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slovakia seal hopman cup success slovakia clinched the hopman cup for the second time by beating argentina 3-0 in saturday s final in perth. daniela hantuchova put the third seeds ahead recovering from a terrible start to beat gisela dulko 1-6 6-4 6-4. dominik hrbaty who had not lost a set in his three singles matches in the group stages then upset world number seven guillermo coria 6-4 6-1. hantuchova and hrbaty then won the mixed doubles after coria was forced to withdraw because of a sore back. slovakia s win made up for last year s final defeat to the united states. i would like to congratulate daniela hrbaty said. i was so nervous watching her today i almost had a heart attack. i also feel a little sorry for guillermo because i get very excited whenever i play for my country. i show lots of emotions and played such good tennis. world number 31 hantuchova ranked two places above dulko looked nervous as she dropped the first four games of the match. dulko who had lost all three of her singles matches in the group stages grew in confidence and took the opening set in just 27 minutes. but hantuchova hit back to take the next two and the match. i was so nervous because i really wanted to win for the team and for dominik as he played so well all week she said. i didn t think i was playing my best but i just tried to hang in there and fight hard for every point for my country. slovakia won the cup on their first appearance in 1998 when karol kucera and karina habsudova beat france.

Sports

joke e-mail virus tricks users a virus that disguises itself as a joke is spreading rapidly across the net. anti-virus firms are issuing high-level warnings about the new version of the bagle e-mail program that seems to be catching a lot of people out. the windows virus grabs e-mail addresses from microsoft outlook and uses its own mail sending software to spread itself to new victims. when it infects a machine the bagle variant turns off security measures that usually protect pcs. the new variant is called bagle.at bagle.bb and bagle.au and the attachment bearing the virus code is labelled as either joke or price . the body of the virus usually contains nothing but a smiley or emoticon. the virus can strike computers running windows 95 98 me nt 2000 and xp. users will be infected if they open the attachment that travels with the e-mail. as well as plundering microsoft outlook for e-mail addresses to send itself to bagle.at also tries to turn off the firewall and security centre services on windows xp machines. bbc news online has received five warnings about the virus from security companies. finnish company f-secure gave the virus its second highest threat level. we ve had several reports all over the world said mikko hypponen director of anti-virus research for f-secure. security firm network box said that it stopped more than 30 000 copies an hour of the virus as the outbreak reached a peak. black spider said it had stopped more than 1 million copies of bagle.at since the outbreak began at 0630 bst (0530 gmt). anti-virus firms urged users to be wary of unexpected e-mail messages bearing attachments and to update their software to ensure they are protected against the latest threats.

Science_and_Techology

irish company hit by iraqi report shares in irish oil company petrel resources have lost more than 50% of their value on a report that the firm has failed to win a contract in iraq. reuters news agency reported that iraq s oil ministry has awarded the first post-war oilfield contracts to a canadian and a turkish company. by 1700 gmt petrel s shares fell from 97p ($1.87) to 44p ($0.85). petrel said that it has not received any information from iraqi authorities to confirm or deny the report. iraq is seeking to award contracts for three projects valued at $500m (£258.5m). turkey s everasia is reported by reuters to have won a contract to develop the khurmala dome field in the north of the country. a canadian company named iog is reported to have won the contract to run the himrin field. ironhorse oil and gas has denied to reuters that it is the company in question. these two projects aim to develop khurmala field to produce 100 000 barrels per day and raise the output of himrin. the winners of the contract are to build new flow lines and build gas separation stations. the contract to develop the suba-luhais field has not yet been awarded as iraq s oil ministry is studying the offers. if iraq s cabinet approves the oil ministry s choice of companies then this will be the first deal that iraq has signed with a foreign oil company. iraq is still trying to boost its production capacity to match levels last seen in the eighties before the war with iran. oil officials hope to double iraq s output by the end of the decade.

Business

russia wto talks make progress talks on russia s proposed membership of the world trade organisation (wto) have been making good progress say those behind the negotiations. but the chairman of the working party ambassador stefan johannesson of iceland warned that there was still a lot of work has to be done . his comments came as president george w bush said the us backed russian entry. but he said for russia to make progress the government must renew a commitment to democracy and the rule of law . his comments come three days before he is due to meet president vladimir putin. russia has been waiting for a decade to join the wto and hopes to finally become a member by early 2006. a decision could be reached in december when the wto s 148 current members gather for a summit in hong kong. that would allow an earliest date for membership of january 2006 if the hong kong summit gave its approval. while pinpointing several areas in which there are difficulties in the bilateral and multilateral work with russia the us said the meeting was much more efficient than we ve seen for some time . and australia said it was one of the best (meetings) we can recall in terms of substance . mr johannesson also said progress on the bilateral market access side is accelerating . sticking points to membership have included limits on foreign ownership in the telecommunications and life insurance businesses as well as issues surrounding counterfeiting piracy and data protection. some wto members also dislike russia s energy price subsidies which competitors say give russian businesses an unfair advantage.

Business

rings of steel combat net attacks gambling is hugely popular especially with tech-savvy criminals. many extortionists are targeting net-based betting firms and threatening to cripple their websites with deluges of data unless a ransom is paid. but now deep defences are being put in place by some of the uk s biggest net firms to stop these attacks. increasing numbers of attacks and the huge amounts of data being used to try to bump a site off the web are prompting firms to adopt the measures. net firms are realising that it s not just about anti-virus and firewalls said paul king chief security architect at cisco. there are more things that can be done in the network to protect data centres. mr king said the only way to properly combat these so-called distributed denial-of-service attacks was with intelligent net-based systems. many of the gambling sites suffering ddos attacks are in offshore data and hosting centres so any large scale data flood could knock out access to many more sites than just the one the criminals were targeting said mr king. this overspill effect was only likely to grow as attacks grow in size and scale. malcolm seagrave security expert at energis said the most common types of attacks hit sites with 10 megabytes of data over short periods of time. bigger attacks sending down 200 megabytes of traffic or more were rarely seen he said. it does feel like they are turning the dial because you see this traffic gradually growing he said. so far there have been no attacks involving gigabytes of data said mr seagrave. however he added that it was only a matter of time before such large attacks were mounted. maria capella spokeswoman for net provider pipex said that when ddos attacks were at their height customers were getting hit every four to five days. the defences being put in place constantly monitor the streams of data flowing across networks and pluck out the traffic destined for target sites. it s about understanding what s genuine traffic and keeping attack traffic from going to the site she said. we study the profile of their traffic and as soon as we see an anomaly in the profile that s when we start to get the backbone engineering boys to see if we are going to sustain an attack said ms capella. this traffic can be hard to spot because ddos attacks typically use thousands of computers in many different countries each participating machine only sends a small part of the entire data flood. typically these computers have been infected by a virus or worm which reports its success and the net address of compromised machines back to the malicious hacker or hi-tech criminal that set off the virus. hijacked computers are known as zombies or bots and collections of them are called bot nets. many spammers rent out bot nets to help them anonymously send junk mail. most of the zombies are based outside the country that hosts the target site so getting the attacking pcs shut off can be difficult. often pipex and other net suppliers do get advance notice that an attack is about to happen. the serious players tend to precede an attack with some kind of ransom e-mail said ms capella. we ask as part of the service we provide that customers notify us of anything they have in advance that would give us forewarning. once an attack is spotted dedicated net hardware takes over to remove the attack traffic and ensure that sites stay up. energis took a similar approach said mr seagrave. we have technology out there that allows us to detect attacks in minutes rather than let network engineers spend hours pulling the information together said mr seagrave. also net firms were starting to work more closely together on the problem of ddos attacks and pool information about where they are coming from. information gathered on attacks and where they originated has led to some arrests. he said energis also did its own intelligence work to get in insight into which sites criminal gangs plan to target. we have people in places where they shouldn t be monitoring tech sites he said. sometimes though he said spotting the next victim was easy. you can see them going alphabetically through the list with the gambling sites trying one after another said mr seagrave.

Science_and_Techology

keegan hails comeback king fowler manchester city boss kevin keegan has praised striker robbie fowler for his landmark return to form. the 29-year-old out of favour at city earlier this season took his premiership goal tally past 150 with a brace in monday s 3-2 win at norwich. he is still a quality player and knows where the net is - we have just got to supply him with ammunition and in the end we did keegan said. he has worked hard to get back to where he is now. the former liverpool striker who moved to city in 2003 after a poor stint at leeds has battled back into first-team contention after struggling with fitness at the start of the season. fowler overtook les ferdinand on tuesday evening to become the third highest scorer of all time in the premiership with 151 goals and he only trails alan shearer (250) and andy cole (173). and keegan believes there is still more to come from the former england forward. he can get better if we can supply him better added keegan. people want to write him off but if he has kept the articles of those people who have written him off he could throw them back at them and they would be left with a bit of egg on their face. fowler s double strike helped city come back from two goals down to clinch a dramatic win at carrow road and keegan sympathised with norwich boss nigel worthington afterwards. i feel a bit for nigel worthington he said. his team have got great character they have a lot of drive and enthusiasm. i know it is a killer blow for norwich but i really think they have brought something to the premiership. the stadium and the atmosphere is great it is just a tough league to stay in - as they are finding out and as we know.

Sports

tech helps disabled speed demons an organisation has been launched to encourage disabled people to get involved in all aspects of motorsport which is now increasingly possible thanks to technological innovations. the motorsport endeavour club left the starting grid yesterday at the autosport international 2005 show at birmingham s nec with several technologies to adapt vehicles on display. motorcycle racer roy tansley from derby developed his electronic sequential gear changer following an accident which resulted in part of his left leg being amputated. i needed to find a way of changing gear and generally you do that with your left leg mr tansley told the bbc news website. in simple terms i needed to invent a left foot - initially it was quite a heath robinson device. mr tansley had to argue his case to be allowed to continue competing with motorcycle racing s governing body the autocycle union. at that time they wouldn t let any amputee race at all but eventually they told me i could have a licence as long as i raced sidecars. mr tansley s invention the pro-shift is designed to work with hewland gearboxes which are widely used in motorcycle racing. in addition to helping disabled riders to compete mr tansley reckons that the pro-shift saves at least 20 seconds per lap when he competes in the isle of man tt. as a result there has been considerable interest in the product from other riders keen to improve their performance. i m not prejudiced i ll sell to able-bodied people if i have to! he joked. another exhibit on the motorsport endeavour stand is a subaru impreza rally car adapted to accommodate a variety of disabilities. the vehicle belongs to pararallying the world s only rally school for disabled drivers which is based in lincolnshire. we use the latest technology supplied by an italian company said rally driver dave hawkins who runs the company. the cars have electronic throttles electronic brakes electronic clutches - we ve yet to turn anybody away. mr hawkins - a paraplegic himself - says his customers have included right or left arm amputees quadriplegics people who have had strokes and a woman who had had all four limbs amputated. pararallying uses a vauxhall astra gsi with an automatic gearbox and manual subaru imprezas. the car on display is fitted with a duck clutch - a switch on the gear stick used instead of the clutch pedal. it also has a second ring behind the steering wheel to operate the throttle and a hand operated brake bar. when joy rainey started competing in motorsport in 1974 she was continuing the family tradition - her father murray is a former australian formula 3 champion. and it was rainey senior who modified a sports racer to accommodate his daughter s small stature so that she could take part in hill climbs. she uses an ordinary road car by putting extensions on the pedals a cushion behind her back and raising the seat. but in a competition car you have to have everything right or you ll lose the balance of the car she said. i bring everything back to me - steering wheel steering column gear lever and pedals. when she recently took part in the london to sydney marathon she shared the driving with her partner trevor who now does the engineering work. he designed a system for their morris minor so that the adaptations could be totally removed in under a minute. the motorsport endeavour club is hoping that putting such technologies on display will result in more disabled people becoming involved in all areas of the sport and at every level.

Science_and_Techology

mci shareholder sues to stop bid a shareholder in us phone firm mci has taken legal action to halt a $6.75bn (£3.6bn) buyout by telecoms giant verizon hoping to get a better deal. the lawsuit was filed on friday after qwest communications which had an earlier offer for mci rejected said it would submit an improved bid. mci s directors have backed verizon despite it tabling less money. they are accused of breaching their fiduciary duties by depriving mci shareholders of maximum value . according the legal papers filed in a delaware court verizon is set to pay an unconscionable unfair and grossly inadequate sum for mci which was formerly known as worldcom. qwest said on wednesday that mci had rejected a deal worth $8bn. a number of large mci shareholders expressed unhappiness at the decision saying that verizon s offer made up of cash shares and dividends undervalued the company. friday s lawsuit argues that the verizon offer makes no provision for future growth prospects and that consolidation in the us phone industry will put a premium on mci s network assets and clients. mci s directors have argued that verizon is bigger than qwest has fewer debts and has built a successful mobile division. chief executive michael capellas spent last week meeting with shareholders in an effort to win their backing. in 2002 investors in the then-named worldcom lost millions when the company filed for bankruptcy following an accounting scandal. however the firm - now renamed mci - has put its operations in order and emerged from bankruptcy protection last april. it is a long-distance and corporate phone firm and would provide the buyer with access to a global telecommunications network and a large number of business-based subscribers. mci shares jumped on friday hitting their highest level since april 2004 amid speculation that it would be the focus of a bidding war. a takeover of mci would be the fifth billion-dollar telecoms deal since october as companies look to cut costs and boost client bases. earlier this month sbc communications agreed to buy its former parent and phone pioneer at&t for about $16bn.

Business

hyundai to build new india plant south korea s hyundai motor has announced that it plans to build a second plant in india to meet the country s growing demand for cars. the company didn t give details of its investment but it said the new plant would produce 150 000 cars a year. this will boost the annual production capacity of the company - india s second-largest car manufacturer - to 400 000 units. hyundai expects its sales in india to grow 16% to 250 000 in 2005. by 2010 it expects to nearly double sales to 400 000 cars. the new plant will be built close to the existing one in chennai in the southern province of tamil nadu. south korea s top car maker estimates that the indian market will grow 15% this year to 920 000 vehicles reaching 1.6 million vehicles by 2010. demand in india has been driven by the poor state of public transport and the very low level of car ownership analysts said. figures show that currently only eight people per thousand are car owners. we desperately need to expand our production in order to meet growing demand in the indian auto market which is growing over 12 percent every year and to top our competitors chairman chung mong-koo said in the statement. he said the company plans to use india as a base for exports to europe latin america and the middle east. the company - which controls half of the south korean s market - aims to become a global top five auto maker by 2010.

Business

ireland v usa (sat) saturday 20 november lansdowne road dublin 1300 gmt the irish coach knows a repeat of the record 83-3 victory over the states in 2000 is not on the agenda and expects a real test at lansdowne road. their coach tom billups will have them very organised said o sullivan. they ran five tries past the french in the summer so we will not take them for granted. we have guys coming into the team who are chomping at the bit. the irish line-up shows nine changes from the team which started against south africa with winger tommy bowe and flanker denis leamy making their international debuts. the other changes see recalls for backs david humphreys kevin maggs and guy easterby with eric miller marcus horan donnacha o callaghan and frank sheehan all returning to the pack. o sullivan said the players coming in had the opportunity to stake claims for inclusion against argentina on 27 november. easterby gets a rare start at scrum-half while humphreys now effectively ronan o gara s deputy at fly-half wins his 65th cap. we have got to get the focus right on the day said ulster man humphreys. the us may be classed as weaker opposition but we will treat them with the respect they deserve. the states lost 39-31 against france in their last international and are ranked 16th in world rugby. the americans have made three changes plus one positional switch from the game in july against the french. lock alec parker blind-side flanker brian surgener and right wing al lakomskis return and captain kort schubert of the cardiff blues shifts to number eight. schubert is the only eagles player remaining from the sides meeting four years ago. g murphy; s horgan b o driscoll (capt) k maggs t bowe; d humphreys g easterby; m horan. f sheahan j hayes d o callaghan p o connell s easterby d leamy e miller. s byrne s best l cullen a foley p stringer r o gara g dempsey. viljoen; lakomskis emerick sika fee hercus timoteo; macdonald wyatt waasdorp parker klerck surgener petruzzella schubert (capt). hobson osentowski gouws mo unga williams sherman tuipulotu.

Sports

freeze on anti-spam campaign a campaign by lycos europe to target spam-related websites appears to have been put on hold. earlier this week the company released a screensaver that bombarded the sites with data to try to bump up the running costs of the websites. but the site hosting the screensaver now displays a pink graphic and the words stay tuned . no one at lycos was available for comment on latest developments in its controversial anti-spam campaign. lycos europe s make love not spam campaign was intended as a way for users to fight back against the mountain of junk mail flooding inboxes. people were encouraged to download the screensaver which when their pc was idle would then send lots of data to sites that peddle the goods and services mentioned in spam messages. lycos said the idea was to get the spam sites running at 95% capacity and generate big bandwidth bills for the spammers behind the sites. but the plan has proved controversial. monitoring firm netcraft analysed response times for some of the sites targeted by the screensaver and found that a number were completely knocked offline. the downing of the sites could dent lycos claims that what it is doing does not amount to a distributed denial of service attack. in such attacks thousands of computers bombard sites with data in an attempt to overwhelm them. laws in many countries do not explicitly outlaw such attacks but many nations are re-drafting computer use laws to make them specific offences. lycos europe now appears to have put the plan on hold. the site hosting the screensaver currently shows a holding page with the words stay tuned . the numerical internet address of the site has also changed. this is likely to be in response to spammers who have reportedly redirected traffic from their sites back to the lycos screensaver site. the campaign has come under fire from some corners of the web. many discussion groups have said that it set a dangerous precedent and could incite vigilantism. attacking a spammer s website is like poking a grizzly bear sleeping in your back garden with a pointy stick said graham cluley senior technology consultant for sophos. not only is this screensaver similar in its approach to a potentially illegal distributed denial of service attack but it also is in danger of turning innocent computer users into vigilantes who may not be prepared for whatever retaliation the spammers care to dream up.

Science_and_Techology

europe blames us over weak dollar european leaders have openly blamed the us for the sharp rise in the value of the euro. us officials were talking up the dollar they said but failing to take action to back up their words. meeting in brussels finance ministers of the 12 eurozone countries voiced their concern that the rise of the european currency was harming exports. the dollar is within touching distance of an all-time low reached earlier in november. at 0619 gmt on tuesday the dollar was up slightly at just above $1.29 to the euro and buying 105.6 yen in tokyo. it rallied briefly on monday amid signs that oil prices are easing. but analysts said the respite was likely to be only temporary. the european ministers comments said junya tanase of jpmorgan chase bank in tokyo were generally too weak to produce a market reaction . still by the standards of diplomacy the european ministers were forthright. nicolas sarkozy of france said he and his colleagues were unanimous in their worry that the decline of the dollar would hit europe s economies by eating into their exports. we are concerned about these developments which are destabilising and which are linked to the accumulation of deficits by our american friends he said. the comments come a day after us treasury secretary john snow said a strong dollar was in america s interest . but that was not enough for mr sarkozy. if the americans were to change their policy it s up to them to say so he said. and the european union s monetary affairs commissioner made it clear that action was necessary. i fully welcome the words of mr snow said joaquin almunia but we will need to see decisions adopted in that direction. if the imbalances in the us economy are not adjusted in the future the decision in the market will be as in the past weeks. economists point out that whatever europe says in the short term a weaker dollar is a boon to president george w bush s administration. not only does it boost us exports but it also makes the budget deficit easier to fund. on the other hand slower european exports would mean slower eu growth - potentially reducing the demand for us goods.

Business

deutsche boerse set to woo lse bosses of deutsche boerse and the london stock exchange are to meet amid talk that a takeover bid for the lse will be raised to £1.5bn ($2.9bn). last month the german exchange tabled a 530 pence-per-share offer for lse valuing it at £1.3bn. paris-based euronext owner of liffe in london has also said it is interested in bidding for lse. euronext is due to hold talks with lse this week and it is reported to be ready to raise £1.4bn to fund a bid. euronext chief jean-francois theodore is scheduled to meet his lse counterpart clara furse on friday. deutsche boerse chief werner seifert is meeting ms furse on thursday in the third meeting between the two exchanges since the bid approach in december. the lse rejected deutsche boerse s proposed £1.3bn offer in december saying it undervalued the business. but it agreed to leave the door open for talks to find out whether a significantly-improved proposal would be in the interests of lse s shareholders and customers. in the meantime euronext which combines the paris amsterdam and lisbon stock exchanges also began talks with the lse. in a statement on thursday euronext said any offer was likely to be solely in cash but added that: there can be no assurances at this stage that any offer will be made. a deal with either bidder would create the biggest stock market operator in europe and the second biggest in the world after the new york stock exchange. according to the ft in its latest meeting deutsche boerse will adopt a charm offensive to woo the london exchange. the newspaper said the german suitor will offer to manage a combined cash and equities market out of london and let ms furse take the helm. other reports this week said the deutsche boerse might even consider selling its luxembourg-based clearstream unit - the clearing house that processes securities transactions. its ownership of clearstream was seen as the main stumbling block to a london-frankfurt merger. lse shareholders feared a deutsche boerse takeover would force them to use clearstream making it difficult for them to negotiate for lower transaction fees.

