Technology News

Old friends for sale

By Sean McManus

At least five bidders are talking to Friendsreunited about acquiring it, or a significant portion of it. The site, which puts schoolchums in touch with each other again, is expected to generate profits of £8 million next year, up from an expected £6.5 million this year. The company's CEO Michael Murphy said: "We can confirm that the company has recently received a number of credible approaches from large media groups and internet players." Given the data that is available in Friendsreunited, the sale could spark protests about privacy, depending on who ends up owning it.

PSP smashes console launch records

By Lance Concannon

Following its highly publicised launch on September 1st, early figures show that Sony's PSP (PlayStation Portable) has smashed all records with over 185,000 units sold so far in the UK. The previous record for a hardware launch was set by Nintendo's Gameboy DS at 87,000 in March this year. Hype aside, the device unarguably kicks portable entertainment into a new era by offering high quality 3D graphics capabilities previously only available from bulky mains-powered games consoles. Essentially a PS2 whittled down into a slinky, portable form factor with a good sized wide aspect screen, the machine also allows users to view a range of movies available on its proprietary Universal Media Disc format, and we've even seen people playing Futurama episodes ripped from the web onto the PSP's memory stick.

An integral WiFi adapter lets you connect to the web if you're within range of a wireless hotspot, although we can't imagine that will be an especially enjoyable experience without the help of a keyboard. There's no built in camera, contrary to popular opinion, but if you really want to take photos with the device, an optional plug-in camera accessory is available. The PSP currently retails at £180, although it's expected that the price will drop shortly after the Christmas rush has died down.

You have to feel sorry for Nintendo - for years it led the console market until Sony barged in with the original PlayStation, and now the company's comfortable lead in the portable gaming market seems set to disappear in much the same way.

What were they thinking?

By Sean McManus

As two men suspected of writing the Zotob worm are detained by Turkish police, the BBC reports on the authors' possible motives. David Taylor, a senior information security specialist at the University of Pennsylvania, told the BBC that he traced the virus to an IRC chat channel where he spoke to an administrator calling himself Diabl0. Diabl0 told him that one of the worm's purposes was to lower security settings in Internet Explorer so that pop-ups are displayed. Diabl0 said that he would be paid by the advertisers for each pop-up advert. Even when the virus was removed, the security settings would likely be unchanged. It's not clear whether Diabl0 was one of the two men under arrest, but given how quickly Zotob spread, he could be quids-in if he's not been caught.

Other virus authors, it seems, are more ideologically motivated: the new Yusufali-A Trojan suppresses what it believes are pornographic websites and displays a verse from the Koran instead.

New Orleans Web Host Battles Through Katrina

By Lance Concannon

Extreme situations often turn ordinary men and women into heroes, and there's no doubt that hurricane Katrina has revealed the hidden courage of many New Orleans residents. Perhaps the most unlikely of these are the brave souls at New Orleans hosting outfit, directNIC.com, who struggled to keep their data centre running and thousands of customers' websites online under arduous circumstances.

Throughout the crisis several directNIC.com employees have been living at the data centre, and a detailed account of events since the hurricane struck is regularly updated on a LiveJournal blog. A quick scan through some of the blog posts paints a picture of dedication above and beyond the call of duty; one can only hope the company's customers appreciate the efforts being put into keeping their sites online.

Attention was drawn to directNIC.com's plight by the webmaster of SomethingAwful, a popular humour site and one of the hosting provider's largest customers. SomethingAwful responded by launching a fundraising appeal on behalf of the Red Cross, which resulted in the site's fans donating over $30,000 within just nine hours.

Business Travellers Ignoring WiFi - Gartner

By Lance Concannon

Analyst firm Gartner claims that only 17% of UK businesses travellers and 25% of those in the US are taking advantage of WiFi hotspots to get online at airports, hotels and similar locations. The company surveyed more than 2000 travellers on both sides of the pond and found that rather than technological issues, most of those surveyed cited educational, financial and cultural reasons for not using it.

Most respondents said they found increased baggage allowances, more personal space and better entertainment to be more important issues than in-flight email and Internet access. 75% of UK travellers said they welcomed the chance to be out of contact for a while during transit and 32% said they had no need for wireless hotspots even on the ground.

Delia McMillan, research vice-president at Gartner said "Whilst Wi-Fi has come a long way, our survey shows that many business travellers remain uncertain as to why they should use Wi-Fi, what equipment they need, how they can connect and what they will be charged. If Wi-Fi providers really want to attract new customers they must convince both end users and organisations of its benefits."

Top of the Pods...

By Kate Boulby

Melvyn Bragg's history programme 'In Our Time' on radio 4 has beaten Chris Moyles' Radio 1 breakfast show to become the BBC's most popular podcast, averaging around 30,000 download requests a week.

