduces your entire life to a few sheets of paper, I’m beyond glad to have my work back.

And I promise to backup to an external hard drive every week.

January 28th, 2010

Windows Home Server 'Vail': A web based media center?

Posted by Zack Whittaker @ 11:26 am

Categories: Breaking news, Hardware, Major breakthroughs, Microsoft, Multimedia, Next-generation technology, University, University fun

Tags: Web, Media Center PC, Microsoft Windows Home Server, Web Interface, Vail, Microsoft Windows, Media Center PCs, Servers, Operating Systems, Software

Mary Jo and I were talking last night about Windows Home Server “Vail”, the upcoming operating system to take over previous home server editions. After a half-hour download and an additional fifteen minutes installation time, I had it installed on my home computer.

I have a long history with Windows Home Server. Back in 2006 when I was blogging with a group of friends, I personally infuriated Bill Gates after I announced basically what he was going to speak about in his keynote speech at CES that year - the initial launch of Windows Home Server.

Gallery
To view the full screenshot gallery of Windows Home Server ‘Vail’, including the remote web interface and server options and configuration, click here.

After playing with this edition for no more than a day, it’s clearly no where near finished and stands in at the fourth community technical preview at this stage. But the potential is huge, and I genuinely see this as a fantastic solution for house-sharing students.

It only comes in 64-bit as it is based on Windows Server 2008 R2, the server system designed to support Windows 7. It requires at least 120GB to install and the download/installation package comes in at just over 3GB.

Read more: Early version of Windows Home Server ‘Vail’ leaks to the Web

The most fun I had was through the the remote web interface; allowing you to remotely view your files, documents, music and videos from anywhere else in the world with an Internet connection.

The web interface looks and feels like Windows Live Home (wave 4), and when playing music or video acts between Windows Media Player and Windows Media Center. While this build is an early one, they have this functionality in place already and can only expect bigger and better things.

What do you think? Could this be a media center killer?

January 27th, 2010

Apple iPad: Without a killer feature, it's just an overweight iPhone

Posted by Zack Whittaker @ 10:12 am

Categories: Apple, Breaking news, Events, Gratuitous rant, Hardware, Mobile computing

Tags: Apple iPhone, Apple Tablet, Apple Inc., Tablets, Notebooks, Smart Phones, Hardware, Notebooks & Tablets, Consumer Electronics, Personal Technology

Apple has been toying with bloggers and enthusiasts for weeks, like tormenting a cat with a ball of string.

For weeks the company has been churning up rumours in the underworld, controlling leaks to work in their favour, as well as on the side building an iPhone to about three times the original size. There has been so much hype and misdirection, hoaxes and blatant fakes, trickles of rumour and sporadic exclusives.

Over what, exactly? An overweight iPhone. An iPod touch on the chunky side. That’s it.

Poor Sam Diaz. Last week he got so excited after receiving his Apple announcement invitation, we had to chain him up for three days for his own safety. He was vibrating more than an ADHD-child who had been force-fed Red Bull, cola and any other caffeine and anxiety inducing fizzy drink.

But back in real life, we have only a few minutes before some form of announcement goes live. The likelihood of Jason Calacanis actually having an Apple tablet is high, but if he was given one in the first place albeit under non-disclosure, he must have some positive link with the company first off. I would say his opinion is somewhat biased. Nevertheless, what he claims is:

• A built-in HDTV tuner and PVR. It’s “amazing” for newspapers, and video-conferencing is “super stable but nothing new”.
• Two cameras - one in front, one in back.
• Thumbpads on each side for mouse gestures and fingerprint security for the family.
• Gaming that, he says, is “sick” [good]. “Basically nintendo wii-level innovation. Custom farmville app is insane.”
• The tablet connects to other tablets over wifi for gaming.
• Battery life of 2-3 hours playing games - and a solar pad for recharging that “really doesn’t work quickly”.

Yawn.

Where’s the super killing death ray? Does it have missiles that shoot out from the side and heat-seek enemy combatants? Will it transform into a life-sized hot water bottle with adjustable heat control to comfort you even in the dead of a Siberian winter? No, and admittedly that would be going to far.

Maybe given a push, the user sharing plus facial recognition features. On passing the device from one person to another, the device will detect that user’s face and pull up their desktop and applications without having to physically log in. Granted, I’ll give them that one, but it’s more of a gimmick than a killer feature.

But my point is that there’s nothing particularly new. It really is an overweight, larger iPhone with possible 3G connectivity, with e-reading capabilities and maybe an expansion to the App Store to incorporate tablet-specific applications.

Apple has grown to be a very secretive, yet carefully strategic company in its public relations and its fan base. With their following and the collective compassion, love and desire for current and future products, even if an iPhone 3GS was re-released with a limited edition Apple branded flash drive, we wouldn’t stop hearing about it for weeks.

West coast, enjoy your day of sunshine and blue sky - which you will probably see from the awful glossy screen - and let this device fade into the technological history books as the biggest anti-climax of the decade.

January 26th, 2010

Tedious Tuesday: Student brings typewriter to lecture

Posted by Zack Whittaker @ 8:58 am

Categories: Productivity, University, University fun, Weird and wonderful

Tags: Student, Typewriter, Lecture, Video, Hilarious, Zack Whittaker

An unknown student at an unknown university got a lecture hall full of laughs when he brought a typewriter to class. However on the up side, it’s portable, it types well with an ergonomic QWERTY-keyboard, and it isn’t supplied with any additional applications to distract the student midway through boring lectures.

Besides it being rather loud, and the professor asking the student to “mute his typewriter”, wouldn’t you be tempted to have one of these relics instead of an Apple Tablet?