Business

uk firm faces venezuelan land row venezuelan authorities have said they will seize land owned by a british company as part of president chavez s agrarian reform programme. officials in cojedes state said on friday that farmland owned by a subsidiary of the vestey group would be taken and used to settle poor farmers. the government is cracking down on so-called latifundios or large rural estates which it says are lying idle. the vestey group said it had not been informed of any planned seizure. the firm whose agroflora subsidiary operates 13 farms in venezuela insisted that it had complied fully with venezuelan law. prosecutors in the south of the country have targeted hato el charcote a beef cattle ranch owned by agroflora. according to reuters they plan to seize 12 900 acres (5 200 hectares) from the 32 000 acre (13 000 hectare) farm. officials claim that agroflora does not possess valid documents proving its ownership of the land in question. they also allege that areas of the ranch are not being used for any form of active production. the legal boundaries did not match up with the actual boundaries and there is surplus state prosecutor alexis ortiz told reuters. as a consequence the government has taken action. controversial reforms passed in 2001 give the government the right to take control of private property if it is declared idle or ownership cannot be traced back to the 19th century. critics say the powers - which president chavez argues are needed to help the country s poorest citizens and develop the venezuelan economy - trample all over private property rights. the vestey group said it had owned the land since 1920 and would co-operate fully with the authorities. but a spokesman added: agroflora is absolutely confident that what it has submitted will demonstrate the legality of its title to the land. the company pointed out that the farm which employs 300 workers provides meat solely for the venezuelan market. last month the government said it had identified more than 500 idle farms and had yet to consider the status of a further 40 000. the authorities said landowners whose titles were in order and whose farms were productive had nothing to fear . under president chavez the venezuelan government has steadily expanded the state s involvement in the country s economy. it recently said all mining contracts involving foreign firms would be examined to ensure they provided sufficient economic benefits to the state.

Business

disney backs sony dvd technology a next generation dvd technology backed by sony has received a major boost. film giant disney says it will produce its future dvds using sony s blu-ray disc technology but has not ruled out a rival format developed by toshiba. the two competing dvd formats blu-ray developed by sony and others and toshiba s hd-dvd have been courting top film studios for several months. the next generation of dvds promise very high quality pictures and sound as well as a lot of data. both technologies use a blue laser to write information. it has a shorter wavelength so more data can be stored. disney is the latest studio to announce which technology it is backing in a format battle which mirrors the 1980s betamax versus vhs war. sony lost out to jvc in that fight. the current battle for hollywood s hearts and minds is a crucial one because high-definition films will bring in billions of revenue and the studios would prefer to use one standard. last month paramount universal and warner brothers said they were opting for the toshiba and nec-backed format hd-dvd high-definition discs. those studios currently produce about 45% of dvd content. sony pictures entertainment and mgm studios have already staked their allegiance with the blu-ray disc association whose members also include technology companies dell samsung and matsushita. twentieth century fox is still to announce which technology it will be supporting. if fox decided to go with blu-ray too it would mean the format would have a 47% share of dvd content. disney said its films would be available on the blu-ray format when dvd players for the standard went on sale on north america and japan expected in 2006. universal is to start producing films on the hd-dvd format in 2005 and paramount will start releasing titles using the standard in 2006. toshiba expects sales of hd-dvds to reach 300bn yen ($2.9bn £1.5bn) by 2010.

Science_and_Techology

us peer-to-peer pirates convicted the first convictions for piracy over peer-to-peer networks have been handed down in the us. new yorker william trowbridge and texan michael chicoine have pleaded guilty to charges that they infringed copyright by illegally sharing music movies and software. the two men faced charges following raids in august on suspected pirates by the fbi. the pair face jail terms of up to five years and a $250 000 (£130 000) fine. in a statement the us department of justice said the two men operated the central hubs in a piracy community organised across the direct connect peer-to-peer network. the piracy group called itself the underground network and membership of it demanded that users share between one and 100 gigabytes of files. direct connect allows users to set themselves up as central servers that act as co-ordinating spots for sharers. users would swap files such as films and music by exchanging data over the network. during its investigation fbi agents reportedly downloaded 84 movies 40 software programs 13 games and 178 sound recordings from the five hubs that made up the larger piracy group. the raids were organised under the umbrella of operation digital gridlock which was aimed at fighting criminal copyright theft on peer-to-peer networks . in total six raids were carried out in august. five were on the homes of suspected copyright thieves and one on a net service firm. the department of justice said that both men pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit felony copyright infringement. they also pleaded guilty to acting for commercial advantage. the two men are due to be sentenced on 29 april.

Science_and_Techology

dollar slides ahead of new year the us dollar has hit a new record low against the euro and analysts predict that more declines are likely in 2005. disappointing economic reports dented the currency which had been rallying after european policy makers said they were worried about the euro s strength. earlier on thursday the japanese yen touched its lowest versus the euro on concerns about economic growth in asia. currency markets have been volatile over the past week because of technical and automated trading and light demand. this has amplified reactions analysts said adding that they expect markets to become less jumpy in january. people want to go into the weekend and the new year positioned for a weaker buck said tim mazanec director of foreign exchange at investors bank and trust. the dollar slid to a record $1.3666 versus the euro on thursday before bouncing back to $1.3636. against the yen the dollar was trading down at $103.05. the yen meanwhile dropped to 141.60 per euro in afternoon trading. it later strengthened to 140.55. investors are concerned about the size of the us trade and budget deficits and are betting that george w bush s administration will allow the dollar to weaken despite saying they favour a strong currency. also playing on investors minds are mixed reports about the state of the us economy. on thursday disappointing business figures from chicago brought a sudden end to a rally in the value of the dollar. the national association of purchasing management-chicago said its index dropped to 61.2 more than analysts had expected. german chancellor gerhard schroeder and italian prime minister silvio berlusconi voiced concerns about the strength of the euro. mr berlusconi said the euro s strength was absolutely worrying for italian exports. mr schroeder said in a newspaper article that stability in foreign exchange markets required a correction of global economic imbalances.

Business

a question of trust and technology a major government department is without e-mail for a week and technology analyst bill thompson wants to know what happened. a couple of weeks ago i wrote about how my girlfriend had suffered when her cable modem blew up and she was offline for several days. it seems that thousands of civil servants at the uk s department of work and pensions went through the same thing last week. it has emerged that the internal network crashed in a particularly horrible way depriving staff of e-mail and access to the application software they use to calculate people s benefit and pension entitlement or note changes in personal circumstances. senior consultants from eds the computer firm which manage the system and microsoft which supplied the software were running around trying to figure out what had to be done to fix it all while staff resorted to phone fax and probably carrier pigeon to get work done. fortunately the back-office systems which actually pay people their money were still working so only new claims and updates were affected done properly. this is bad enough for those affected but it does mean that the impact is not devastating for millions of pensioners. i am sure regular readers will be expecting one of my usual diatribes against poor software badly specified systems and inadequate disaster recovery plans. although the full story has not yet been told it seems that the problem started when a plan to upgrade some of the computers from windows 2000 to windows xp went wrong and xp code was inadvertently copied to thousands of machines across the network. this is certainly unfortunate but i have a lot of sympathy for the network managers and technology staff involved. today s computer networks are large complex and occasionally fragile. the interconnectedness that we all value also gives us a degree of instability and unpredictability that we cannot design out of the systems. it is the network equivalent of godel s theorem - any system sufficiently complex to be useful is also able to collapse catastrophically. so i will reserve judgment on the technology aspects until we all know what actually happened and whether it was a consequence of software failure or just bad luck. what is really disturbing and cannot be excused is the fact that it took four days for news of this systems failure to leak out into the technical press. it is without a doubt a major story and was the second or third lead item on bbc radio 4 s today programme throughout friday morning. so why did not the prime minister s official spokesman mention it at any lobby briefings before friday why was not the pensions minister in parliament to make an emergency statement on tuesday when it was clear that there was a serious problem if there had been an outbreak of legionnaire s disease in the air conditioning system we would have been told but it seems that major technology problems do not merit the same treatment. while eds and microsoft will no doubt be looking for technical lessons to learn from their week of pain we can learn some political lessons too. and the most important is that in this digital world technology failures are matters of public interest not something that can be ignored in the hope that nobody will notice care or understand. that means we need a full report on what went wrong and what was done to fix it. it would be unacceptable for any of the parties involved to hide behind commercial confidentiality or even parliamentary privilege. a major system has evidently collapsed and we need to know what went wrong and what is being done differently. anything less is a betrayal of public trust. bill thompson is a regular commentator on the bbc world service programme go digital.

Science_and_Techology

iraq to invite phone licence bids iraq is to invite bids for two telephone licences saying it wants to significantly boost nationwide coverage over the next decade. bids have been invited from local arab and foreign companies iraq s ministry of communications said. the winner will work in partnership with the iraqi telecommunications and post company (itpc). the firms will install and operate a fixed phone network providing voice fax and internet services. the ministry said that it wanted to increase iraq s very low telephone service penetration rate from about 4.5% today to about 25% within 10 years. it also hopes to develop a highly visible and changeable telecommunication sector . details of the bidding and tender process will be published on the ministry s website on 9 february. it also is planning a road-show for investors in amman jordan. the ministry said it would base its selection on criteria including the speed of implementation tariff rates coverage and the firm s experience and financial strength.

Business

digital guru floats sub-$100 pc nicholas negroponte chairman and founder of mit s media labs says he is developing a laptop pc that will go on sale for less than $100 (£53). he told the bbc world service programme go digital he hoped it would become an education tool in developing countries. he said one laptop per child could be very important to the development of not just that child but now the whole family village and neighbourhood . he said the child could use the laptop like a text book. he described the device as a stripped down laptop which would run a linux-based operating system we have to get the display down to below $20 to do this we need to rear project the image rather than using an ordinary flat panel. the second trick is to get rid of the fat if you can skinny it down you can gain speed and the ability to use smaller processors and slower memory. the device will probably be exported as a kit of parts to be assembled locally to keep costs down. mr negroponte said this was a not for profit venture though he recognised that the manufacturers of the components would be making money. in 1995 mr negroponte published the bestselling being digital now widely seen as predicting the digital age. the concept is based on experiments in the us state of maine where children were given laptop computers to take home and do their work on. while the idea was popular amongst the children it initially received some resistance from the teachers and there were problems with laptops getting broken. however mr negroponte has adapted the idea to his own work in cambodia where he set up two schools together with his wife and gave the children laptops. we put in 25 laptops three years ago only one has been broken the kids cherish these things it s also a tv a telephone and a games machine not just a textbook. mr negroponte wants the laptops to become more common than mobile phones but conceded this was ambitious. nokia make 200 million cell phones a year so for us to claim we re going to make 200 million laptops is a big number but we re not talking about doing it in three or five years we re talking about months. he plans to be distributing them by the end of 2006 and is already in discussion with the chinese education ministry who are expected to make a large order. in china they spend $17 per child per year on textbooks. that s for five or six years so if we can distribute and sell laptops in quantities of one million or more to ministries of education that s cheaper and the marketing overheads go away.

Science_and_Techology

souness backs smith for scotland graeme souness believes walter smith would be the perfect choice to succeed berti vogts as scotland manager. souness s former assistant at rangers is hot favourite to take over from vogts who resigned on monday. walter is most definitely the ideal candidate for that job. he d be perfect for it souness told bbc sport. the scottish football association has appointed tommy burns as provisional caretaker-boss for the friendly against sweden on 17 november. he fits the bill because of his knowledge and understanding of the scotland team and football. he is experienced and has been successful. souness added: walter is a real football person as i know from working with him at ibrox. on top of all that he is a proper human being who would command the instant respect of the players and everyone involved in scottish football. souness joined sir alex ferguson in backing smith s claims. the scottish football association is about to embark on the search for vogts successor after appointing tommy burns in a caretaker capacity. ferguson said: he (smith) would be the outstanding candidate as far as i m concerned. you need somebody who knows what they re doing and walter would bring a wealth of experience to the job. the man utd boss continued: i don t know what credentials are needed to do the job but it s a job that needs a lot of experience. he was my assistant with scotland and here at manchester united and he has also managed glasgow rangers. he would need to change the whole shape of scottish football and radical changes are needed. smith was assistant to ferguson at the world cup in mexico in 1986. the former everton and rangers boss has been out of the game since a spell as manchester united assistant last term. bbc sport understands that smith would be willing to discuss taking over if he was approached by the scottish fa. if he is tempted to take over it seems almost certain smith s long-time right-hand man archie knox would also play a part in the national team set-up. smith already has the backing of many pundits and fans including former scotland manager craig brown. brown said: walter is an outstanding candidate without doubt. he would be admirable choice. i spoke to him on sunday and i got the impression he would take it. he was asking me about it and i was positive. other candidates for the job include former scotland midfielders gordon strachan and gary mcallister and vogts assistant tommy burns.

Sports

house prices show slight increase prices of homes in the uk rose a seasonally adjusted 0.5% in february says the nationwide building society. the figure means the annual rate of increase in the uk is down to 10.2% the lowest rate since june 2001. the annual rate has halved since august last year as interest rises have cooled the housing market. at the same time the number of mortgage approvals fell in january to a near 10-year low official bank of england figures have shown. nationwide said that in january house prices went up by 0.4% on the month and by 12.6% on a year earlier. we are not seeing the market collapsing in the way some had feared said nationwide economist alex bannister. there have been a number of warnings that the uk housing market may be heading for a downturn after four years of strong growth to 2004. in november barclays which owns former building society the woolwich forecast an 8% fall in property prices in 2005 followed by further declines in 2006 and 2007. and last summer economists at pricewaterhousecoopers (pwc) warned house prices were overvalued and could fall by between 10% and 15% by 2009. the price of an average uk property now stands at £152 879. homeowners now expect house prices to rise by 1% over the next six months mr bannister said. he said if the growth continued at this level then the bank of england may increase interest rates from their current 4.75%. i think the key is what the bank expects to happen to the housing market. we always thought we would see a small rise they thought they would see a small decline. house prices have risen 0.9% this year nationwide said and if this pace of increase persists prices would rise by just under 6% in the year to december. this is slightly above the 0-5% range nationwide predicts. further evidence of a slowdown in the housing market emerged from bank of england lending figures released on tuesday. new mortgage loans in january fell to 79 000 from 82 000 in december the bank said. the past few months have seen approvals fall to levels last seen in 1995. the bank revealed that 48 000 fewer mortgages were approved in january than for the same month in 2004. overall mortgage lending rose by £7.2bn in january marginally up on the £7.1bn rise in december.

Business

digital guru floats sub-$100 pc nicholas negroponte chairman and founder of mit s media labs says he is developing a laptop pc that will go on sale for less than $100 (£53). he told the bbc world service programme go digital he hoped it would become an education tool in developing countries. he said one laptop per child could be very important to the development of not just that child but now the whole family village and neighbourhood . he said the child could use the laptop like a text book. he described the device as a stripped down laptop which would run a linux-based operating system we have to get the display down to below $20 to do this we need to rear project the image rather than using an ordinary flat panel. the second trick is to get rid of the fat if you can skinny it down you can gain speed and the ability to use smaller processors and slower memory. the device will probably be exported as a kit of parts to be assembled locally to keep costs down. mr negroponte said this was a not for profit venture though he recognised that the manufacturers of the components would be making money. in 1995 mr negroponte published the bestselling being digital now widely seen as predicting the digital age. the concept is based on experiments in the us state of maine where children were given laptop computers to take home and do their work on. while the idea was popular amongst the children it initially received some resistance from the teachers and there were problems with laptops getting broken. however mr negroponte has adapted the idea to his own work in cambodia where he set up two schools together with his wife and gave the children laptops. we put in 25 laptops three years ago only one has been broken the kids cherish these things it s also a tv a telephone and a games machine not just a textbook. mr negroponte wants the laptops to become more common than mobile phones but conceded this was ambitious. nokia make 200 million cell phones a year so for us to claim we re going to make 200 million laptops is a big number but we re not talking about doing it in three or five years we re talking about months. he plans to be distributing them by the end of 2006 and is already in discussion with the chinese education ministry who are expected to make a large order. in china they spend $17 per child per year on textbooks. that s for five or six years so if we can distribute and sell laptops in quantities of one million or more to ministries of education that s cheaper and the marketing overheads go away.

Science_and_Techology

liverpool revel in night of glory liverpool manager rafael benitez said their qualification for the next stage of the champions league was one of the proudest nights of my career. the reds beat olympiakos 3-1 with a late steven gerrard strike and benitez said: it was a really great night. the players ran hard all the time and you see how much it means to the fans. we knew before the game that it was very important for the club to gain these extra finances. for liverpool this result is very very important. benitez hailed gerrard for his match-winning strike four minutes from time and also the anfield crowd for sticking by their side after they had fallen a goal behind at the interval. the reds scored three second-half goals in a sensational comeback capped by gerrard s 20-yard drive. he added: steven can play all over the pitch and he influences every part of the game. i have said to him many times that he has the freedom because he has talent and is very important to us. i felt that the difference between the sides was really our supporters i cannot thank them enough. i want to say thank-you to the supporters they were magnificent to help us achieve this result. gerrard admitted he thought they were going out of the champions league after trailing 1-0 at half-time. he said: i d be lying if i thought we were going through when we were losing at half-time. we had a mountain to climb but we have climbed it and credit to everyone. that was one of the best goals i have scored i caught it sweet i haven t caught one like that for ages. it was a massive night for me and the team. liverpool s win means all four of england s champions league representatives have reached the knockout stages for the first time.

Sports

troubled marsh under sec scrutiny the us stock market regulator is investigating troubled insurance broker marsh & mclennan s shareholder transactions the firm has said. the securities and exchange commission has asked for information about transactions involving holders of 5% or more of the firm s shares. marsh has said it is co-operating fully with the sec investigation. marsh is also the focus of an inquiry the new york attorney-general into whether insurers rigged the market. since that inquiry was launched in october marsh has replaced its chief executive and held a boardroom shake-out to meet criticism by lessening the number of company executives on the board. prosecutors allege that marsh - the world s biggest insurance broker - and other us insurance firms may have fixed bids for corporate cover. this is the issue at the heart of the inquiry by new york s top law officer eliot spitzer and a separate prosecution of five insurers by the state of california. the sec s investigation into so-called related party transactions includes dealings in the trident funds managed by mmc capital the company s private equity firm. marsh s new chief executive michael cherkasky is trying to negotiate a settlement with mr spitzer. mr spitzer has built up a reputation as a fierce critic and campaigner against corporate america s misdeeds. the uncertainty unleashed by the scandal has prompted three credit rating agencies - standard & poor s moody s and fitch - to downgrade marsh in recent weeks. according to the financial times insurance analysts are now questioning whether marsh will be able to maintain its strong record of earning growth as they draw up forecasts for the first quarter of next year. doubts also exist over how much the company may have to pay regulators and lawyers to put the scandal behind.

Business

making your office work for you our mission to brighten up your working lives continues - and this time we re taking a long hard look at your offices. over the next few months our panel of experts will be listening to your gripes about where you work and suggesting ways to make your workspace more efficient more congenial or simply prettier. this week we re hearing from marianne petersen who is planning to convert a barn in sweden into a base for her freelance writing work. click on the link under her photograph to read her story and then scroll down to see what the panel have to say. and if you want to take part in the series go to the bottom of the story to find out how to get in touch. working from home presents a multitude of challenges. understanding your work personality allows you to work in terms of your own style. do you feel confident about your work output without conferring with others are you able to retain discipline and self motivate to get the job done do you build on the ideas of others - or are you a more introspective problem solver . in order for a virtual office to succeed keeping the boundary between work and home life is essential. it may be useful to be quite rigid about who is allowed to visit and to keep strict office hours. referring to the space as work will give those around you a clear message that this is professional space. it is imperative to consider how to bring the outside world into yours keeping up to date with developments and maintaining a network. isolated work environments mean this has to be carefully thought out and a strategy has to be developed that suits both your personality and your industry. joining professional groups or forming a loose association of like-minded people may assist. it is useful to structure these meetings in advance as often they get relegated to less important status when times are busy - with the danger that when the workload eases they have to be resurrected. prior to any interior work being undertaken it is essential to ensure that the roof and walls are made water-and-weather-tight and the structure is checked for stability. it appears that the roof trusses may need repairs and additional bracing. ideally the roof should be replaced with an outer material in keeping with the character and location of the barn. this would also allow for a well-insulated inner skin to be provided which should be light coloured. it is likely that the most efficient way of heating the building is with electricity. in order to provide this the owner will need to have an electrical engineer calculate the potential heating power and lighting load to make sure the mains supply and distribution capacity are adequate. ideally it would be good to have a mains water supply and some means of drainage for toilet and washing facilities. the walls should be dry lined with a single skin of plasterboard laid over rockwool slab which will allow good wall insulation and the power and lighting circuits to be concealed and the walls should be painted in a light colour. the owner mentions she might lay a new floor over the existing planks; this will improve the insulation and offer a level surface. i would suggest laying new oak veneer planks which can work in with the character of the barn. as for lighting consider a combination of floor mounted uplights wall lights (wall washers) and selected downlights. use a combination of mains voltage fluorescent fittings and dimmable units which can vary the light levels and the feel of the interior. please click on the link to the right here to see my ideas for marianne s barn. the layout of this office reflects the need to have a working area and a more relaxed meeting space. large desk space and extensive storage would combine with tub chairs to maximise the space available. the finishes chosen for the furniture will need to reflect the unusual setting while the lighting and temperature control mechanisms used will further influence the workplace. regarding accessing the internet via the connection in the main house your plan of going wireless is sensible. a wireless router/access point in the house with a wireless lan card in the pc in the renovated area may be sufficient. however important points to consider are the distance between the two buildings and the nature of the materials through which the signals have to pass which could result in a weak signal strength. you may require an additional wireless access point in the renovated area. your local it supplier will be able to advise on this. if you haven t already invested in robust firewall and anti-virus software it is essential to do so to protect your investment. to really take advantage of wireless technology you might consider a laptop computer and a docking station with external mouse and monitor. or you could use one of the new tablet computers which allow you to write directly on the screen and convert into text with built-in hand recognition software. and finally you will save money and space by considering a multi-function product for print scan copy and fax.