Podcasting allows users to 'subscribe' to radio programmes and have them delivered to their PC. Subscribers then automatically receive the latest edition of the programme as it is aired. Files can also be easily transferred to an mp3 player via an internet connection and a piece of podcast software which is usually available free of charge.

Approximately 20 programmes are taking part in the trial, including Radio 4's Today programme and Five Live's Sportsweek.

Simon Nelson, controller of BBC Radio and Music Interactive, said the figures reflected the public's appetite for "radio on demand".

"We're delighted to offer new ways of listening that complement other, increasingly popular technologies like DAB digital radio and digital television," he said.

But it doesn't end there...

Podcasting may now also be the future for audiobooks. Author Paul Story has written the first ever novel solely for publication as a podcast.

Living in a tent in the Scottish Highlands with no budget for printing and postage, podcasting appears to be the ideal way to get his story to the masses.

Paul Story's novel 'Tom Corven' is currently being broadcast chapter-by-chapter over the internet as an audiobook. After writing each chapter, Paul then records himself reading it out loud and makes the recording available on the net, with the feed broadcast each week to over 1600 subscribers at the last count.

The book is still a work in progress, leaving Paul with no time for procrastination or writer's block. Let's hope he gets the next one finished on time.

Media update

By Kate Boulby

Wonderland, the new luxury glossy mag from BBC2 Dragon's Den joint winner Huw Gwyther, went on sale yesterday.

The magazine will initially be priced at £4.95, with a starting print run of 140,000 copies. Publishers eventually hope to sell up to 100,000.

Targeted at both male and female readers, Wonderland will cover everything from fashion, film, music and product design to stage and art. The first issue also features an exclusive interview with The Aviator's film production designer Dante Ferretti.

Dragon Den, which was shown earlier in the year, featured contestants pitching business ideas to the expert "Dragons".

The BBC and ITV plan to have all their channels available to all UK homes in time for the switch off of the signal for analogue TV, scheduled for 2012.

By joining forces, they are launching a free-to-air satellite service 'Freesat' is currently being prepared to roll out to viewers who are currently unable to access the Freeview digital service.

BBC and ITV aim for the service to become fully available by June of next year. Freesat will also offer digital radio, a number of interactive services and an electronic programme guide.

"Our long-stated aim has been to bring about an open market in subscription-free satellite services so we can ensure free access to all the BBC's services across the country in the run-up to switchover and beyond," said Mark Thompson, BBC director general.

At the Guardian, deputy foreign editor Nick Hopkins has moved from the international desk to become home news editor. He replaces Andrew Culf, who is now on the sports desk.

The reshuffle of the papers editorial team is to aide the relaunch of its Berliner format next week.

Prompt Guide to Corporate Doublespeak

With Lance Concannon

Strategic Realignment

Sounds impressive, doesn't it? When your boss utters a phrase like "Strategic Realignment" it makes you feel like the people in charge really know what they're doing; the company's future and your career prospects are in the hands of intelligent, determined, focused people. Wrong. So wrong, in fact, that it's gone beyond the conventional definition of 'wrong' as we know it and entered a hitherto unknown realm of super-dense wrongness.

Strategic Realignment actually means: "Everything we've done up to this point has been a hideous, terrible mistake and we're just this close to calling in the receivers. But don't worry, the same people who got us into this mess have come up with some brilliant plans to steer the company in a new direction and make everything better. Oh, and some people are going to get fired very soon."

NanoTech Corner

By Max McConnell

Nanotech in industry #3 : Scanning Probe Microscope Tips

Over the past few issues we have looked at scanning probe microscopes in the form of STM and AFM, and there are many other types of scanning probe microscopes such as NSOM (near-field scanning optical microscopy) and MFM (magnetic force microscopy).

All these scanning probe microscopes require extremely sharp tips to scan over the sample of interest and, conveniently for the tip industry but inconveniently for the users, these tips do not remain sharp and are considered consumables. The tip itself is a sharp point suspended under a cantilever and is typically made of silicon or silicon nitride.

Tips come in many shapes and sizes depending on the application. For example one can get very sharp tips for rough surfaces, hammer-head tips for side-wall profiling or diamond tips for measuring hard surfaces.

The tip is built on a cantilever, the composition and stiffness of which is another variable in microscopy depending on the sample under study. Tips are formed using semiconductor processes such as chemical etching, photolithography, chemical vapour deposition and sometimes ion-beam etching.

All the SPM manufacturers also supply tips but there are some specialist companies that only provide tips such as NanoWorld or MicroMasch.

Tips cost £10 to £50 each and last for ten to fifty images depending on the hardness of the surface and the skill of the microscopist. Unlike printer or razor manufacturers, companies aren't giving away AFMs to make money on tip sales - but like the car-spares industry, tip manufacture is a lucrative business with a mature user base. Investor rating; buy.