Business

hitachi unveils fastest robot japanese electronics firm hitachi has unveiled its first humanoid robot called emiew to challenge honda s asimo and sony s qrio robots. hitachi said the 1.3m (4.2ft) emiew was the world s quickest-moving robot yet. two wheel-based emiews pal and chum introduced themselves to reporters at a press conference in japan. the robots will be guests at the world expo later this month. sony and honda have both built sophisticated robots to show off developments in electronics. explaining why hitachi s emiew used wheels instead of feet toshihiko horiuchi from hitachi s mechanical engineering research laboratory said: we aimed to create a robot that could live and co-exist with people. we want to make the robots useful for people ... if the robots moved slower than people users would be frustrated. emiew - excellent mobility and interactive existence as workmate - can move at 3.7m/h. its wheel feet resemble the bottom half of a segway scooter. with sensors on the head waist and near the wheels pal and chum demonstrated how they could react to commands. i want to be able to walk about in places like shinjuku and shibuya [shopping districts] in the future without bumping into people and cars pal told reporters. hitachi said pal and chum which have a vocabulary of about 100 words could be trained for practical office and factory use in as little as five to six years. robotics researchers have long been challenged by developing robots that walk in the gait of a human. at the recent aaas (american association for the advancement of science) annual meeting in washington dc researchers showed off bipedal designs. the three designs each built by a different research group use the same principle to achieve a human-like gait. sony and honda have both used humanoid robots which are not commercially available as a way of showing off computing power and engineering expertise. honda s asimo was born five years ago. since then honda and sony s qrio have tried to trump each other with what the robots can do at various technology events. asimo has visited the uk germany the czech republic france and ireland as part of a world tour. sony s qrio has been singing jogging and dancing in formation around the world too and was until last year the fastest robot on two legs. but its record was beaten by asimo. it is capable of 3km/h which its makers claim is almost four times as fast as qrio. last year car maker toyota also stepped into the ring and unveiled its trumpet-playing humanoid robot. by 2007 it is predicted that there will be almost 2.5 million entertainment and leisure robots in homes compared to about 137 000 currently according to the united nations (un). by the end of that year 4.1 million robots will be doing jobs in homes said the report by the un economic commission for europe and the international federation of robotics. hitachi is one of the companies with home cleaning robot machines on the market.

Science_and_Techology

security warning over fbi virus the us federal bureau of investigation is warning that a computer virus is being spread via e-mails that purport to be from the fbi. the e-mails show that they have come from an fbi.gov address and tell recipients that they have accessed illegal websites. the messages warn that their internet use has been monitored by the fbi s internet fraud complaint center. an attachment in the e-mail contains the virus the fbi said. the message asks recipients to click on the attachment and answer some questions about their internet use. but rather than being a questionnaire the attachment contains a virus that infects the recipient s computer according to the agency. it is not clear what the virus does once it has infected a computer. users are warned never to open attachment from unsolicited e-mails or from people they do not know. recipients of this or similar solicitations should know that the fbi does not engage in the practice of sending unsolicited e-mails to the public in this manner the fbi said in a statement. the bureau is investigating the phoney e-mails. the agency earlier this month shut down fbi.gov accounts used to communicate with the public because of a security breach. a spokeswoman said the two incidents appear to be unrelated.

Science_and_Techology

could yukos be a blessing in disguise other things being equal the notion of entrepreneurs languishing in jail while their companies are sold off for a song ought to be bad for business. but in the looking-glass world of modern russia the opposite might just be true a new report* has argued. the study from the centre for economic policy research does not praise the rough handling of oil company yukos. but it argues that more rigorous tax policing has benefited all russian firms even targets of the tax police. an increase in tax enforcement can increase the amount [of dividends and other income] outside shareholders will receive even accounting for increased levels of taxation the authors say. the paper s reasoning is complex and is based on a sophisticated model of the relationship between tax regimes and corporate governance - in particular the propensity of management to steal from the company. the calculations demonstrated what many russian analysts already knew: that increasing the tax rate increases the amount that managers steal since undeclared income becomes relatively more valuable. in the west meanwhile higher tax rates translate far more smoothly into higher government revenues. on the other hand increasing the rigour with which taxes are collected encourages companies to become more transparent forcing them to be able to demonstrate their financial position far more accurately. the net result the authors say is that the extra amount companies pay in tax is more than compensated for by greater efficiency and financial soundness. after vladimir putin became president in 2000 he did not raise taxes but put a lot of effort - too much critics argue - into enforcement. since then the russian stock market has more than trebled in value a rise the authors attribute at least in part to the newly tough approach. the report highlights the case of sibneft a russian oil company that came close to merging with yukos last year. after mr putin came to power the company s overall effective tax rate rose from 2.6% to 10.4% and sibneft was the target of a series of aggressive raids by fiscal police. but shareholders benefited hugely: sibneft started to pay dividends - $53m in 2000 and almost $1bn in 2001 - and closed down the network of opaque subsidiaries it had previously used for siphoning off unofficial funds. according to the authors although a variety of changes were sweeping through russian industry at the time the increase in tax enforcement is the only likely explanation for the change of fortunes at sibneft and many of its peers. does this analysis make sense in part certainly. for all its faults corporate russia has become far more orderly and law-abiding since 2000. companies have rushed to list their shares on international stock exchanges - something unthinkable in the wilder days of the 1990s - and most large firms now produce their accounts to international standards. foreign direct investment long negligible is starting to flow in serious amounts - $7bn in 2003 - and stock market returns have been among the healthiest in europe. but the authors model does not quite cover all the complexities. for a start the model assumes that the various parties have clearly-defined motivation: companies want to maximise profit governments want to maximise tax revenue. in fact the alarmingly close connections between big business and government in russia - connections often greased by bribery - blur the apparently antagonistic relationship. companies can for example persuade officials to overlook non-payment of taxes. and the authors definition of tax enforcement seems unrealistically western. genuine disinterested tax collection might well work wonders in russia; the problem with recent examples has been the erratic and unpredictable way laws are enforced. the case against yukos for example has moved in fits and starts with little clarity from the government about its intentions and little faith from investors that the letter of the law would be followed. as far as most commentators are concerned the state is pursuing yukos out of a political vendetta rather than simply to enforce fiscal rectitude. since yukos founder mikhail khodorkovsky was arrested a year ago the russian market has dropped by 10% - an indication that few investors feel optimistic about the salutary effect on corporate performance.

Business

optimism remains over uk housing the uk property market remains robust despite the recent slowdown according to mortgage lender bradford & bingley and housebuilder george wimpey. b&b said the buy-to-let market - in which the bank is a major player - would continue to grow much faster than the wider mortgage market. the comments came as it reported a 6% rise in profits to £280.2m ($532m). wimpey reported a 19% rise in profits to £450.7m and said recent new home reservations were better than expected. recent housing market surveys have indicated that the uk property market has cooled in recent months after several years of rapid growth. last week figures from the council of mortgage lenders (cml) indicated that the popularity of buy-to-let mortgages - a key phenomenon of the housing boom - could be waning. but b&b - which has a 22% share of the uk buy-to-let mortgage market - said that while rates of growth were moderating the sector continues to grow at a rate considerably above that of the whole mortgage market . overall b&b said that housing market fundamentals remain strong . interest rates and unemployment are both likely to remain at historically low levels real household incomes should continue to grow and housing demand is likely to outstrip supply into the medium-term. despite the upbeat tone shares in b&b were down more than 4% at 325.5p in morning trade as analysts worried over future earnings growth. wimpey s profit figures came in at the top of expectations with the numbers helped by buoyant sales in the us offsetting a slight slowdown in the uk. wimpey said the uk housing market had proved challenging last year. by late summer the market in general had slowed sharply across the country and showed no real improvement during the autumn it added. however the first seven weeks of this year had produced promising signs wimpey said. visitor levels and interest in this period have been encouraging and reservations have been at the stronger end of our expectations. shares in wimpey were up 6% at 458.5p in morning trade.

Business

woodward eyes brennan for lions toulouse s former irish international trevor brennan could be one of clive woodward s many surprises when the 44-man lions tour squad is announced. brennan who last played for ireland against samoa in 2001 is held in high esteem by the former england coach. if you speak to the players there s a huge amount of respect for the guy woodward told the sunday independent. players tend to know better than most coaches. it s not just the irish but welsh and english players as well. the 31-year-old former dublin milkman moved from leinster to toulouse in 2003 and immediately picked up a heineken cup winner s medal in an all-french final against perpignan at lansdowne road. brennan is highly-rated at stade toulousain where he is used anywhere in the back five. woodward is ensuring his preparations for the trip to new zealand in june are as thorough as possible. i ve spoken to quite a few players and they probably don t know what they re actually saying when we re having these conversations he told the newspaper. but you talk about certain players and they ll say if they think they re up to scratch or that they don t want them in their team. i haven t heard a bad word said against trevor which considering he has a pretty tough guy reputation is to me impressive.

Sports

games help you learn and play god games in which players must control virtual people and societies could be educational says research. a us researcher has suggested that games such as the sims could be a good way to teach languages. ravi purushotma believes that the world of the sims can do a better job of teaching vocabulary and grammar than traditional methods. the inherent fun of game playing could help to make learning languages much less of a chore said mr purushotma. there must be few parents or teachers that do not worry that the lure of a video game on a computer or console is hard to resist by children that really should be doing their homework. but instead of fearing computer games ravi purushotma believes that educationalists particularly language teachers should embrace games. one goal would be to break what i believe to be the false assumption that learning and play are inherently oppositional he said. he believes that the phenomenal ability of games such as the sims and others to capture the interest of adolescent audiences is ripe for exploitation. the hard part of learning any language said mr purushotma were the basic parts of learning what different words refer to and how they are used to build up sentences. boring lessons drumming vocabulary into pupils couched in terms they do not understand has made many languages far harder to learn than they should be. the way we often teach foreign languages right now is somewhat akin to learning to ride a bike by formally studying gravity he said. by contrast said mr purushotma learning via something like the sims may mean students do not feel like they are studying at all. this was because the sims does not rely solely on words to get information across to players. instead the actions of its computer controlled people and how they interact with their world often makes clear what is going on. the incidental information about what a sim was doing could reinforce what a player or student was supposed to be learning said mr purushotma. by contrast many language lessons try to impart information about a tongue with little context. for instance he said in a version of the sims adapted to teach german if a player misunderstood what was meant by the word energie the actions of a tired sim stumbling then falling asleep would illustrate the meaning. if necessary detailed textual information could be called upon to aid players or students understanding. one of the drawbacks of the sims said mr purushotma was the lack of spoken language to help people brush up on pronunciation. however online versions of the sims in which people have to move in meet the neighbours and get to know the local town could be adapted to help this. although not wishing to claim that he is the first to suggest using a game can help people learn mr purushotma believes that educationalists have missed the potential they have to help. getting a simulated person to perform everyday activities in a make-believe world and having them described in a foreign language could be a powerful learning aid he believes. before now he said educational software titles suffer by comparison with the slick graphics and rich worlds found in games. but he said using pre-prepared game worlds such as the sims has never been easier because tools have been made by its creators and fans that make it easy to modify almost any part of the game. this could make it easy for teachers to adapt parts of the game for their own lessons. i m hoping now to re-create a well-polished german learning mod for the sequel by this summer he told the bbc news website. i m encouraged to hear that others are thinking of experimenting with japanese and spanish. earlier work with a colleague on using civilisation iii to teach students about history showed that it could be a powerful way to get them to realise that solving a society s problems can not always come from making a single change. a report on the experiment said: students began asking historical and geographical questions in the context of game play using geography and history as tools for their game and drawing inferences about social phenomena based on their play. mr purushotma s ideas were aired in an article for the journal language learning and technology.

Science_and_Techology

parmar ruled out of davis cup tie a knee injury has forced arvind parmar out of great britain s davis cup tie in israel and left alex bogdanovic in line to take the second singles place. parmar picked up the injury last week and has failed to recover in time for the europe/africa zone i tie which begins in tel aviv on friday. bogdanovic looks set to take the second singles place alongside greg rusedski. gb captain jeremy bates could use 17-year-old andrew murray and david sherwood in the doubles rubber. bogdanovic and murray both pulled out of tournaments last week through injury but are expected to be fit. jamie delgado and lee childs have been called into the squad in tel aviv as designated hitters for team practice but bates has no plans to call either of them into his squad at present. the unheralded sherwood was the surprise inclusion when the squad was announced last week and bates said: david has earned his place in this squad on the merit of his form and results over the last 12 months. the 6ft 4in sherwood is ranked 264th in the world and the lta have high hopes for him after futures tournament wins in wrexham and edinburgh. the sheffield-born right-hander aged 24 also reached another final in plaisir france a week after making the semi-final in mulhouse. bates is glad to have rusedski available after tim henman s retirement from davis cup tennis. his wealth of experience is invaluable particularly to the younger players and i know he will lead by example bates said. we are looking forward to the tie. the squad are all in excellent form.

Sports

bush budget seeks deep cutbacks president bush has presented his 2006 budget cutting domestic spending in a bid to lower a record deficit projected to peak at $427bn (£230bn) this year. the $2.58 trillion (£1.38 trillion) budget submitted to congress affects 150 domestic programmes from farming to the environment education and health. but foreign aid is due to rise by 10% with more money to treat hiv/aids and reward economic and political reform. military spending is also set to rise by 4.8% to reach $419.3bn. the budget does not include the cost of running military operations in iraq and afghanistan for which the administration is expected to seek an extra $80bn from congress later this year. congress will spend several months debating george w bush s proposal. the state department s planned budget would rise to just under $23bn - a fraction of the defence department s request - including almost $6bn to assist us allies in the war on terror . however the administration is keen to highlight its global effort to tackle hiv/aids the bbc s jonathan beale reports and planned spending would almost double to $3bn with much of that money going to african nations. mr bush also wants to increase the amount given to poorer countries through his millennium challenge corporation. the scheme has been set up to reward developing countries that embrace what the us considers to be good governance and sound policies. yet mr bush s proposed spending of $3bn on that project is well below his initial promise of $5bn. a key spending line missing from proposals is the cost of funding the administration s proposed radical overhaul of social security the pensions programme on which many americans rely for their retirement income. some experts believe this could require borrowing of up to $4.5 trillion over a 20-year period. neither does the budget include any cash to purchase crude oil for the us emergency petroleum stockpile. concern over the level of the reserve created in 1970s has led to rises in oil prices over the past year. the bush administration will instead continue to fill the reserve by taking oil - rather than cash - from energy companies that drill under federal leases. the outline proposes reductions in budgets at 12 out of 23 government agencies including cuts of 9.6% at agriculture and 5.6% at the environmental protection agency. the spending plan for the year beginning 1 october is banking on a healthy us economy to boost government income by 6.1% to $2.18 trillion. spending is forecast to grow by 3.5% to $2.57 trillion. but the budget is still the tightest yet under mr bush s presidency. in order to sustain our economic expansion we must continue pro-growth policies and enforce even greater spending restraint across federal government mr bush said in his budget message to congress. mr bush has promised to halve the us s massive budget deficit within five years. the deficit partly the result of massive tax cuts early in mr bush s presidency has been a key factor in pushing the us dollar lower. the independent congressional budget office estimates that the shortfall could shrink to little more than $200bn by 2009 returning to the surpluses seen in the late 1990s by 2012. but its estimates depend on the tax cuts not being made permanent in line with the promise when they were passed that they would sunset or disappear in 2010. most republicans however want them to stay in place. and the figures also rely on the social security trust fund - the money set aside to cover the swelling costs of retirement pensions - being offset against the main budget deficit.

Business

clyde 0-5 celtic celtic brushed aside clyde to secure their place in the scottish cup semi-final but only after a nervy and testing first half. the home side s craig bryson had a goal chopped off before stan varga headed celtic into the lead. alan thompson scored from the penalty spot at the start of the second half after shaun maloney had been fouled. stilian petrov slid in a third varga tapped in his second and craig bellamy completed the rout with a fine drive. bryn halliwell was the busier keeper early on saving from bellamy chris sutton and juninho. clyde had the ball in the net after half-an-hour through a tremendous strike from bryson but the referee had already blown for a foul by petrov. from the resulting free kick darren sheridan curled the ball round the celtic wall only for the post to deny him. back at the other end halliwell did well to come off his line and block bellamy s effort to lift the ball over him. the keeper misjudged a corner that stephane henchoz headed wide but a similar scenario five minutes before the break led to the opening goal. the ball was delivered from the left and halliwell was left floundering as varga glanced the ball into the net. maloney replaced the injured sutton at half time and he marked his first competitive appearance after a year out injured by helping his side take a two-goal lead just after the break. the young striker fired a free kick straight into the clyde wall but as he collected the rebound he was tripped by bryson and thompson converted the penalty. sheridan and bellamy were involved in something of a flare-up that led to both being booked after the intervention of the assistant referee. juninho brought out another good save from halliwell and then petrov saw a tremendous effort come off the top of the bar. but petrov and juninho combined brilliantly to allow the bulgarian to make it 3-0 on the hour mark - a quick one-two giving him the time and space to steer the ball past halliwell from 12 yards. varga got his second goal of the game as celtic drove home their advantage - thompson whipped in a corner from the right and the unmarked defender simply tapped the ball over the line from a couple of yards out. celtic were utterly dominant by this stage and bellamy opened his scoring account for the club after a fine move involving aiden mcgeady jackie mcnamara and maloney culminated in the welshman hammering the ball into the net. halliwell kept the deficit at five by pushing a mcgeady shot wide as the game petered out. halliwell mensing bollan balmer potter sheridan (burns 61) arbuckle (gilhaney 61) gibson bryson (jones 78) malone harty. morrison wilson. mensing sheridan. douglas henchoz mcnamara balde varga juninho paulista thompson lennon (lambert 70) sutton (maloney 45) petrov (mcgeady 70) bellamy. marshall laursen. thompson bellamy. : varga 40 thompson 48 pen petrov 60 varga 68 bellamy 72. 8 200 c thomson

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freeze on anti-spam campaign a campaign by lycos europe to target spam-related websites appears to have been put on hold. earlier this week the company released a screensaver that bombarded the sites with data to try to bump up the running costs of the websites. but the site hosting the screensaver now displays a pink graphic and the words stay tuned . no one at lycos was available for comment on latest developments in its controversial anti-spam campaign. lycos europe s make love not spam campaign was intended as a way for users to fight back against the mountain of junk mail flooding inboxes. people were encouraged to download the screensaver which when their pc was idle would then send lots of data to sites that peddle the goods and services mentioned in spam messages. lycos said the idea was to get the spam sites running at 95% capacity and generate big bandwidth bills for the spammers behind the sites. but the plan has proved controversial. monitoring firm netcraft analysed response times for some of the sites targeted by the screensaver and found that a number were completely knocked offline. the downing of the sites could dent lycos claims that what it is doing does not amount to a distributed denial of service attack. in such attacks thousands of computers bombard sites with data in an attempt to overwhelm them. laws in many countries do not explicitly outlaw such attacks but many nations are re-drafting computer use laws to make them specific offences. lycos europe now appears to have put the plan on hold. the site hosting the screensaver currently shows a holding page with the words stay tuned . the numerical internet address of the site has also changed. this is likely to be in response to spammers who have reportedly redirected traffic from their sites back to the lycos screensaver site. the campaign has come under fire from some corners of the web. many discussion groups have said that it set a dangerous precedent and could incite vigilantism. attacking a spammer s website is like poking a grizzly bear sleeping in your back garden with a pointy stick said graham cluley senior technology consultant for sophos. not only is this screensaver similar in its approach to a potentially illegal distributed denial of service attack but it also is in danger of turning innocent computer users into vigilantes who may not be prepared for whatever retaliation the spammers care to dream up.

Science_and_Techology

barkley fit for match in ireland england centre olly barkley has been passed fit for sunday s six nations clash with ireland at lansdowne road. barkley withdrew from bath s team for friday s clash with gloucester after suffering a calf injury in training. gloucester centre henry paul has also been cleared to play after overcoming an ankle injury. england coach andy robinson who names his team on wednesday has called up bath prop duncan bell following phil vickery s broken arm. with vickery sidelined for at least six weeks and julian white out with a neck injury bell could make his england debut. bell 30 had set his sights on an international career with wales. but last december the international rugby board confirmed that he could only be eligible for england as he had travelled on tour with them in 1998. i thought i d burned all my bridges with england when i expressed an interest in wanting to play for wales so it s fantastic to get this opportunity he said. bell who featured in the england a side which beat france 30-20 10 days ago added: i recognise that i got into the england a squad because of injuries. and it s the same again in getting into the senior squad. but now that i have this opportunity i intend to take it fully if selected and play my heart out for my country. england coach andy robinson could take a gamble and call inexperienced sale sharks prop andrew sheridan into his front row. but sheridan favours the loosehead side of the scrum and a more likely scenario is for uncapped bell - who was among the try-scorers when england a beat france a 30-20 nine days ago - to be drafted in.

Sports

connors rallying cry for british tennis do you have it in your heart how much guts do you have how much do you hate to lose these are the questions jimmy connors will be asking of britain s brightest tennis hopes in the months and possibly years to come. the american legend swept into london on thursday to announce a long-term relationship with the lawn tennis association after spending three days at the elite performance winter camp in la manga. and the man who epitomised the phrase will to win before lleyton hewitt was even born is clear about the qualities he hopes to convey. you know everybody hits the ball well and there s a very fine line between number one and number 100 said connors. i was that fine line for a long time. but if i can help i want to be part of teaching kids how to win. connors is not the first great name to offer his services to the lta - his long-time rival john mcenroe has repeatedly done the same. but connors is at pains to point out that his interest goes well beyond any publicity stunt and he gave a glowing recommendation to the work of lta performance director david felgate and his team. britain has a different attitude the right attitude in taking the game forward and finding the next wimbledon champion said connors. that s something you don t find every day. everybody talks a good game but not everybody puts that into effect. the impression i came away with after just seeing david and the other coaches for three days was one like i ve never seen before especially over here. this is not going to happen overnight there are no miracle workers but you re going in the right direction. the 52-year-old s enthusiasm for the work going on in this country is in marked contrast to his relationship with tennis officials back in america. i ve had discussions with the usta (united states tennis association) over a number of years he said. that s where it (my input) ended. connors is a straight-talker and will be equally blunt and honest in his dealings with the lta and the cream of britain s young players. if they re chosen they ve got to produce he said. if not someone will come and take their place. there s only one number one spot and it s lonely up there but it s got the best view. in the year that has seen andrew murray emerge as britain s great new hope connors rejected suggestions that the scot might be put under too much pressure too soon. tim henman has a whole country on his shoulder said connors. i don t know that pressure but if you like that it can be a certain push to get on to the next level. someone s going to have to come and take over from him (henman). if i was andrew murray i d embrace that. that s what we play for. despite the emphasis on hard work training and preparation connors does admit that the desire required of a champion has to come from within. the passion i had i don t know if you can find that he admitted. i was also nuts. i say that because there was nothing better for me than to compete on the tennis court. it was the most important thing in the world for me and to do that something s got to be not right with you. there was nothing better for me ever than to play tennis in front of 25 000 people. what i had when i played tennis is what i am. you have to have that you can t be moulded.

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consumer spending lifts us growth us economic growth accelerated in the third quarter helped by strong consumer spending official figures have shown. the economy expanded at an annual rate of 3.7% in the july to september period the commerce department said. the figure marked an increase on the 3.3% growth recorded in the second quarter but fell short of the 4.2% rate pencilled in by forecasters. the increase reflected the biggest jump in consumer spending in a year. it was a little softer than the consensus but not a real surprise said gary thayer an economist at ag edwards & sons. friday s growth estimate is one of the last significant pieces of economic data before the 2 november presidential election. democrat challenger john kerry has criticised president george w bush s handling of the economy pointing to a net loss of over 800 000 jobs since mr bush took office. analysts said the economy was still not growing fast enough to stimulate large-scale job creation. it s a pretty good growth rate but it may not be good enough to create enough jobs said robert brusca chief economist at fact and opinion economics in new york. however president bush is expected to point to commerce department figures showing that consumer spending grew at 4.6% in the third quarter up from just 1.6% in the second as evidence that his policies are generating solid growth. consumer spending accounts for about two thirds of all economic activity in the us. the weaker than expected growth figure makes it less likely that the us federal reserve will raise interest rates next month economists said. the economy regained some traction in the third quarter but the growth is not robust ag edwards thayer. i think that means the fed can take its time raising rates. we ll probably see one more rate hike before the end of the year. in an effort to pre-empt rising inflation the federal reserve has pushed through three quarter-point rate rises since june this year taking borrowing costs to 1.75%. on the financial markets the dollar fell slightly against the euro and the yen while the dow jones index of leading us shares was little changed.

Business

britons fed up with net service a survey conducted by pc pro magazine has revealed that many britons are unhappy with their internet service. they are fed up with slow speeds high prices and the level of customer service they receive. 17% of readers have switched suppliers and a further 16% are considering changing in the near future. it is particularly bad news for bt the uk s biggest internet supplier with almost three times as many people trying to leave as joining. a third of the 2 000 broadband users interviewed were fed up with their current providers but this could be just the tip of the iceberg thinks tim danton editor of pc pro magazine. we expect these figures to leap in 2005. every month the prices drop and more and more people are trying to switch he said. the survey found that bt and tiscali have been actively dissuading customers from leaving by offering them a lower price when they phone up to cancel their subscription. some readers were offered a price drop just 25p more expensive than that offered by an alternative operator making it hardly worth while swapping. other found themselves tied into 12-month contracts. broadband has become hugely competitive and providers are desperate to hold on to customers. 12% of those surveyed found themselves unable to swap at all. we discovered a huge variety of problems but one of the biggest issues is the current supplier withholding the information that people need to give to their new supplier said tim danton editor of pc pro. this breaks the code of practice but because that code is voluntary there s nothing we or ofcom can do to help he said. there is a vast choice of internet service providers in the uk now and an often bewildering array of broadband packages. with prices set to drop even further in coming months mr danton advises everyone to shop around carefully. if you just stick with your current connection then there s every chance you re being ripped off he warned.

Science_and_Techology

o gara revels in ireland victory ireland fly-half ronan o gara hailed his side s 19-13 victory over england as a special win. the munster number 10 kicked a total of 14 points including two drop goals to help keep alive their grand slam hopes. he told bbc sport: we made hard work of it but it s still special to beat england. i had three chances to win the game but didn t. we have work to do after this but we never take a victory over england lightly. ireland hooker shane byrne echoed o gara s comments but admitted the game had been england s best outing in the six nations. byrne said: it was a really really hard game but from one to 15 in our team we worked really really hard. we just had to stick to our defensive pattern trust ourselves and trust those around us. all round it was fantastic. ireland captain brian o driscoll who scored his side s only try said: we are delighted we felt if we performed well then we would win but with england also having played very well it makes it all the sweeter. we did get the bounce of the ball and some days that happens and you ve just got to jump on the back of it. ireland coach eddie o sullivan was surprised that england coach andy robinson said he was certain mark cueto was onside for a disallowed try just before the break. andy was sitting two yards from me and i couldn t see whether he was offside or not so i don t know how andy could have known said o sullivan. what i do know is that england played well and when that happens it makes a very good victory for us. we had to defend for long periods and that is all good for the confidence of the team. i think our try was very well worked it was a gem as good a try as we have scored for a while. o sullivan also rejected robinson s contention england dominated the forward play. i think we lost one lineout and they lost four or five so i don t know how that adds up to domination he said. o driscoll also insisted ireland were happy to handle the pressure of being considered favourites to win the six nations title. this season for the first time we have been able to play with the favourites tag he said. hopefully we have proved that today and can continue to keep doing so. as for my try it was a move we had worked on all week. there was a bit of magic from geordan murphy and it was a great break from denis hickie.

Sports

software watching while you work software that can not only monitor every keystroke and action performed at a pc but also be used as legally binding evidence of wrong-doing has been unveiled. worries about cyber-crime and sabotage have prompted many employers to consider monitoring employees. the developers behind the system claim it is a break-through in the way data is monitored and stored. but privacy advocates are concerned by the invasive nature of such software. the system is a joint venture between security firm 3ami and storage specialists bridgehead software. they have joined forces to create a system which can monitor computer activity store it and retrieve disputed files within minutes. more and more firms are finding themselves in deep water as a result of data misuse. sabotage and data theft are most commonly committed from within an organisation according to the national hi-tech crime unit (nhtcu) a survey conducted on its behalf by nop found evidence that more than 80% of medium and large companies have been victims of some form of cyber-crime. bridgehead software has come up with techniques to prove to a legal standard that any stored file on a pc has not been tampered with. ironically the impetus for developing the system came as a result of the freedom of information act which requires companies to store all data for a certain amount of time. the storage system has been incorporated into an application developed by security firm 3ami which allows every action on a computer to be logged. potentially it could help employers to follow the trail of stolen files and pinpoint whether they had been emailed to a third party copied printed deleted or saved to cd floppy disk memory stick or flash card. other activities the system can monitor include the downloading of pornography the use of racist or bullying language or the copying of applications for personal use. increasingly organisations that handle sensitive data such as governments are using biometric log-ins such as fingerprinting to provide conclusive proof of who was using a particular machine at any given time. privacy advocates are concerned that monitoring at work is not only damaging to employee s privacy but also to the relationship between employers and their staff. that is not the case said tim ellsmore managing director of 3ami. it is not about replacing dialogue but there are issues that you can talk through but you still need proof he said. people need to recognise that you are using a pc as a representative of a company and that employers have a legal requirement to store data he added.

Science_and_Techology

industrial output falls in japan japanese industrial output fell in october while unemployment rose casting further doubt on the strength of the country s economic recovery. production dropped 1.6% in october reflecting a decline in exports while unemployment levels edged up 0.1% to 4.7% slightly higher than forecast. the economy has grown for six quarters but growth slowed dramatically in the last quarter amid weaker global demand. japan s government remains optimistic due to strong domestic demand. analysts had been forecasting a 0.1% rise in month on month industrial output. according to figures from the ministry of economy trade and industry (meti) the decline was led by a fall in demand for electronic parts for mobile phones and digital televisions. although inventories fell 0.7% month on month they were 36% higher than a year ago. it s a sign that the economy s adjustment phase is stronger than expected said takashi yamanaka an economist with ufj bank. japan downgraded its overall economic assessment earlier this month for the first time in a year. growth slowed to 0.3% in the quarter ending september 30 down from 6.3% in the first quarter of 2004. experts believe the economy -which stagnated for most of the 1990s -may be entering a softer patch on the back of rising oil prices and the falling dollar. japanese government officials played down the latest data arguing that domestic consumer demand was still resilient. the outlook for november is positive so i don t think one can say that conditions have worsened just because of the fall in october said a meti official. despite the rise in unemployment jobless figures are still some way below historical highs of recent years. the comparatively weak economic date preyed on shares with the nikkei down 1% in afternoon trade.

Business

cebit opens to mobile music tune cebit the world s largest hi-tech fair has opened its doors in hanover for a look at the latest technologies for homes and businesses. there are more than 6 000 exhibitors registered and about 500 000 visitors are expected to pass through the doors. third generation mobiles the digital home and broadband are key themes at the show. camera phones will get better resolutions as vendors set out to prove that bigger is definitely better. samsung is set to steal some initial limelight with the launch of a 7-megapixel phone on the opening day. the sch-v770 has some of the features of high-end digital single lens reflex cameras such as manual focus and the ability to attach a telephoto or wide-angle lens. camera phones are likely to prove an interesting battle ground at the show said ben wood principal analyst at research firm gartner. it is firmly established that cameras are an integral part of phones and now the technology arms race is on in terms of megapixels. there will be a certain amount of look how big mine is he said. there will also be increasing focus on music-enabled mobiles. at 3gsm in cannes everyone went music mad and music is going to be a big theme for all the vendors at cebit said mr wood. sony ericsson will use the fair to show off the w800 - its recently unveiled walkman branded phone - and there is speculation that motorola may unveil its rokr handset widely tipped as the first to carry apple s itunes music software. apple and motorola announced they were getting together at the end of last year as a result of a long-standing friendship between motorola s chief executive ed zander and steve jobs. some analysts think motorola may save the launch for ctia a wireless show in america the following week which could be a telling sign about how operators are coming to view the german tech fair. one of the interesting things is that cebit is clearly a show in decline said mr wood. a lot of the big players such as nokia are pulling back saying it is hard to justify a big presence at all of the shows. it could be the last big year for cebit he said. other themes include tv-enabled mobiles which are bound to create a buzz in the halls as vodafone unveils a prototype handset that can show live digital television. there has been a glut of recent headlines about mobile tv - french operators are teaming up o2 is trialling a system in oxford uk and nokia begins trialling a system in finland with the finnish broadcasting company yle tv and commercial tv channels. cebit could become the battleground for the two competing methods for getting tv on to mobiles and is also likely to provide a stage for a technology slated to compete with 3g. hsdpa (high speed downlink packet access) has been described as 3g on steroids and could offer consumers much faster download times. for instance a song which currently takes one and a half minutes to download to a phone could be done in 10 seconds. korean giants lg electronics and samsung will show off hsdpa handsets at the show and the technology is set to be rolled out in the us europe and korea next year. broadband will continue to be a key theme at the show with internet telephony proving this year s killer application. germany s largest online service provider t-online is tipped to reveal software for low-cost net telephony which would see it competing with its parent company deutsche telekom. cebit is used by many to unveil cutting edge products and in the mobile sphere this is likely to mean a lot of bright colourful handsets as fashion continues to compete with technology when it comes to the device everyone has in their pockets. rainbow-coloured phones influenced by handsets from japan are just one example of how asian companies will stamp their mark on this year s show at which they will have their biggest ever presence. cebit organisers have created a digital home in hall 25 of the 27 hangar-like buildings that will house the show. the digital home will be a hyped theme at the show. the house will be totally wired and full of things that can be used for home entertainment said cebit organiser gabriele dorries.

Science_and_Techology

tokyo says deflation controlled the japanese government has forecast that the country s economic growth will slow to 1.6% in the next fiscal year starting in april 2005. while it predicts this fall from the current 2.1% level it said it was making progress on ending deflation. the figures were given by economics minister heizo takenaka who said the economy would grow by 2% in 2006/07. he said the consumer price index (cpi) would rise 0.1% in the next fiscal year the first gain since 2000/01. we are attempting to make real economic conditions better and to overcome deflation. i think we are on track said mr takenaka. deflation - or falling consumer prices - has plagued japan for more than five years. to ease the problem the bank of japan has regularly flooded the money market with excess cash to keep short term interest rates at 0% in an attempt to spur economic activity.

Business

ba to suspend two saudi services british airways is to halt its flights from london heathrow to jeddah and riyadh in saudi arabia from 27 march. the airline said the decision was a commercial one due to reduced passenger demand for the services. ba currently operates four flights per week from heathrow to jeddah and three weekly journeys to riyadh. it suspended flights to saudi arabia for three weeks in autumn 2003 after a government warning about a threat to uk aviation interests in saudi arabia . ba will now suspend the saudi flights - which it says will remain under constant review - from 27 march. the decision to suspend flights between the uk and saudi arabia is a difficult one to make as we have enjoyed a long history of flying between the two countries said ba director of commercial planning robert boyle. however the routes don t currently make a profitable contribution to our business and we are unable to sustain them while this remains the case. passengers with flights booked after the suspension date will be contacted by ba for alternative arrangements to be made.

Business

nintendo adds media playing to ds nintendo is releasing an adapter for its ds handheld console so it can play music and video. the add-on for the ds means people can download tv programmes film clips or mp3 files to the adaptor and then play them back while on the move. the release of the media add-on is an attempt by the japanese games giant to protect its dominance of the handheld gaming market. nintendo said the media adapter will be available from february in japan. the nintendo ds is the successor to the hugely successful gameboy handheld game console and went on sale in japan on 2 december. the ds has two screens one of which is touch sensitive and also has on-board a short-range wireless link that lets people play against each other. the launch of the media adapter and the attempt to broaden the appeal of the device is widely seen as a response to the unveiling of the sony psp which was built as a multi-purpose media player and game gadget from the start. sony is thought to be preparing pre-packaged movies and music for the psp. the add-on will also work with the gameboy advance sp. nintendo dominates the handheld gaming console world thanks to successive versions of the gameboy. more than 28 million gameboy advance handhelds have been sold around the world. the dual-screen ds is also thought to be selling well with more than 2.5 million expected to be sold by the end of 2004. nintendo said it had no plans to sell the media adapter outside japan. when it goes on sale the adapter is expected to cost about 5000 yen (£25) roughly the difference in price between the ds and the higher-priced sony psp.

Science_and_Techology

deadline nears for fiat-gm deal fiat and general motors (gm) have until midnight on 1 february to settle a disagreement over a potential takeover. the deadline marks the point at which fiat will gain the right to sell its car division to gm part of an alliance agreed in 2000. gm whose own european operations are losing money no longer wants to own the unprofitable fiat unit. reports of deadlocked talks sent fiat shares down 1.2% on tuesday after monday s 4% gain on hopes of a payoff. the us firm is thought to be offering about $2bn (£1.06bn) to extricate itself from the arrangement. it has argued the deal was voided by fiat s decision to sell off fiat s finance arm and halve gm s stake via a capital-raising effort. the 2000 deal resulted from a race between gm and daimlerchrysler to ally with fiat. the german firm wanted to buy fiat outright. but gianni agnelli the godfather of the group wanted to keep control and preferred gm s offer to buy a 20% stake and give fiat the right to sell in the future known as a put option . since then however fiat cars have lost market share and the firm has piled up losses while a plan to raise new money in 2003 cut gm s stake in half to 10%. for its part gm s european units opel and saab have both had trouble with opel management threatening to cut 12 000 jobs. the last thing they need is additional production capacity in europe said patrick juchemich auto analyst at sal oppenheim bank.

Business

wilkinson return unlikely jonny wilkinson looks set to miss the whole of the 2005 rbs six nations. england s world cup-winning fly-half said last week he was hoping to recover from his latest injury in time to play some role in the championship. but rob andrew coach of wilkinson s club side newcastle said that with only two games left to play wilkinson was unlikely to be fit in time. it would be irresponsible to put him straight into a test match andrew told the times. wilkinson is recovering from a knee injury which followed long-term neck and arm injuries. he has not played for england since the world cup final in november 2003 since when the stuttering world champions have lost nine of their 14 matches. wilkinson is aiming to make his third start to the season in the zurich premiership match against harlequins on 13 march. that game is the day after england play italy in the six nations and six days before their final match of the championship against scotland. we are hoping jonny will be ready in a fortnight but it is touch and go said andrew. his recovery is going very well and the key now is how he is reintroduced to playing and with it goal-kicking. he will probably have to come off the bench to start and it would be ridiculous and irresponsible to put him straight back into a test match. we can t afford to get it wrong with a knee injury. we are in touch with england and they are relaxed about it. despite not playing for england wilkinson is still hoping to make the lions tour to new zealand this summer. lions coach sir clive woodward has not set a deadline for when wilkinson has to start playing again in order to be considered for selection.

Sports

uefa approves fake grass uefa says it will allow european matches to be played on artificial pitches from the start of next season. european football s governing body made the decision at a meeting of its executive committee on wednesday. uefa explained that the move follows comprehensive studies into the sporting and medical aspects of using artificial playing surfaces. they can be used subject to complying with uefa quality criteria but there use will not be made obligatory. luton preston queens park rangers and other clubs used to have plastic pitches during the the 1980s but after a two-year study uefa insists the surfaces have moved on. international matches can also be played on such pitches although games at major tournaments have to be contested on grass. uefa spokesman rob faulkner said: people in england have bad memories of the artificial pitches of luton and qpr in the 1980s but the latest generation are completely different and are much more like grass. we have sanctioned its use from the start of next season but only as long as it is the latest generation of artificial turf and meets a whole series of standards. several leading clubs from scandinavia russia and eastern europe - especially those who only play champions league or uefa cup matches in winter - are now expected to instal artificial pitches.

Sports

fuming robinson blasts officials england coach andy robinson said he was livid after his side were denied two tries in sunday s 19-13 six nations loss to ireland in dublin. mark cueto s first-half effort was ruled out for offside before the referee spurned tv replays when england crashed over in the dying minutes. [i m] absolutely spitting. i m livid. there s two tries we ve been cost robinson told bbc sport. we ve got to go back to technology. i don t know why we didn t. south african referee jonathan kaplan ruled that cueto was ahead of charlie hodgson when the fly-half hoisted his cross-field kick for the sale wing to gather. kaplan then declined the chance to consult the fourth official when josh lewsey took the ball over the irish line under a pile of bodies for what could have been the game-winning try. i think mark cueto scored a perfectly legal try and i think he should have gone to the video referee on josh lewsey said robinson. it is how we use the technology. it is there and it should be used. i am still trying to work out the cueto try. i have looked at both and they both looked tries. we are very disappointed and this will hurt there is no doubt about that. we are upset now but the referee is in charge and he has called it his way and we have got to be able to cope with that. we did everything we could have done to win the game. i am very proud of my players and with a couple of decisions this could have been a very famous victory. i thought we dominated. matt stevens had an awesome game at tighthead prop while the likes of charlie hodgson martin corry and lewis moody all came through well. josh lewsey was awesome and every one of the forwards stood up out there. given the pressure we were under credit must go to all the players. we have done everything but win a game of rugby but ireland are a good side. they defended magnificently and they ve got every chance of winning this six nations. england have lost their first three matches in this year s six nations and four out of their six games since robinson took over from sir clive woodward in september.

Sports

madagascar completes currency switch madagascar has completed the replacement of its malagasy franc with a new currency the ariary. from monday all prices and contracts will have to be quoted in the ariary which was trading at 1 893 to the us dollar. the malagasy franc which lost almost half its value in 2004 is no longer legal tender but will remain exchangeable at banks until 2009. the phasing out of the franc begun in july 2003 was intended to distance the country from its past under french colonial rule and address the problem of the large amount of counterfeit francs in circulation. it s above all a question of sovereignty reuters quoted a central bank official as saying. it is symbolic of our independence from the old colonial ways. since we left the french monetary zone in 1973 we should have our own currency with its own name. the ariary was the name of a pre-colonial currency in the indian ocean island state.

Business

german business confidence slides german business confidence fell in february knocking hopes of a speedy recovery in europe s largest economy. munich-based research institute ifo said that its confidence index fell to 95.5 in february from 97.5 in january its first decline in three months. the study found that the outlook in both the manufacturing and retail sectors had worsened. observers had been hoping that a more confident business sector would signal that economic activity was picking up. we re surprised that the ifo index has taken such a knock said dz bank economist bernd weidensteiner. the main reason is probably that the domestic economy is still weak particularly in the retail trade. economy and labour minister wolfgang clement called the dip in february s ifo confidence figure a very mild decline . he said that despite the retreat the index remained at a relatively high level and that he expected a modest economic upswing to continue. germany s economy grew 1.6% last year after shrinking in 2003. however the economy contracted by 0.2% during the last three months of 2004 mainly due to the reluctance of consumers to spend. latest indications are that growth is still proving elusive and ifo president hans-werner sinn said any improvement in german domestic demand was sluggish. exports had kept things going during the first half of 2004 but demand for exports was then hit as the value of the euro hit record levels making german products less competitive overseas. on top of that the unemployment rate has been stuck at close to 10% and manufacturing firms including daimlerchrysler siemens and volkswagen have been negotiating with unions over cost cutting measures. analysts said that the ifo figures and germany s continuing problems may delay an interest rate rise by the european central bank. eurozone interest rates are at 2% but comments from senior officials have recently focused on the threat of inflation prompting fears that interest rates may rise.

Business

what price for trusted pc security you can now buy trusted computers but can we really trust the pc vendors asks technology analyst bill thompson. if you have recently bought an ibm thinkvantage computer a dell optiplex or one of a whole range of laptops from toshiba hp/compaq or samsung then you may have got more for your money than you realised. inside your shiny new pc is an extra chip called the trusted platform module (tpm) that can be used for a range of hardware-based security features. eventually the tpm will be built into the main processor itself and if the trusted computing group has its way then you will find one in every piece of hardware you own from mobile phones to tv set top boxes to children s toys. but for the moment it is a separate piece of hardware providing enhanced security features to programs that know how to use them. and as part of a well-designed network system it can provide a lot more security than we enjoy today. a big advantage of the tpm is that it is hardware-based. at the moment most of us rely on software to keep our information safe and secure. it might be password-protected user accounts data encryption programs or a firewall but it all relies on program code running on an inherently insecure processor. hardware security is less common even if it is a lot safer. this is partly because it is more expensive to give someone a smartcard than a password but also because its more work for users systems administrators and managers. as a result we settle for second best. so when it comes to computer security trusted systems could be a major step forward. after all if you have a laptop that will only run programs that have been digitally signed then it will be a lot harder for virus writers to get their malicious code to run. and if all your files are locked automatically then even if you get your computer stolen your personal data will be safeguarded. at the moment support for trusted hardware is not built into major operating systems. instead you have to use special software like hp s protecttools or wave systems embassy. this provides file encryption password management and identity protection usually for business users who connect to company networks. full support for the trusted computing specification will not be available from microsoft until the next release of windows longhorn . this will include what microsoft in a typical act of obscurantism calls the next generation secure computing base and it will give user-level programs access to the trusted computing hardware. when that happens we can expect to see a lot of publicity around the new capabilities and no doubt the windows security centre will encourage users to turn on their trusted computing capability just as they turn on their firewall. however there is a downside to the increased security from viruses spyware and data theft that this will provide. because the trusted computing base is also used to make digital rights management (drm) systems more secure this will give content providers a lot more control over what we can do with music movies and books that we have bought from them. we have seen recently how allowing digital rights management services into our lives can lead to unwelcome consequences. users of apple s itunes used to be able to stream the music they had brought to up to five other itunes users a great way of letting your mates discover your music collection. but the latest version of itunes limits this capability just as an earlier upgrade reduced the number of times you could burn a selected playlist of purchased songs to a cd. another took away the ability to play songs downloaded from real s harmony service on your ipod. apple can do this because they wrote the software and they control the rights management. once it is embedded in trusted hardware it will be even harder for dedicated programmers to find their way around these restrictions and give us back the fair use rights that should be guaranteed under copyright law. similarly users of tivo digital video recorders have found that they cannot record some shows and other programmes that they have recorded are automatically deleted after a day. this happens because of changes that tivo have made to their software and the users cannot control it. one wonders whether hardware-based drm will work for those who believe that locking-down digital content is a bad idea and that the flexibility of copyright law is something that should be embraced and not taken away. it will not work because of the fundamental flaw at the heart of the system: in order for the purchaser to view the content it has to be unlocked. once it is unlocked then someone somewhere will figure out a way to make a copy of the unlocked version. and once an unlocked version leaks onto the network it will be uncontrollable. the efforts going into drm would be much better spent building efficient distribution services finding business models that are based on trusting your customers and offering high quality downloads at fair prices. what we want is not so much a trusted computing platform as a trusted customer platform. the record companies and the film industry need to recognise that most of us most of the time will pay a reasonable amount for good quality material. they will benefit more by building a market in which i can share songs with my friends record shows i want to watch later and burn cds for my kids; a market which respects the spirit of copyright law and does not seek to replace it by restrictive contracts or end user agreements. we need to ensure that trusted computing remains under the control of the users and is not used to take away the freedoms we enjoy today. bill thompson is a regular commentator on the bbc world service programme go digital.

Science_and_Techology

eu too slow on economic reforms most eu countries have failed to put in place policies aimed at making europe the world s most competitive economy by the end of the decade a report says. the study undertaken by the european commission sought to assess how far the eu has moved towards meeting its economic targets. in 2000 eu leaders at a summit in lisbon pledged the european economy would outstrip that of the us by 2010. their economic targets became known as the lisbon agenda. but the commission report says that in most eu countries the pace of economic reform has been too slow and fulfilling the lisbon ambitions will be difficult - if not impossible. only the uk finland belgium denmark ireland and the netherlands have actually followed up policy recommendations. among the biggest laggards according to the report are greece and italy. the lisbon agenda set out to increase the number of people employed in europe by encouraging more older people and women to stay in the workforce. it also set out to raise the amount the private sector spends on research and development while bringing about greater discipline over public spending and debt levels. combined with high environmental standards and efforts to level the playing field for businesses throughout the eu the plan was for europe to become the world s most dynamic economy by 2010. next week the commission will present revised proposals to meet the lisbon goals. many people expect the 2010 target to be quietly dropped.

Business

capriati out of australian open jennifer capriati has become the third leading lady to withdraw from the australian open because of injury. the organisers of the first grand slam of 2005 which begins on 17 january said the american has a problem with her right shoulder. it comes as a blow to the women s draw as last year s champion justin henin-hardenne and runner-up kim clijsters will also be absent. capriati is a two-time champion in melbourne with wins in 2001 and 2002. she is believed to have picked up the injury at the advanta championships at philadelphia in november and had to pull out of an exhibition match with wimbledon champion maria sharapova on 17 december. capriati also decided against competing in the australian open warm-up event the sydney international.

Sports

england 17-18 france england suffered an eighth defeat in 11 tests as scrum-half dimitri yachvili booted france to victory at twickenham. two converted tries from olly barkley and josh lewsey helped the world champions to a 17-6 half-time lead. but charlie hodgson and barkley missed six penalties between them while yachvili landed six for france to put the visitors in front. england could have won the game with three minutes left but hodgson pushed an easy drop goal opportunity wide. it was a dismal defeat for england coming hard on the heels of an opening six nations loss in wales. they should have put the game well beyond france s reach but remarkably remained scoreless for the entire second half. a scrappy opening quarter saw both sides betray the lack of confidence engendered by poor opening displays against wales and scotland respectively. hodgson had an early opportunity to settle english nerves but pushed a straightforward penalty attempt wide. but a probing kick from france centre damien traille saw mark cueto penalised for holding on to the ball in the tackle yachvili giving france the lead with a kick from wide out. france twice turned over england ball at the breakdown early on as the home side struggled to generate forward momentum one ben kay charge apart. a spell of tit-for-tat kicking emphasised the caution on both sides until england refused a possible three points to kick a penalty to the corner only to botch the subsequent line-out. but england made the breakthrough after 19 minutes when a faltering move off the back of a scrum led to the opening try. jamie noon took a short pass from barkley and ran a good angle to plough through yann delaigue s flimsy tackle before sending his centre partner through to score at the posts. hodgson converted and added a penalty after one of several french infringements on the floor for a 10-3 lead. the fly-half failed to dispense punishment though with a scuffed attempt after france full-back pepito elhorga scragged by lewsey threw the ball into touch. barkley also missed two longer-range efforts as the first half drew to a close but by then england had scored a second converted try. after a series of phases lock danny grewcock ran hard at the french defence and off-loaded out of sylvain marconnet s tackle to lewsey. the industrious wing cut back in on an angle and handed off hooker sebastien bruno to sprint over. after a dire opening to the second half france threw on three forward replacements in an attempt to rectify the situation wing jimmy marlu having already departed injured. yachvili nibbled away at the lead with a third penalty after 51 minutes. and when lewis moody was twice penalised - for handling in a ruck and then straying offside - the scrum-half s unerring left boot cut the deficit to two points. barkley then missed his third long-range effort to increase the tension. and after seeing another attempt drop just short yachvili put france ahead with his sixth penalty with 11 minutes left. england sent on ben cohen and matt dawson and after barkley s kick saw christophe dominici take the ball over his own line the stage was set for a victory platform. but even after a poor scrummage hodgson had the chance to seal victory but pushed his drop-goal attempt wide. england threw everything at the french in the final frantic moments but the visitors held on for their first win at twickenham since 1997. j robinson (capt); m cueto j noon o barkley j lewsey; c hodgson h ellis; g rowntree s thompson p vickery; d grewcock b kay; j worsley l moody m corry. a titterrell a sheridan s borthwick a hazell m dawson h paul b cohen. p elhorga; c dominici b liebenberg d traille j marlu; y delaigue d yachvili; s marconnet s bruno n mas; f pelous (capt) j thion s betsen j bonnaire s chabal. w servat j milloud g lamboley y nyanga p mignoni f michalak j-p grandclaude. paddy o brien (new zealand)

Sports

england coach faces rap after row england coach andy robinson is facing disciplinary action after criticising referee jonathan kaplan in his side s six nations defeat to ireland. the rugby football union (rfu) will investigate robinson after deciding not to lodge a complaint against kaplan. robinson may even have to apologise for his comments in order to avoid sanction from the international rugby board. robinson had said he was livid about kaplan s decisions on saturday to disallow two england tries. the england coach went on to claim that only one side was refereed . after reviewing tapes of the match the rfu decided not to formally complain to the irb over the standard of kaplan s refereeing. instead the rfu said in a statement they would set out any concerns the england team management may have in a confidential manner . an irb spokesman said on the matter: we take all breaches of the code very seriously. should the rfu resolve the issue to our satisfaction as happened last month when the scotland coach matt williams apologised for remarks made it would be the end of the matter. kaplan has vigorously defended his performance in england s 19-13 defeat at landsdowne road and admitted he was very disappointed with robinson s remarks. and the south african has been appointed to take charge of scotland s match against wales on 13 march. the rfu recently fined northampton coach budge pountney £2 000 and imposed a six-week ban for his criticism of referee steve lander after a premiership match.

Sports

how to make a gigapixel picture the largest digital panoramic photo in the world has been created by researchers in the netherlands. the finished image is 2.5 billion pixels in size - making it about 500 times the resolution of images produced by good consumer digital cameras. the huge image of delft was created by stitching together 600 single snaps of the dutch city taken at a fixed spot. if printed out in standard 300 dots per inch resolution the picture would be 2.5m high and 6m long. the researchers have put the image on a website which lets viewers explore the wealth of detail that it captures. tools on the page let viewers zoom in on the city and its surroundings in great detail. the website is already proving popular and currently has more than 200 000 visitors every day. the image was created by imaging experts from the dutch research and technology laboratory tno which created the 2.5 gigapixel photo as a summer time challenge. the goal of the project was to be one of the first groups to make gigapixel images. the first image of such a size was manually constructed by us photographer max lyons in november 2003. that image portrayed bryce canyon national park in utah and was made up of 196 separate photographs. the panorama of delft is a little staid in contrast to the dramatic rockscape captured in mr lyons image. he did it all by hand which was an enormous effort and we got the idea that if you use automatic techniques it would be feasible to build a larger image said jurgen den hartog one of the tno researchers behind the project. we were not competing with mr lyons but it started as a lunchtime bet. the dutch team used already available technologies although it had to upgrade them to be able to handle the high-resolution image. we had to rewrite almost all the tools me den hartog told the bbc news website. all standard windows viewers available would not be able to load such a large image so we had to develop one ourselves. the 600 component pictures were taken on july 2004 by a computer-controlled camera with a 400 mm lens. each image was made to slightly overlap so they could be accurately arranged into a composite. the stitching process was also done automatically using five powerful pcs over three days. following the success of this project and with promises of help from others the tno team is considering creating a full 360-degree panoramic view of another dutch city with even higher resolution.

Science_and_Techology

o sullivan quick to hail italians ireland coach eddie o sullivan heaped praise on italy after seeing his side stutter to a 28-17 victory in rome. it was a hell of a tough game said o sullivan. we struggled in the first half because we hadn t the football. italy played really well. they handled the ball well in terms of kicking it if that s not an oxymoron. we said before the game that it might take until 10 minutes from the end for this game to be won and that s how it turned out. ireland struggled to cope with italy s fierce start and were indebted to skipper brian o driscoll who set up tries for geordan murphy and peter stringer. we had our first attack in the italian half after 22 minutes said o sullivan. we had a good return with three first-half possessions in their half and we scored twice. the second half was about spending more time in their half. scrum-half peter stringer was also glad that ireland escaped wtih a victory. all credit to them he told bbc sport. we knew it would be tough coming to rome. they always give us a tough game here and they showed a lot of spirit. they had a lot of ball in the first half but we got a few scores when we got into their 22.

Sports

screensaver tackles spam websites net users are getting the chance to fight back against spam websites internet portal lycos has made a screensaver that endlessly requests data from sites that sell the goods and services mentioned in spam e-mail. lycos hopes it will make the monthly bandwidth bills of spammers soar by keeping their servers running flat out. the net firm estimates that if enough people sign up and download the tool spammers could end up paying to send out terabytes of data. we ve never really solved the big problem of spam which is that its so damn cheap and easy to do said malte pollmann spokesman for lycos europe. in the past we have built up the spam filtering systems for our users he said but now we are going to go one step further. we ve found a way to make it much higher cost for spammers by putting a load on their servers. by getting thousands of people to download and use the screensaver lycos hopes to get spamming websites constantly running at almost full capacity. mr pollmann said there was no intention to stop the spam websites working by subjecting them with too much data to cope with. he said the screensaver had been carefully written to ensure that the amount of traffic it generated from each user did not overload the web. every single user will contribute three to four megabytes per day he said about one mp3 file. but he said if enough people sign up spamming websites could be force to pay for gigabytes of traffic every single day. lycos did not want to use e-mail to fight back said mr pollmann. that would be fighting one bad thing with another bad thing he said. the sites being targeted are those mentioned in spam e-mail messages and which sell the goods and services on offer. typically these sites are different to those that used to send out spam e-mail and they typically only get a few thousand visitors per day. the list of sites that the screensaver will target is taken from real-time blacklists generated by organisations such as spamcop. to limit the chance of mistakes being made lycos is using people to ensure that the sites are selling spam goods. as these sites rarely use advertising to offset hosting costs the burden of high-bandwidth bills could make spam too expensive said mr pollmann. sites will also slow down under the weight of data requests. early results show that response times of some sites have deteriorated by up to 85%. users do not have to be registered users of lycos to download and use the screensaver. while working the screensaver shows the websites that are being bothered with requests for data. the screensaver is due to be launched across europe on 1 december and before now has only been trialled in sweden. despite the soft launch mr pollmann said that the screensaver had been downloaded more than 20 000 times in the last four days. there s a huge user demand to not only filter spam day-by-day but to do something more he said before now users have never had the chance to be a bit more offensive.

Science_and_Techology

cactus diet deal for phytopharm a slimming aid made from a southern african cactus is set to be developed by uk firm phytopharm and unilever. anglo-dutch food giant unilever will help the pharmaceutical firm develop the snacks containing hoodia extract. phytopharm shares jumped 10.7% on the news with analysts saying sales of $600m (£309m) a year were possible. the plant licensed to phytopharm in 1997 has been used for thousands of years by the sans bushmen of the kalahari desert to stave off hunger. studies have reportedly shown the plant curbs appetite instead of reducing calorific intake like many existing products. phytopharm will receive an initial fee of £6.5m from unilever - out of a potential total of £21m - as well as future royalties on product sales. under the deal production of the hoodia cactus at phytopharm s nursery in south africa will also rise from eight million plants to potentially hundreds of millions said phytopharm chief executive richard dixey. the firm had initially hoped to market a slimming drug from hoodia with pfizer. but the research collaboration came to an end in 2003. analysts said unilever could launch the new products in 2007. this deal goes a long way to restoring the market faith in phytopharm s pipeline after the pfizer exit said analyst erling refsum at nomura.

Business

slow start to speedy net services faster broadband in the uk is becoming a reality as more internet providers offer super-fast services. some lucky britons can already take advantage of uk online s 8 megabits per second service which was launched in november 2004. bt retail has announced that it will trial the same speed service with a national rollout by year end. other service providers are expected to follow suit and a glut of new voice and video services will follow. if the bandwidth is there then isps will buy it said jill finger a research director at analyst firm idc. others will be watching bt retail s trials which is initially for employees and later in the summer for customers with interest. for bt retail she said the super-fast service could be a way of differentiating it from other players. it has been losing market share and this could be one way of gaining some of that back said ms finger. wanadoo is set to trial an 8mbps service in the summer and also plans to roll out unbundled services - which means it takes over the network from bt - which will provide speeds of up to 15mbps. there is no timetable for this at the moment. cable firms ntl and telewest are also bound to increase bandwidth at some time in the future and according to an ntl spokesman are in a better position than bt in the long term. bt s network is limited compared to that of cable. with all the other services coming on stream such as video on demand the question is will 8mbps be enough he asked.

Science_and_Techology

budget aston takes on porsche british car maker aston martin has gone head-to-head with porsche s 911 sports cars with the launch of its cheapest model yet. with a price tag under £80 000 the v8 vantage is tens of thousands of pounds cheaper than existing aston models. the vantage is the most important car in the history of our company said aston s chief executive ulrich bez. aston - whose cars were famously used by james bond - will unveil the vantage at the geneva motor show on thursday. mr bez - himself a former executive at rival porsche - said the new car was the company s most affordable car ever and makes the brand accessible . this in turn would make aston martin globally visible but still very very exclusive he added. first shown as a concept car at the 2003 north american international auto show in detroit the v8 vantage will be available in the uk in late summer. development costs for the vantage have been kept low by sharing a platform with aston s db9 which mr bez described as the previous most important car for our company . there is currently an 18 months waiting list for the db9 mr bez said. the vantage will be built at the new aston factory in gaydon near warwick and should more than double aston s total output from about 2 000 presently.

Business

musical future for phones analyst bill thompson has seen the future and it is in his son s hands. i bought my son max a 3g phone partly because they are so cheap and he needed a phone and partly because i am supposed to know about the latest technology and thought i should see how they work in real life. after using it for a while i am not at all tempted to get rid of my sonyericsson p800 smart phone. that has a relatively large screen even if it does only have slower gprs access to the network. i can read my e-mail surf the web using a proper browser and write stuff using the stylus on its touch screen. last week someone e-mailed me a document that had been compressed into a zip file and i was pleasantly surprised to discover that my phone even knew how to decompress it for me. by contrast the confusing menus complicated keyboard and truly irritating user interface of max s 3g phone simply get in the way and i did not see much value in the paid-for services especially the limited web access. the videos of entertainment news horoscopes and the latest celebrity gossip did not appeal and i did not see how the small screen could be useful for any sort of image never mind micro-tv. but then max started playing and i realised i was missing the point entirely. it is certainly not a great overall experience but that is largely due to the poor menu system and the phone layout: the video content itself is compelling. the quality was at least as good as the video streaming from the bbc website and the image is about the same size. max was completely captivated and i was intrigued to discover that i had nearly missed the next stage of the network revolution. it is easy to be dismissive of small screens and indeed anyone of my generation with failing eyesight and the view that there s never anything worth watching on tv is hardly going to embrace these phones. but just as the world wide web was the killer application that drove internet adoption music videos are going to drive 3g adoption. with vodafone now pushing its own 3g service and 3 already established in the uk video on the phone is clearly going to become a must-have for kids sitting on the school bus adults waiting outside clubs and anyone who has time to kill and a group of friends to impress. this will please the network operators who are looking for some revenue from their expensively acquired 3g licences. but it goes deeper than that: playing music videos on a phone marks the beginning of a move away from the download and play model we have all accepted for our ipods and mp3 players. after all why should i want to carry 60gb of music and pictures around with me in my pocket when i can simply listen to anything i want whenever i want streamed to my phone oh - and of course you can always use the phone to make voice calls and send texts something which ensures that it is always in someone s pocket or handbag available for other uses too. i have never really approved of using the internet protocol (ip) to do either audio or video streaming and i think that technically it is a disaster to make phone calls over the net using voice over ip . but i have to acknowledge that the net at least here in the developed western countries is fast and reliable enough to do both. i stream radio to my computer while i work and enjoy hearing the bizarre stations from around the world that i can find online but nowhere else. i am even playing with internet telephony despite my reservations and i appear on go digital on the world service streamed over the web each week. but 3g networks have been designed to do this sort of streaming both for voice and video which gives them an edge over net-based ip services. the 3g services aren t quite there yet and there is a lot to be sorted out when it comes to web access and data charges. vodafone will let you access its services on vodafone live! as part of your subscription cost but it makes you pay by the megabyte to download from other sites - this one for example. this will not matter to business users but will distort the consumer market and keep people within the phone company s collection of partner sites something that should perhaps be worrying telecoms regulator ofcom. but we should not see these new phones simply as cut-down network terminals. if i want fast access to my e-mail i can get a 3g card for my laptop or hook up to a wireless network. the phone is a lot more and it is as a combination of mini-tv personal communications device and music/video player that it really works. there is certainly room in the technology ecosystem for many different sorts of devices accessing a wide range of services over different networks. 3g phones and ipods can co-exist at least for a while but if i had to bet on the long term i would go for content on demand over carrying gigabytes in my pocket. or perhaps some enterprising manufacturer will offer me both. an mp3g player anyone bill thompson is a regular commentator on the bbc world service programme go digital.

Science_and_Techology

broadband in the uk growing fast high-speed net connections in the uk are proving more popular than ever. bt reports that more people signed up for broadband in the last three months than in any other quarter. the 600 000 connections take the total number of people in the uk signing up for broadband from bt to almost 3.3 million. nationally more than 5 million browse the net via broadband. britain now has among the highest number of broadband connections throughout the whole of europe. according to figures gathered by industry watchdog ofcom the growth means that the uk has now surpassed germany in terms of broadband users per 100 people. the uk total of 5.3 million translates into 7.5 connections per 100 people compared to 6.7 in germany and 15.8 in the netherlands. the numbers of people signing up to broadband include those that get their service direct from bt or via the many companies that re-sell bt lines under their own name. part of the surge in people signing up was due to bt stretching the reach of adsl - the uk s most widely used way of getting broadband - beyond 6km. asymmetric digital subscriber line technology lets ordinary copper phone lines support high data speeds. the standard speed is 512kbps though faster connections are available. this breakthrough led to a dramatic increase in orders as we were suddenly able to satisfy the pent-up demand that existed in many areas said paul reynolds chief executive of bt wholesale which provides phone lines that other firms re-sell. bt retail which sells net services under its own name also had a good quarter and provided about 30% of the new broadband customers. this was a slight increase on the previous three months. despite the good news about growth in broadband figures from telecommunications regulator ofcom show that bt faces increasing competition and dwindling influence in other sectors. local loop unbundling (llu) in which bt rivals install their hardware in exchanges and take over the line to a customer s home or office is growing steadily. cable & wireless and ntl have announced that they are investing millions to start offering llu services. by the end of september more than 4.2 million phone lines were using so-called carrier pre-section (cps) services such as talktalk and one.tel which route phone calls across non-bt networks from a local exchange. there are now more than 300 different firms offering cps services and the percentage of people using bt lines for voice calls has shrunk to 55.4%.

Science_and_Techology

roddick to face saulnier in final andy roddick will play cyril saulnier in the final of the sap open in san jose on sunday. the american top seed and defending champion overcame germany s tommy haas the third seed 7-6 (7-3) 6-3. i was feeling horrible earlier in the week roddick said. i thought tonight was a step in the right direction. saulnier battled to a 6-7 (3-7) 6-3 6-3 win over seventh seed jurgen melzer who twisted his ankle early in the second set. roddick won the last four points of the first-set tie-break before being broken at the start of the second set. but he broke straight back and then broke haas again to lead 4-2. it s extremely frustrating when you have chances against a top-five player and don t do anything with them admitted haas. i rushed a few backhands and he took advantage. saulnier will move into the world s top 50 for the first time after his passage through to the final. it s taken a lot of work and a lot of fighting in my mind he revealed. sometimes i didn t believe i could get to a final and now i am here. i ve stayed mentally strong. i m on the way. i ll keep fighting and work a lot and i ll be up there.

Sports

ebbers denies worldcom fraud former worldcom chief bernie ebbers has denied claims that he knew accountants were doctoring the books at the firm. speaking in court mr ebbers rejected allegations he pressured ex-chief financial officer scott sullivan to falsify company financial statements. mr sullivan made accounting decisions he told the federal court saying his finance chief had a keen command of the numbers . mr ebbers has denied charges of fraud and conspiracy. during his second day of questioning in the new york trial mr ebbers played down his working relationship with mr sullivan and denied he frequently met him to discuss company business when questioned by the prosecution. in a lot of weeks we would speak ... three or four times mr ebbers said adding that conversations about finances were rarely one-on-one and were usually discussed by a group of people instead. mr ebbers relationship to mr sullivan is key to the case surrounding financial corruption that led to the collapse of the firm in 2002 following the discovery of an $11bn accounting fraud. the prosecution s star witness is mr sullivan one of six worldcom executives indicted in the case he has pleaded guilty to fraud and appeared as a prosecution witness as part of an agreement with prosecutors. during his time on the witness stand mr sullivan repeatedly told jurors he met frequently with mr ebbers told him about changes made to worldcom s accounts to hide costs and had warned him such practises were improper. however during the case on tuesday mr ebbers denied the allegations. i wasn t advised by scott sullivan of anything ever being wrong he told the court. he s never told me he made an entry that wasn t right. if he had we wouldn t be here today. mr ebbers could face a jail sentence of up to 85 years if convicted of all the charges he is facing. shareholders lost about $180bn in worldcom s collapse 20 000 workers lost their jobs and the company went bankrupt. the company emerged from bankruptcy last year and is now known as mci.

Business

china now top trader with japan china overtook the us to become japan s biggest trading partner in 2004 according to numbers released by japan s finance ministry on wednesday. china accounted for 20.1% of japan s trade in 2004 compared with 18.6% for the us. in 2003 the us was ahead with 20.5% and china came second with 19.2%. the change highlights china s growing importance as an economic powerhouse. in 2004 japan s imports from and exports to china (and hong kong) added up to 22 201bn yen ($214.6bn;£114.5bn). this is the highest figure for japanese trade with china since records began in 1947. it compares with 20 479.5bn yen in trade with the us. trade with the us during 2004 was hurt by one-off factors including a 13-month ban on us beef imports following the discovery of a cow infected with mad cow disease (bse) in the us. however economists predict china will become an even more important japanese trading partner in the coming years. on tuesday figures showed china s economy grew by 9.5% in 2004 and experts say the overall growth picture remains strong. analysts see two spurs to future growth as being china s membership of the world trade organisation and lower trade tariffs. during 2004 japan s trade surplus grew 17.9% to 12.011 trillion yen with more than half the surplus 6.962 trillion yen accounted for by its trade with the us. in december the surplus grew 1.8% on a year ago to 1.14 trillion yen thanks to stronger-than-expected exports.

Business

downing injury mars uefa victory middlesbrough boss steve mcclaren hopes that stewart downing did not seriously damage his hamstring during the 2-1 uefa cup win over graz ak. the winger was carried off on a stretcher in the closing stages as boro booked their place in the last 16. mcclaren said: stewart has tweaked a hamstring which is a blow for us. we will assess it in the morning. but i m delighted with the match result. they say in sport you can win ugly - and we certainly did. mcclaren was relieved to make it through after a tough encounter at the riverside. to be fair to graz they had a gameplan - they knocked the ball forward especially in the first half and we struggled to deal with it. in the second half we were better but it was frustrating because we got the goal - but one slip and they were back in it. boro face sporting lisbon for a place in the quarter-finals after the portuguese side saw off feyenoord on thursday. and mcclaren added: sporting are technically very good - portuguese sides always are. but the journey goes on for us and we will now go to their magnificent stadium - after the first game here - we ll look forward to it. goalscorer jimmy floyd hasselbaink added: it wasn t a particularly beautiful match to watch - but they made it difficult for us. we didn t play well at all. but you need a little bit of luck and i think we got that when my shot went through the legs of their goalkeeper. i would have liked to play in holland - that would have been a little bit special to me. but so is going back to portugal - i ll be playing against some lads i played with at boavista.

Sports

web radio takes spanish rap global spin the radio dial in the us and you are likely to find plenty of spanish-language music. but what you will not find is much spanish-language hip-hop. hip-hop and rap are actually quite popular in the spanish-speaking world but local artists are having trouble marketing their work abroad. but now a us company is bringing rap and hip-hop en espanol to computer users everywhere. los caballeros de plan g are one of mexico s hottest hip-hop acts. they have a devoted fan base in their native monterrey. but most mexican hip-hop fans not to mention fans in most of the spanish-speaking world rarely get a chance to hear the group s tracks on the radio. you can t really just go on the radio and listen to hip-hop in spanish... it s just not accessible says manuel millan a native of san diego california. it s really hard for the spanish hip-hop scene to get into mainstream radio. you usually have a very commercialised sound and the groups are not really known around the country or around the world. millan and two friends set out to change that - they wanted to make groups like los caballeros de plan g accessible to fans globally. mainstream radio stations were not going to play this kind of music and starting their own broadcast station was economically impossible. so millan and his friends launched a website called latinohiphopradio.com. the name says it all: it is web-based radio devoted to the hottest spanish language rap and hip-hop tracks. the site which is in both in english and spanish is meant to be easy to navigate. all the user has to do is download a media player. there are no djs. it is just music streamed over the net for free. suddenly with the help of the website los caballeros de plan g are producing export quality rap. the web might be just the right medium for spanish language hip-hop right now. the genre is in what millan calls its infant stage . but the production values are improving and artists such as argentina s mustafa yoda are pushing to make it better and better. mustafa yoda is currently one of the hottest tracks on latinohiphopradio.com. he s considered the eminem of argentina and the latin american hip-hop scene millan says. he really hasn t had that much exposure as far as anywhere in the world but he s definitely the one to look out for as far as becoming the next big thing in the spanish-speaking world. currently the chilean group makisa is also in latinohiphopradio.com s top 10 as is cuban artist papo record. every country s got it s own cultural differences and they try to put those into their own songs millan says. latinohiphopradio.com has been up and running for a couple of months now. the site has listeners from across the spanish speaking world. right now mexico leads the way accounting for about 50% of listeners. but web surfers in spain are logging in as well - about 25% of the web station s traffic comes from there. that is not surprising as many consider spain to be the leader in spanish-language rap and hip-hop. millan says that spain is actually just behind the united states and france in terms of overall rap and hip-hop production. that might be changing though as more and more latin american artists are finding audiences. but one spaniard is still firmly in latinohiphopradio.com s top 10. his name is tote king and manuel millan says that he is the hip-hop leader in spain. on his track uno contra veinte emcees or one against 20 emcees tote king shows he is well aware of that fact. it s basically him bragging that he s one of the best emcees in spain right now millan says. and it s pretty much true. he has the tightest productions and his rap flow is impeccable it s amazing. latinohiphopradio.com is hoping to expand in the coming year. millan says they want to include more music and more news from the world of spanish language hip-hop and rap. clark boyd is technology correspondent for the world a bbc world service and wgbh-boston co-production.

Science_and_Techology

apple unveils low-cost mac mini apple has unveiled a new low-cost macintosh computer for the masses billed as the mac mini. chief executive steve jobs showed off the new machine at his annual macworld speech in san francisco. the $499 macintosh sold for £339 in the uk was described by jobs as the most important mac made by apple. mr jobs also unveiled the ipod shuffle a new music player using cheaper flash memory rather than hard drives which are used in more expensive ipods. the new computer shifts the company into new territory - traditionally the firm is known as a design and innovation-led firm rather than as a mass-market manufacturer. the mac mini comes without a monitor keyboard and mouse and a second version with a larger hard drive will also be sold for $599. the machine - which will be available from 22 january - was described by jobs as byodkm... bring your own display keyboard and mouse . in an attempt to win over windows pc customers mr jobs said it would appeal to people thinking of changing operating systems. people who are thinking of switching will have no more excuses he said. it s the newest and most affordable mac ever. the new computer has been the subject of speculation for several weeks and while few people will be surprised by the announcement many analysts had already said it was a sensible move. in january apple sued a website after it published what it said were specifications for the new computer. ian harris deputy editor of uk magazine mac format said the machine would appeal to pc-owning consumers who had purchased an ipod. they want a further taste of mac because they like what they have seen with ipod. harris added: everybody thought that apple was happy to remain a niche maker of luxury computers and moving into a market dominated by low margin manufacturers like dell is a bold move. but it shows that apple is keen to capitalise on the mass market success it s had with the ipod. the mac mini will appeal to pc users looking for an attractive no fuss computer. the new ipod shuffle comes in two versions - one offering 512mb of storage for $99 (£69 in the uk) and a second with one gigabyte of storage for $149 (£99) - and went on sale tuesday. the music player has no display and will play songs either consecutively or shuffled. the smaller ipod will hold about 120 songs said mr jobs. mr jobs told the delegates at macworld that ipod already had a 65% market share of all digital music players.

Science_and_Techology

slim playstation triples sales sony playstation 2 s slimmer shape has proved popular with uk gamers with 50 000 sold in its first week on sale. sales have tripled since launch outstripping microsoft s xbox said market analysts chart-track. the numbers were also boosted by the release of the ps2-only game grand theft auto: san andreas. the title broke the uk sales record for video games in its first weekend of release. latest figures suggest it has sold more than 677 000 copies. it is obviously very very encouraging for sony because microsoft briefly outsold them last week john houlihan editor of computerandvideogames.com told bbc news. and with halo 2 [for xbox] out next week it really is a head-to-head contest between them and xbox. although xbox sales over the last week also climbed ps2 sales were more than double that. the figures mean sony is reaching the seven million barrier for uk sales of the console. edinburgh-based developer rockstar which is behind the gta titles has seen san andreas pull in an estimated £24m in gross revenues over the weekend. in comparison blockbuster films like harry potter and the prisoner of azkaban took £11.5m in its first three days at the uk box office. the lord of the rings: the return of the king took nearly £10m over its opening weekend although games titles are four to five times more expensive than cinema tickets. gangster-themed gta san andreas is the sequel to grand theft auto vice city which previously held the record for the fastest-selling video game ever. the xbox game halo 2 released on 11 november in the uk is also widely tipped to be one of the best-selling games of the year. the original title won universal acclaim in 2001 and sold more than four million copies. mr houlihan added that sony had done well with the ps2 but it definitely helped that the release of san andreas coincided with the slimline ps2 hitting the shelves. the run-up to christmas is a huge battlefield for games consoles and titles. microsoft s xbox had been winning the race up until last week in sales. the sales figures also suggest that it may be a largely adult audience driving demand since gta san andreas has an 18 certificate. sony and microsoft have both reduced console prices recently and are preparing the way for the launches of their next generation consoles in 2005. both have hit crucial price points at around £100 and that really does open up new consoles to new audience plus the release of two really important games in terms of development are also driving those sales said mr houlihan.

Science_and_Techology

hantuchova in dubai last eight daniela hantuchova moved into the quarter-finals of the dubai open after beating elene likhotseva of russia 7-5 6-4 and now faces serena williams. australian open champion williams survived an early scare to beat russia s elena bovina 1-6 6-1 6-4. world number one lindsay davenport and anastasia myskina also progressed. davenport defeated china s jie zheng 6-2 7-5 while french open champion myskina sailed through after her opponent marion bartoli retired hurt. american davenport will now face fellow former wimbledon champion conchita martinez of spain who ousted seventh-seeded nathalie dechy of france 6-1 6-2. myskina will face eighth-seed patty schnyder from switzerland who defeated china s li na 6-3 7-6 (10-8). the other quarter final pits wild card sania mirza of india against jelena jankovic of serbia and montenegro who both won on tuesday. before her meeting with martinez davenport believes there is some room for improvement in her game. i started well and finished well but played some so-so games in the middle she said. williams was also far from content. i don t know what i was doing there she said. it was really windy and i hadn t played in the wind. all my shots were going out of here. but hantuchova is in upbeat mood ahead of her clash with the younger williams sister who was handed a first-round bye. i feel i have an advantage (over serena) because i have already played two matches on these courts she said. it is a difficult court to play on. very fast and sometimes you feel you have no control over the ball.

Sports

france telecom gets orange boost strong growth in subscriptions to mobile phone network orange has helped boost profits at owner france telecom. orange added more than five million new customers in 2004 leading to a 10% increase in its revenues. increased take-up of broadband telecoms services also boosted france telecom s profits which showed a 5.5% rise to 18.3bn euros ($23.4bn; £12.5bn). france telecom is to spend 578m euros on buying out minority shareholders in data services provider equant. france telecom one of the world s largest telecoms and internet service providers saw its full-year sales rise 2.2% to 47.2bn euros in 2004. orange enjoyed strong growth outside france and the united kingdom - its core markets - swelling its subscriber base to 5.4 million. france telecom s broadband customers also increased rising to 5.1 million across europe by the end of the year. the firm said it had met its main strategic objectives of growing its individual businesses and further reducing its large debt. an ill-fated expansion drive in the late 1990s saw france telecom s debt soar to 72bn euros by 2002. however this has now been reduced to 43.9bn euros. our results for 2004 allow us to improve our financial structure while focusing on the innovation that drives our strategy said chief executive thierry breton. looking ahead the company forecast like-for-like sales growth of between 3% and 5% over the next three years. france telecom is consolidating its interest in equant which provides telecoms and data services to businesses. subject to approval by shareholders of the two firms it will buy the shares in equant it does not already own. france telecom said it would fund the deal by selling an 8% stake in telephone directory company pagesjaunes.

Business

ireland 17-12 south africa ronan o gara scored all ireland s points as the home side claimed only their second ever win over south africa on an emotional day at lansdowne road. o gara s first-half try poached after a quick tap-penalty helped the irish to a 8-3 lead at half-time. three further o gara penalties extended ireland s lead to 17-6 as the game entered the final quarter. two percy montgomery penalties set up a frantic finish but ireland held out to claim a famous victory. ireland began strongly and were never led but the match was tense and closely fought throughout. aware of the threat posed by the south africans ireland pressed hard from the outset and played some impressive rugby while searching for a breakthrough. early on denis hickie thought he was in for a try after a delightful backline move but shane horgan s pass was adjudged to have gone forward by referee paul honiss. ireland continued to press and they showed their intent by opting for a line-out in the 19th minute when three straight-forward points were on offer. another south african infringement a minute later led to ireland s first points - o gara took a quick tap-penalty and charged over the opposition line for an irish try. the springboks could feel hard done by as captain john smit had his back to the play when o gara pounced after referee honiss had told the skipper to warn his own players after consistent infringements. stung by the score the south africans almost replied with a try of their own within 60 seconds with geordan murphy s ankle-tap tackle denying a certain try for percy montgomery. however the springboks did win a penalty a minute later which montgomery easily slotted to cut ireland s lead to 5-3. ireland got out of jail when the south africans had a three-to-one overlap near the irish line only to waste the chance. after the sustained springboks pressure the irish produced an attack of their own in the 34th minute which culminated with o gara s clever drop-goal to restore his side s lead to five points which remained the margin at half-time. sustained irish pressure immediately after half-time was rewarded by another o gara penalty. however montgomery responded quickly by slotting over a superb penalty from near the right touchline to cut ireland s lead to five points again. montgomery then burst through the irish defence in the 48th minute and it took a superb girvan dempsey tackle to prevent a try. the south africans suffered a double-blow in the 52nd minute when schalk burger was sin-binned for the second week in a row after killing the ball and o gara punished the transgression by notching another penalty. in the 61st minute hickie was left frustrated by a poor pass from girvan dempsey as a chance to seal the match was wasted. however a late tackle on brian o driscoll enabled o gara to notch another penalty in the 63rd minute which extended ireland s lead to 17-6. however two montgomery penalties had ireland s lead in peril again as the springboks closed to within five points with seven minutes remaining. south africa produced a huge effort in the closing minutes but ireland held on to claim a deserved victory. g dempsey; g murphy b o driscoll (capt) s horgan d hickie; r o gara p stringer; r corrigan s byrne j hayes m o kelly p o connell s easterby j o connor a foley. f sheahan m horan d o callaghan e miller g easterby d humphreys k maggs. : p montgomery; b paulse m joubert de wet barry a willemse j van der westhuyzen; f du preez; o du randt j smit (captain) e andrews b botha v matfield s burger aj venter j van niekerk. : h shimange cj van der linde g britz d rossouw m claassens j de villiers g du toit/j fourie. paul honiss (new zealand)

Sports

loyalty cards idea for tv addicts viewers could soon be rewarded for watching tv as loyalty cards come to a screen near you. any household hooked up to sky could soon be using smartcards in conjunction with their set-top boxes. broadcasters such as sky and itv could offer viewers loyalty points in return for watching a particular channel or programme. sky will activate a spare slot on set-top boxes in january marketing magazine new media age reported. sky set-top boxes have two slots. one is for the viewer s decryption card while the other has been dormant until now. loyalty cards have become a common addition to most wallets as high street brands rush to keep customers with a series of incentives offered by store cards. now similar schemes look set to enter the highly competitive world of multi-channel tv. viewers who stay loyal to a particular tv channel could be rewarded by free tv content or freebies from retail partners. broadcasters aiming content at children could offer smartcards which gives membership to exclusive content and clubs. parents could pre-pay for some content as a kind of tv pocket money card said nigel whalley managing director of media consultancy decipher. viewers could even be rewarded for watching ad breaks with ideas such as ad bingo being touted by firms keen to make money out of the new market said mr whalley. credit cards that have been chipped could be used in set-top boxes to pay for movies gambling and gaming. the idea of an intelligent card in boxes offers a lot of possibilities. it will be down to the ingenuity of the content players said mr whalley. for the bbc revenue-generating activity will be of little interest but the new development may prompt changes to freeview set-top boxes said mr whalley. currently most freeview boxes do not have a slot which would allow viewers to use a smartcard. some 7.4 million households have sky boxes and sky is hoping to increase this to 10 million by 2010. loyalty cards could play a role in this particularly in reducing the number of people who cancel their sky subscriptions said ian fogg an analyst with jupiter research.

Science_and_Techology

collins named uk athletics chief uk athletics has ended its search for a new performance director by appointing psychologist dave collins. collins who worked with the british teams at the 2000 and 2004 olympics takes over from max jones. six candidates were interviewed for the job including denise lewis coach charles van commenee and former british triple jumper keith connor. we ve searched long and hard to ensure we have found the right person said uka chief executive david moorcroft. we have thoroughly tested the candidates. i believe david will make a great leader and i have great faith in what he will achieve. collins said: it s a great challenge. over the next few months i will spend time listening to those who already make a significant contribution to athletics and other elite sports in the uk. collins who has worked with javelin thrower steve backley in the past started his career as a royal marine before becoming a pe teacher. he is currently professor of physical education and sport performance at edinburgh university where he helps competitors across many sports including rugby athletics judo and football. he has specialised in helping competitors fulfil their potential through psychology and has worked with the great britain women s curling team who won gold at the 2002 winter olympics. mark lewis-francis sought collins advice in athens when he was looking for inspiration before he ran the final leg of britain s surprise triumph in the 4x100m relay. collins has played rugby at regional level was captain of the great britain american football team and competed at national level in judo and karate. he arrives with british athletics at a crossroads. despite kelly holmes golden double and the success of the sprint relay squad the gb team failed to live up to expectations in athens. many older competitors have retired or are coming to the end of their careers and britain failed to win a single medal at the world junior championships in italy this year. collins will not have day-to-day coaching contact with the athletes but will be expected to make changes to the system and coaching set-up in order to secure medals at the beijing olympics in 2008. the appointment of a new performance director was one of the main recommendations in sir andrew foster s review of the sport which was published in may. it was commissioned by uk sport and sport england which wanted uk athletics to justify funding of more than £40m from the government following the failure to hang on to the 2005 world championships which are now being held in helsinki. van commenee dropped out of the selection process to take on the same role with the dutch olympic committee while connor s application was rejected after an arduous interview process. foster however declared himself satisfied with how the appointment was made. the appointment of david collins with his strong mix of leadership skills and managerial experience is testament to the professional and detailed recruitment process he said.

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india and russia in energy talks india and russia are to work together in a series of energy deals part of a pact which could see india invest up to $20bn in oil and gas projects. on the agenda are oil and gas extraction as well as transportation deals to be led by russian energy giant gazprom and india s ongc. the indian firm is also expected to hold talks on tuesday about buying a stake in assets once owned by yukos. it is reported to be keen on buying a 15% stake in oil unit yuganskneftegas. the former yukos subsidiary was controversially sold off last year and eventually acquired by state-owned energy giant rosneft. russian media reported that india and russia signed a memorandum of understanding on energy co-operation on tuesday during a meeting between oil and natural gas corporation chairman subir raha gazprom chairman aleksey miller and india s petroleum minister mani shankar aiyar. the agreement is likely to see the two companies develop refining facilities in russia india and elsewhere and organise delivery of oil gas and petrochemicals from russia to india and other countries across asia. ongc could invest in gas and oil fields in sakhalin in the far east of russia and may also take part in joint tender bids for projects in eastern siberia and the caspian sea. india is urgently searching for fresh energy supplies - particularly liquefied natural gas - as domestic demand is growing at more than 5% a year. ongc s mr raha said the two could work together on joint bids from next year. at current oil and gas prices our cash flow situation is good he told reuters. what we are saying is - gazprom has a huge amount of gas and we have the money. the investment may go up to $20bn or more for a period of five years or so. russian news agencies reported that india s petroleum minister mr aiyar and russian energy minister viktor khristenko would discuss the future of yugansk at a meeting on tuesday. ongc s mr raha declined to be drawn on his firm s reported interest in the company. however he stressed that ongc was not interested in a loan-for-oil deal in connection to yugansk similar to that concluded recently between rosneft and china s national petroleum corporation. china s problem is it has immediate demand and they needed the oil for their coastal refineries. we do not. we would like long-term security through equity participation. it is thought that any decision over yugansk will be delayed until a us court has decided whether to grant yukos bankruptcy protection. yukos is suing a host of companies involved in the sale of yugansk auctioned off to pay a huge back-tax bill. it has also threatened legal action against any business which has future commercial dealings with its former subsidiary.

Business

no re-draft for eu patent law a proposed european law on software patents will not be re-drafted by the european commission (ec) despite requests by meps. the law is proving controversial and has been in limbo for a year. some major tech firms say it is needed to protect inventions while others fear it will hurt smaller tech firms. the ec says the council of ministers will adopt a draft version that was agreed upon last may but said it would review all aspects of the directive . the directive is intended to offer patent protection to inventions that use software to achieve their effect in other words computer implemented invention . in a letter ec president josé manuel barroso told the president of the european parliament josep borrell that the commission did not intend to refer a new proposal to the parliament and the council (of ministers) as it had supported the agreement reached by ministers in may 2004. if the european council agrees on the draft directive it will then return for a second reading at the european parliament. but that will not guarantee that the directive will become law - instead it will probably mean further delays and controversy over the directive. most eu legislation now needs the approval of both parliament and the council of ministers before it becomes law. french green mep alain lipietz warned two weeks ago that if the commission ignored the parliament s request it would be an insult to the assembly. he said that the parliament would then reject the council s version of the legislation as part of the final or conciliation stage of the decision procedure. in the us the patenting of computer programs and internet business methods is permitted. this means that the us-based amazon.com holds a patent for its one-click shopping service for example. critics are concerned that the directive could lead to a similar model happening in europe. this they fear could hurt small software developers because they do not have the legal and financial might of larger companies if they had to fight patent legal action in court. supporters say current laws are inefficient and it would serve to even up a playing field without bringing eu laws in line with the us.

Science_and_Techology

new delay hits eu software laws a fresh delay has hit controversial new european union rules which govern computer-based inventions. the draft law was not adopted by eu ministers as planned at a brussels meeting on monday during which it was supposed to have been discussed. the fresh delay came after polish officials had raised concerns about the law for the second time in two months. critics say the law would favour large companies over small ones and could impact open-source software innovation. there was at one point the intention to put the item on today s agenda. but in the end we could not put it on an eu spokesman told the reuters agency. he added that no date had been chosen for more discussion of the law. in december poland requested more time to consider the issue because it was concerned that the law could lead to the patenting of pure computer software. its ministers want to see the phrasing of the text of the directive on the patentability of computer-implemented inventions changed so that it excludes software patenting. poland is a large eu member so its backing for the legislation is vital. the eu says the law would bring europe more in line with how such laws work in the us but this has caused some angry debate amongst critics and supporters. in the us the patenting of computer programs and internet business methods is permitted. this means that the us-based amazon.com holds a patent for its one-click shopping service. critics say a similar model in europe would hurt small software developers which do not have the legal and financial might of larger companies. but supporters say current law does not let big companies protect inventions which they have spent years developing.

Science_and_Techology

south africa sweep top awards south africa s schalk burger was named player of the year as the tri-nations champions swept the top honours at the international rugby board s awards. the flanker topped a list which included ireland star gordon d arcy and australian sensation matt giteau. jake white claimed the coaching award while his side held off grand slam winners france to take the team award. england player simon amor beat team-mate ben gollings and argentine lucio lopez fleming to win the sevens award. burger s award came just a week after he won the equivalent prize from his fellow international players and white who also coached burger at under-21 level paid tribute to him. schalk s emergence as a major force has meant a lot to south african rugby but has also influenced world rugby said white. he s become to south african rugby what jonty rhodes was to south african cricket. it s amazing what he has achieved in such a short time so far in his international career. amor who will captain england in this season s opening irb sevens tournament the dubai sevens which start on thursday was delighted with his award. there are so many great sevens players on the circuit at the moment that this is a genuine honour said the gloucester fly-half.

Sports

podcasters look to net money nasa is doing it 14-year-old boys in bedrooms are doing it couples are doing it gadget lovers - male and female - are definitely doing it. it is podcasting - diy radio in the form of downloadable mp3 audio files. they can done by anyone who has a microphone simple software the net and something to say. some liken them to talking audioblogs because many complement text-based weblogs - diary-like sites where people share their thoughts. they are essentially amateur radio shows on the net on demand and the movement is at very early stages. it s about real people saying real things and communicating says adam curry former mtv vj and the pied piper of podcasting. he was one of a community of people who created ipodder a small computer program known as an aggregator . it collects and automatically sends mp3 files to any digital music-playing device that can play wmp formats. those with digital music players can select which podcasts they like and subscribe - for free - to that show s feed . when a new podcast is available it is automatically sent to the device when connected to a computer. it is totally going to kill the business model of radio thinks curry. i just did a tour of madison avenue where all the big brands and advertising agencies of the world are he says. and they are scared to death of the next generation - like my daughter who is 14 - who don t listen to radio. they are on msn they ve got their ipod their mp3 player they ve got their xbox - they are not listening to radio. so how are they going to reach these audiences it is the distribution that is changing and the barriers are being brought down so everyone can be part of it. it is a fledgling movement but it is gaining momentum now that people have started thinking about how to make a business from it. ian fogg jupiter research analyst thinks there could be potential for business but it could take an interesting turn if big companies like apple and microsoft get involved. it is a nascent area but quite exciting. it is yet another area that demonstrates the move to a digital lifestyle and digital home is not over he says. podcasting is one of those interesting areas that bridges what you do at home and what you do out and about - a classic hybrid. it is another aspect of the time-shifting of content - the latest industry buzzword for being able to listen to what you want when and wherever you want. audiences are in the 10s 100s and 1 000s rather than millions. more than 4 300 podcasts are currently listed. curry s daily source code - which he committed to doing daily to inspire the community - has 10s of thousands of listeners. but dave winer is doubtful. he designed the format called rss (really simple syndication) which gives web users an easy way to keep updated automatically on sites they like. podcasts rely on his technology because it is the way they are distributed. he is also writer of the longest-running weblog on the net scripting news. he thinks its power lies in its democratising potential not in its over-hyped business promise. we re the sources the people doing stuff and podcasting is a way to tell people who care what we re doing. no matter how you look at it commercialising this medium isn t going to make very much money he says. podcasting is going to be a medium of niches with audiences measured in the single digits like e-mail or blogs. maybe in a few years maybe six or seven digits. but it will have to sustain interest beyond the hype balloon. curry and associate ron bloom s new venture called podshow is to help ordinary people produce post distribute and market their podcasts. because of the way podcasts work based on rss the latest podcasts which people can select mean that they are ready-made targets. when you look at podcasting - wow this is a pretty interesting audience. the audience is pre-selected. they have decided to subscribe to your program explains curry. advertising in his eyes can be tailored to podcasts to make it more imaginative and unobtrusive. how i believe this will work is to create a network that in aggregation will have enough numbers to support a return on investment for the advertisers and for the podcasters. i have 50 60 70 000 listeners. i could make a couple of bucks off that but not much. if you are talking a million podcasters and then you can kind of divide that amongst ourselves then that is kind of interesting. essentially he says if you are doing a bass fishing podcast someone who is selling bait and tackle will probably want to advertise on your show. he is clear the ads will not be the traditional in-your-face type familiar to commercial radio now. we are really going to see these microcosms and commerce will be all over the place. it is happening already. coffee-loving curry has sold $4 000 worth of coffee machines through a referral link to amazon from his site. others use in-show promotions like the dawn and drew show. one eric rice has won sponsorship from warner bros. he can now legally play the music of a band warner bros wants to push. some commentators on the net say it has a similar feel to the dotcom days. others say it is just another element of setting media free from big companies and letting people be creative. one thing is for sure; they are not about to disappear in a hurry. the creative forces behind radio are elated says curry. for now he tunes out the negative comments within the podcasting community. i should be knighted for this he adds with a wry chuckle people are going to be so happy to sit at home make their podcast and make a little money.

Science_and_Techology

man city 0-2 man utd manchester united reduced chelsea s premiership lead to nine points after a scrappy victory over manchester city. wayne rooney met gary neville s cross to the near post with a low shot which went in via a deflection off richard dunne to put united ahead. seven minutes later the unfortunate dunne hooked a volley over david james head and into his own net. steve mcmanaman wasted city s best chance when he shot wide from three yards in the first half. in the opening 45 minutes united had looked unlikely to earn the win they needed to maintain any chance of catching chelsea in the title race. their approach play was more laboured than patient and they managed to fashion just one chance - a paul scholes header over the bar. and city seemed to be content to sit back and try and hit their rivals on the break as the game settled into a tepid pattern. only shaun wright-phillips appeared capable of interrupting the monotony looking lively down the right and causing gabriel heinze problems. wes brown also found wright-phillips to be a difficult opponent when the tricky winger embarrassed him near the touchline. wright-phillips sublime skill and pace took him past brown and he delivered a pin-point centre to the feet of mcmanaman. but the former liverpool player demonstrated why he has never scored against united by side-footing the easy chance wide. john o shea was forced off after an earlier clash with sylvain distin and cristiano ronaldo came on to replace him. he immediately caused ben thatcher some discomfort and looked set to inject some much-needed pace into the united attack. rooney was being well marshalled by dunne - but that was all about to change. after the break united poured forward and there was a renewed urgency about their play. and when neville delivered a cross in a carbon copy of city s best first-half chance rooney showed mcmanaman how to do it - even if he needed the help of dunne s leg. worse was to come for dunne who had been having a fine match. on 75 minutes he scored a horrible own goal when attempting to volley clear rooney s cross and united seemed home and dry. however city did fight back and fowler missed another great chance from close range. and united keeper roy carroll saved well from kiki musampa. but united could have a had a third late on when substitute ryan giggs hit the post. - manchester city boss kevin keegan: we had a great chance to take the lead and the first goal was always going to be crucial. we started off with a good tempo but then we allowed them to dictate the pace a bit too much. but we still had four good chances two after we d gone 2-0 down the one mcmanaman missed was very similar to the one wayne rooney scored from. - manchester united boss sir alex ferguson: it wasn t our best performance of the last three months but i think we re deserved winners. at times especially in the first half we didn t play with enough speed. but with (cristiano) ronaldo and (ryan) giggs on the speed improved. derby games can be like that they can be scrappy dull horrible and it was maybe like that. man city: james mills (bradley wright-phillips 83) dunne distin thatcher shaun wright-phillips barton (macken 68) sibierski mcmanaman musampa fowler. subs not used: weaver onuoha flood. booked: fowler sibierski. man utd: carroll gary neville ferdinand brown heinze o shea (ronaldo 33) keane fortune fletcher (giggs 64) rooney scholes (phil neville 84). subs not used: howard bellion. booked: rooney scholes keane. goals: rooney 68 dunne 75 og. att: 47 111 ref: s bennett (kent).

Sports

tevez - an argentine in brazil some 65 years ago bernardo gandulla left boca juniors in his native argentina and headed for brazil. he arrived at the vasco da gama club with considerable prestige - which he failed to live up to. he left an impression but not for reasons he would have wanted. the only thing of note he did was to throw the ball back when it went out of play. even today gandula is the term used in brazil for ballboy. brazilians delighted in the failure of gandulla then and many will delight now if history is repeated. another boca juniors player is coming to brazil. the new maradona - carlos tevez - is joining corinthians for nearly $20m in a strong candidate for the strangest move of the year. corinthians - or the london-based company who have just entered into partnership with them - appear to have paid well above the odds for tevez. it is particularly strange as - until last week - tevez was not even an especially big name in brazil where the argentine championship is not shown. presumably there is some financial logic behind the move. what is harder to work out is why tevez should be interested in heading north rather than across the atlantic. argentina s brightest new star hit top form in august as he spearheaded the charge towards the olympic gold medal. but the subsequent months have not been easy for tevez. boca re-signed martin palermo forcing tevez to vacate his favoured centre forward role. and off the pitch he gave the press plenty to report - atletico madrid gave up on him after declaring his private life to be disorganized. hounded by the press tevez grew tired of his life in buenos aires. so now he says that he is heading for corinthians in search of tranquillity. anyone acquainted with the city of são paulo will relish the nonsense of this declaration. brazil s biggest city is a sprawling ugly restless metropolis. once it shared with buenos aires the same melancholy air of a city of italian immigrants. but that world now lies buried under skyscrapers. the most turbulent place in this frenetic city is sport club corinthians. it is the most passionately supported club in brazil. pelé scored reams of goals against them reasoning that unless he did something special the corinthians fans were capable of winning the game on their own. that passion can also be turned against the team - especially nowadays when the level of urban violence gives a hysterical edge to life in brazil s big cities. corinthians fans have invaded the dressing room or ambushed the team coach to attack the players. tevez then can kiss tranquillity goodbye. he can also say farewell to the copa libertadores south america s champions league. corinthians have not qualified. indeed he will have a long wait for a worthwhile match. next year s brazilian championship only gets underway at the end of april. until then he will have to make do with the foolish são paulo state championship an appalling waste of his talent. there will be matches in small towns on poor pitches with plenty of defenders keen to kick him all the way back to argentina. like so many of the top south american players tevez has the gift of being able to surprise - to feint right and go left to pass when he was expected to dribble to shoot and catch the goalkeeper unawares. but his choice of destination is the biggest surprise of all.

Sports

philippoussis doubt over open bid mark philippoussis is almost certain to miss the australian open after suffering a groin injury during the hopman cup loss to the netherlands. the 28-year-old suffered two tears to the adductor muscle and was unable to play in the deciding mixed doubles. he is now unlikely to be fit in time for the australian open which begins on 17 january in melbourne. he has to strengthen it enough to cope with repetitive days of tennis said hopman cup doctor hamish osborne. it would be very unlikely in my opinion for him to do a five-setter once let alone two days in a row inside two weeks. the injury is more common in australian rules football and a fit footballer would normally take three to four weeks to recover fully although mark s injury is slightly different. the australian has suffered a host of injury problems throughout his career but is still holding out slim hope that he can make the event. it s something i ll have to go by feel. i ll start treatment as soon as possible and try to strengthen it without tearing it any more he said. what doesn t kill you makes you stronger. i know i can come back from this and that s all that matters. - former world number two tommy haas is also a doubt for the australian open after picking up a thigh injury playing for germany in the hopman cup. the 26-year-old had treatment on his left thigh while leading argentine guillermo coria 7-5 2-2. he played one more game but his movement was hampered and he quit.

Sports

court mulls file-sharing future judges at the us supreme court have been hearing evidence for and against file-sharing networks. the court will decide whether producers of file-sharing software can ultimately be held responsible for copyright infringement. they questioned if opening the way for the entertainment industry to sue file-sharers could deter innovation. they also said that file-trading firms had some responsibility for inducing people to piracy. the lawsuit brought by 28 of the world s largest entertainment firms has raged for several years. legal experts agree that if the supreme court finds in favour of the music and movie industry they would be able to sue file-trading firms into bankruptcy. but if the judge rules that grokster and morpheus - the file-sharers at the centre of the case - are merely providers of technology that can have legitimate as well as illegitimate uses then the music and movie industry would be forced to abandon its pursuit of file-sharing providers. instead they would have to pursue individuals who use peer-to-peer networks to get their hands on free music and movies. the hi-tech and entertainment industries have been divided on the issue. intel filed a document with the supreme court earlier this month in defence of grokster and others despite misgivings about some aspects of the file-sharing community. it summed up the attitude of many tech firms in its submission which states that its products are essentially tools that like any other tools capable of being used by consumers and businesses for unlawful purposes . asking firms to second-guess the uses that its technologies would be put to and to build in ways of preventing illegitimate use would stifle innovation it said. the electronic frontier foundation a civil rights watchdog is also defending streamcast networks the company behind the morpheus file-sharing software. the case raises a question of critical importance at the border between copyright and innovation it said. it cites as do many the landmark ruling in 1984 which found that sony should not be held responsible for the fact that its betamax video recorder could be used for piracy. defenders remain optimistic that the judges will rule in favour of the peer-to-peer networks upholding the precedent set by the sony betamax case. a small band of supporters were outside the court as the lawyers entered wearing save betamax t-shirts. the betamax principles stand as the magna carta for the technology industry and are responsible for the explosion in innovation that has occurred in the us over the past 20 years said gary shapiro chief executive of the consumer electronics association. supreme court justice stephen breyer said that inventions from printing to apple s ipod could be used to illegally duplicate copyrighted materials but had on balance been beneficial to society. he said that while file-trading software can be used to illegally trade movies and music conceptually the technology had some really excellent uses . based on tuesday s hearing it seems unlikely that the betamax ruling will be overturned but file-sharing firms might still be held responsible for encouraging or inducing piracy. grokster s lawyer argued that the company should be judged by its current behaviour rather than what it did when it first set up. but this argument was dismissed as ridiculous by justice david souter. cea boss mr shapiro thinks the case is the most important that the supreme court will hear this year. it s about preserving america s proud history of technological innovation and protecting the ability of consumers to access and utilise technology he said. the case has already been heard by two lower courts and both found in favour of the peer-to-peer networks. they ruled that despite being used to distribute millions of illegal songs file-sharing could also be used to cheaply distribute software government documents and promotional copies of music.

Science_and_Techology

alfa romeos to get gm engines fiat is to stop making six-cylinder petrol engines for its sporty alfa romeo subsidiary unions at the italian carmaker have said. the unions claim fiat is to close the fiat powertrain plant at arese near milan and instead source six-cylinder engines from general motors. fiat has yet to comment on the matter but the unions say the new engines will be made by gm in australia. the news comes a week after gm pulled out of an agreement to buy fiat. gm had to pay former partner fiat 1.55bn euros ($2bn; £1.1bn) to get out of a deal which could have forced it to buy the italian carmaker outright. fiat and gm also ended their five-year alliance and two joint ventures in engines and purchasing but did agree to continue buying each other s engines. powertrain told us today that alfa romeo engines will no longer be made in arese said union leader vincenzo lilliu as reported by the reuters news agency. the assembly line will be dismantled and the six-cylinder alfa romeo motor will be replaced with an engine gm produces in australia. reuters also said that mr lilliu and other union bosses shouted insults at fiat chairman luca di montezemolo following a meeting on tuesday regarding the future of the arese plant. the unions said the end of engine production at the facility would mean the loss of 800 jobs. all alfa romeo models can be bought with a six-cylinder engine - the 147 156 156 sportwagon 166 gtv gt and spider.

Business

playstation 3 chip to be unveiled details of the chip designed to power sony s playstation 3 console will be released in san francisco on monday. sony ibm and toshiba who have been working on the cell processor for three years will unveil the chip at a technology conference. the chip is reported to be up to 10 times faster than current processors. it is being designed for use in graphics workstations the new playstation console and has been described as a supercomputer on a chip. sony has said the cell processor could be used to bridge the gap between movies and video games. special effects and graphics designed for films could be ported for use directly in a video game sony told an audience at the e3 exhibition in los angeles last year. cell could also be marketed as an ideal technology for televisions and supercomputers and everything in between said kevin krewell the editor in chief of microprocessor report. the chip will be made of several different processing cores that work on tasks together. the playstation 3 is expected in 2006 but developers are expecting to get prototypes early next year to tune games that will appear on it at launch. details of the chip will be released at the international solid state circuits conference in san francisco. some details have already emerged however. when put inside powerful computer servers the cell consortium expects it to be capable of handling 16 trillion floating point operations or calculations every second. the chip has also been refined to be able to handle the detailed graphics common in games and the data demands of films and broadband media. ibm said it would start producing the chip in early 2005 at manufacturing plants in the us. the first machines off the line using the cell processor will be computer workstations and servers. a working version of the ps3 is due to be shown off in may 2005 but a full launch of the next generation console is not expected to start until 2006. in the future all forms of digital content will be converged and fused onto the broadband network said ken kutaragi chief operating officer of sony said last year. current pc architecture is nearing its limits he added.

Science_and_Techology

house prices rebound says halifax uk house prices increased by 1.1% in december the first monthly rise since september the halifax has said. the uk s biggest mortgage lender said prices rose 15.1% over the whole of 2004 but by only 2.8% in the second half of the year. the average price of a house in the uk now stands at £162 086 halifax said. the survey seems to fly in the face of recent evidence that the uk housing market has been slowing substantially in response to interest rate rises. last week the nationwide said that house prices fell 0.2% in december with annual inflation running at a three year low. on tuesday figures from the bank of england showed that the number of mortgages approved in the uk has fallen to the lowest level for nearly a decade. new loans in november fell to 77 000 from 85 000 in october the lowest rate since september 1995 the bank of england said. growth in unsecured lending such as personal loans and credit cards also slowed last month. capital economics which has in the past predicted a sharp fall in uk house prices branded halifax s findings a temporary surprise which would be reversed over the coming months. the month by month volatility of the halifax house price data should not distract from the fact that there is a clear downward trend in house prices a capital economics statement said. experts believe five interest rate rises since november 2003 are cutting borrowers appetite for debt. despite recording a price rise in december the halifax survey concluded that there was continuing signs of a genuine slowdown in the housing market. martin ellis halifax chief economist said that there was no need to revise the bank s prediction made last month that prices would fall by 2% in 2005. sound housing market fundamentals will continue to underpin the market in 2005 ensuring that the market remains healthy and that house prices fall only slightly mr ellis said. if the bank s prediction of a 2% price drop comes true it will be the first annual fall in nine years. the bank said that the recent pattern of house prices rising the fastest in the north of england continued in december. in the north west and yorkshire and the humber halifax said prices rose by 3% and 1.2% in the two regions respectively during the month. at the other send of the scale prices in the south east and london fell by 1.6% and 0.5% respectively. the biggest decline was seen in wales where prices fell by 6.2% an area that had experienced strong house price growth during most of 2004. overall halifax said prices in the final quarter of 2004 were 0.1% higher than in the previous quarter. this was the smallest quarterly rise since the second quarter of 2000 the bank said. as a result annual house price inflation dipped below 20% during the final few months of 2004.

Business

china s shanda buys stake in sina chinese online game operator shanda interactive entertainment has bought a 20% stake in sina the country s biggest internet portal firm. the move may be a precursor to a full takeover with analysts saying that a better-known international firm may also now show an interest in sina. shanda said that it may boost its stake in sina even buying it outright. a merger would create a firm that offers online role-playing games news entertainment and wireless messaging. sina said that the purchase of a stake by shanda would have no impact on its business. the board of directors said in a statement that it would continue to act in the best interests of all the company stakeholders including shareholders employees and customers . both companies are listed on the new york stock exchange s (nyse) technology-dominated nasdaq index. in a filing with the us securities and exchange commission sina said its shares were purchased between 12 january and 10 february for about $230m. rumours about a possible takeover boosted sina s shares by more than 10% on friday. they added an extra 6.4% to $27.24 in electronic trading after the trading session had finished. and there may be more gains amid bid speculation when trading resumes in new york on tuesday after monday s public holiday analysts forecast. there could still be some potential parties that could still counter bid said wallace cheung an analyst at dbs vickers. even though shanda has 20% of sina they still have quite a long way to take full control. however mr cheung noted that a foreign company trying to take control of a chinese internet portal firm with its ability to filter and pass on news may not be viewed very favourably by beijing.

Business

google shares fall as staff sell shares in google have fallen 6.7% after employees and early investors in the web search took advantage of the first chance to sell their holdings. restrictions were imposed ahead of its flotation in august to prevent shares being dumped quickly onto the market. in one of the most closely-watched initial public offerings in stock market history the us-based company sold 19.6 million shares at $85 each. google shares have risen since but fell $12.33 on tuesday to close at $172.55. the restriction - known as a lockup - is being eased piecemeal: in all some 227 million additional shares will become free to trade by february 2005. selling the shares could turn many of google s workers into millionaires. there were fears that the potential increase of shares in circulation from tuesday would ease demand for stock. however analysts say they expected most shareholders would be holding back from selling all their shares immediately as google s good performance and future growth potential means demand will hold. in its first earnings report since floating on the stock market google said it made a net profit of $52m in the three months ending 30 september. sales surged to $805.9m in the third quarter up from $393.9m a year earlier. google s main service - its internet search - is free to users so the firm makes much of its money from selling advertising space linked to the words for which its users search. it also sells the use of its technology to companies who need to make either their websites or their internal information systems searchable.

Business

india-pakistan peace boosts trade calmer relations between india and pakistan are paying economic dividends with new figures showing bilateral trade up threefold in the summer. the value of trade in april-july rose to $186.3m (£97m) from $64.4m in the same period in 2003 the indian government said. nonethless the figures represent less than 1% of india s overall exports. but business is expected to be boosted further from 2006 when the south asian free trade area agreement starts. both countries eased travel and other restrictions as part of the peace process aimed at ending nearly six decades of hostilities. sugar plastics pharmaceutical products and tea are among the major exports from india to its neighbour while firms in pakistani have been selling fabrics fruit and spices. if the positive trend continues two-way trade could well cross half a billion dollars this fiscal year india s federal commerce minister kamal nath said. according to official data the value of india s overall exports in the current fiscal year is expected to reach more than $60bn while in pakistan s case it is set to hit more than $12bn. meanwhile the indian government said the prospects for the country s booming economy remained very bright despite a temporary aberration this year. its mid-year economic review forecasts growth of 6-6.5% in 2004 compared with 8.2% in 2003. higher oil prices the level of tax collections and an unfavourable monsoon season affecting the farm sector had hurt the economy in april-september it said.

Business

ask jeeves joins web log market ask jeeves has bought the bloglines website to improve the way it handles content from web journals or blogs. the bloglines site has become hugely popular as it gives users one place in which to read search and share all the blogs they are interested in. ask jeeves said it was not planning to change bloglines but would use the 300 million articles it has archived to round out its index of the web. how much ask jeeves paid for bloglines was not revealed. bloglines has become popular because it lets users build a list of the blogs they want to follow without having to visit each journal site individually. to do this it makes use of a technology known as really simple syndication (rss) that many blogs have adopted to let other sites know when new entries are made on their journals. the acquisition follows similar moves by other search sites. google acquired pyra labs makers of the blogger software in 2003. in 2004 msn introduced its own blog system and yahoo has tweaked its technology to do a better job of handling blog entries. jim lanzone vice president of search properties at ask jeeves in the us said it did not acquire bloglines just to get a foothold in the blog publishing world. he said ask jeeves was much more interested in helping people find information they were looking for rather than helping them write it. the universe of readers is vastly larger than the universe of writers he said. mr lanzone said the acquisition would sit well with ask s my jeeves service which lets people customise their own web experience and build up a personal collection of useful links. search engines are about discovering information for the first time and rss is the ideal way to keep track of and monitor those sites he said. it would also help drive information and entries from blogs to the portals that ask jeeves operates. there would be no instant sweeping changes to bloglines said mr lanzone. our intent is to take our time to figure out the right business model not to try to monetise it right away he said. though mr lanzone added that ask jeeves would be helping organise the database of 300m blog entries bloglines holds with its own net indexing technology. being able to search the blogosphere as one corpus of information will be very useful in its own right said mr lanzone. rumours about the acquisition were broken by the napsterization weblog which said it got the hint from ask jeeves insiders.

Science_and_Techology

swiss cement firm in buying spree swiss cement firm holcim has bid $800m (£429m) to buy two indian cement firms and a holding company in the country. it plans to buy associated cement companies (acc) ambuja cement eastern and the holding firm ambuja cement india ltd a holcim statement said. shares in acc fell 5.5% as investors who thought the offer was underpriced decided to sell. meanwhile uk-based firm aggregate industries said it had agreed a £1.8bn takeover by holcim. the deal with aggregates will give holcim the world s second-biggest cement maker an entry into the uk market and boost its presence in the us. peter tom who will remain as aggregate chief executive said the 138p a share offer provided significant value for shareholders. the markfield leicestershire-based company runs 142 quarries in the uk and the us. it also has 164 ready-mixed concrete plants 90 asphalt plants and 32 pre-cast concrete factories. if the indian deals go ahead it will give holcim a major presence in the world s fastest-growing market behind china. acc is india s second-largest cement maker with an annual capacity of 18.2 million tonnes and a market share of 13%. holcim is looking to buy it (acc) very cheap said kk mittal a fund manager with escorts mutual fund in new delhi. the market is not impressed. if they want a substantial chunk then they should be paying a premium over the market price. shares in holcim rose by 2.3% on thursday following news of the takeover.

Business

gritty return for prince of persia still basking in the relatively recent glory of last year s sands of time the dashing prince of persia is back in warrior within and in a more bellicose mood than last time. this sequel gives the franchise a grim gritty new look and ramps up the action and violence. as before you control the super-athletic prince from a third-person perspective. the time-travelling plot hinges on the dahaka an all-consuming monster pursuing our hero through the ages. the only way to dispel it is to turn back the clock again and kill the sultry empress of time before she ever creates the sands of time that caused the great beast s creation. studiously structured though this back story is everything boils down to old-fashioned fantasy gameplay which proves on the whole as dependable as it needs to be. ever since the series then-groundbreaking beginnings on the commodore amiga prince of persia has always been about meticulously-animated acrobatic moves that provide an energetic blend of leaping preposterously between pieces of scenery and lopping off enemies body parts. those flashy moves are back in full evidence and tremendous fun to perform and perfect. combining them at speed is the best fun although getting a handle of doing so takes practice and plenty of skill. until you reach that point it is a haphazard business. all too often you will perform a stunning triple somersault pirouette off a wall knock out three enemies in one glorious swoop before plummeting purposefully over a cliff to your doom. that in turn can mean getting set back an annoyingly long distance for you can only save at the fountains dotted along the path. the expected fiendish puzzles are all present and correct but combat is what is really been stepped up and there is more of it than before. the game s developers have combined acrobatic flair with gruesome slaying techniques in some wonderfully imaginative ways. slicing foes down the middle is one particularly entertaining method of seeing them off. warrior within is a very slick package; the game s intro movie is so phenomenally good that it actually does an ultimate disservice once the game itself commences. it is on a par with the jaw-dropping opening sequence of onimusha 3 earlier this year and when the game begins it is something of an anti-climax. that said the graphics are excellent and indeed among the most striking and satisfying elements of the game. the music is probably the worst aspect - a merit-free heavy metal soundtrack that you will swiftly want to turn off. there is something strangely unsatisfying about the game. perhaps precisely because its graphics and mechanics are so good that the story and overall experience are not quite as engaging as they should be. somehow it adds up to less than the sum of its parts and is more technically impressive than it is outright enjoyable. but that is not to say warrior within is anything other than a superb adventure that most will thoroughly enjoy. it just does not quite take the character to the new heights that might have been hoped for.

Science_and_Techology

india widens access to telecoms india has raised the limit for foreign direct investment in telecoms companies from 49% to 74%. communications minister dayanidhi maran said that there is a need to fund the fast-growing mobile market. the government hopes to increase the number of mobile users from 95 million to between 200 and 250 million by 2007. we need at least $20bn (£10.6bn) in investment and part of this has to come as foreign direct investment said mr maran. the decision to raise the limit for foreign investors faced considerable opposition from the communist parties which give crucial support to the coalition headed by prime minister manmohan singh. potential foreign investors will however need government approval before they increase their stake beyond 49% mr maran said. key positions such as those of chief executive chief technology officer and chief financial officer are to be held by indians he added. analysts and investors have welcomed the government decision. it is a positive development for carriers and the investment community looking to take a longer-term view of the huge growth in the indian telecoms market said gartner s principal analyst kobita desai. the fdi relaxation coupled with rapid local market growth could really ignite interest in the indian telecommunication industry added ernst and young s sanjay mehta. investment bank morgan stanley has forecast that india s mobile market is likely to grow by about 40% a year until 2007. the indian mobile market is currently dominated by four companies bharti televentures which has allied itself with singapore telecom essar which is linked with hong kong-based hutchison whampoa the sterling group and the tata group.

Business

solutions to net security fears fake bank e-mails or phishing and stories about id theft are damaging the potential of using the net for online commerce say e-business experts. trust in online security is falling as a result. almost 70% of those asked in a poll said that net firms are not doing enough to protect people. the survey of more than 1 000 people reported that 43% were not willing to hand over personal information online. it is worrying for shopaholics and firms who want to exploit the net. more people are becoming aware of online security issues but they have little confidence that companies are doing enough to counter the threats said security firm rsa which carried out the poll. an estimated 12 million britons now use the net as a way of managing their financial affairs. security experts say that scare stories and the vulnerabilities dogging e-commerce and e-banking are being taken seriously - by banks in particular. i don t think the threat is overplayed barry beal global security manager for capgemini told the bbc news website. he added: the challenge for banks is to provide the customer with something that improves security but balances that with usability. ensuring extra security measures are in place protects them too as well as the individual and it is up to both parties to make sure they do what is necessary to prevent fraud he said. card issuers will keep us informed of types of attacks and what procedure to take to protect ourselves. if we do that they will indemnify us he said. many believe using login details like usernames and passwords are simply not good enough anymore though. one of the biggest challenges to improving security online is how to authenticate an individual s identity. several security companies have developed methods which complement or replace passwords which are easily compromised and easy to forget. last year a street survey found that more than 70% of people would reveal their password for a bar of chocolate. on average people have to remember four different passwords. some resort to using the same one for all their online accounts. those who use several passwords often write them down and hide them in a desk or in a document on their computer. in a separate survey by rsa 80% said they were fed up with passwords and would like a better way to login to work computer systems. for many the ideal is a single online identity that can be validated once with a series of passwords and questions or some biometric measurement like a fingerprint or iris scan with a token like a smartcard. activcard is just one of the many companies like rsa security which has been trying to come up with just that. rsa has a deal with internet provider aol that lets people pay monthly for a one-time passcode generation service. users get a physical token which automatically generates a code which stays active for 60 seconds. many companies use a token-based method already for employees to access networks securely already. activcard s method is more complex. it is currently trailing its one-time passcode generation technology with uk banks. steve ash from activcard told the bbc news website there are two parts to the process of identification. the most difficult is to ascertain whether an individual is who they say they are when they are online. the end solution is to provide a method where you combine something the user knows with something they have and present those both. the method it has developed makes use of the chip embedded in bank cards and a special card reader which can generate unique codes that are active for a specified amount of time. this can be adjusted at any time and can be active for as little as 30 seconds before it changes. it combines that with usual usernames and passwords as well as other security questions. you take the card put it in the reader enter your pin number and a code is given. if you wanted then to transfer funds for instance you would have to have the code to authorise the transaction. the clever bit happens back at the bank s secure servers. the code is validated by the bank s systems matching the information they expect with the customer s unique key. each individual gets a key which is unique to them. it is a 2048-bit long number that is virtually impossible to crack said mr ash. it means that in a typical security attack explains mr ash even if password information is captured by a scammer using keystroke software or just through spoof websites they need the passcode. by the time they go back [to use the information] the code has expired so they can t prove who they are according to mr ash. in the next few years mr ash predicts that this kind of method will be commonplace before we see biometric authentication that is acceptable for widespread use. pcs will have readers built into them the cost of readers will be very cheap and more people will have the cards. the gadgets we carry around like personal digital assistants (pdas) and mobiles could also have integrated card reader technology in them. the pda or phone method is a possible alternative as people are always carrying phones around he said.

Science_and_Techology

casual gaming to take off games aimed at casual players are set to be even bigger in 2005 according to industry experts. easy-to-play titles that do not require too much time and that are playable online or downloadable to mobile devices will see real growth in the coming year. the trend shows that gaming is not just about big-hitting games console titles which appeal more to hardcore gamers said a panel of experts. they were speaking before the annual consumer electronics show in las vegas which showcases the latest trends in gadgets and technologies for 2005. the panel also insisted that casual gamers were not just women a common misconception which pervades current thinking about gamer demographics. casual games like poker pool bridge bingo and puzzle-based titles which can be played online or downloaded onto mobile devices were gender neutral and different genres attracted different players. greg mills program director at aol said its figures suggested that sports-based games attracted 90% of 18 to 24-year-old males while puzzle games were played by 80% of females. games like bridge tended to attract the over-50 demographic of gamers. but hardcore gamers who are more attracted to blockbuster gamers which usually require hi-spec pcs like half-life 2 or halo 2 on xbox also liked to have a different type of gaming experience. when hardcore gamers are not playing halo they are playing poker and pool based on our research said geoff graber director of yahoo games which attracts about 12 million gamers a month. with the growth of powerful pc technology and ownership broadband take-up portable players and mobile devices as well as interactive tv casual gaming is shaping up to be big business in 2005 according to the panel. the focus for the coming year should be about attracting third-party developers into the field to offer more innovative and multiplayer titles they agreed. we are at a time where we are on the verge of something much bigger said mr graber. casual games will get into their stride in 2005 will be really big in 2006 and will be about community. with more people finding more to do with their gadgets and high-speed connections casual games would start to open up the world of gaming as a form of mass-market entertainment to more people. key to these types of titles is the chance they give people who may not see themselves as gamers to dip in and out of games when they liked. portal sites which offer casual games like aol yahoo and realarcade as well as other games-on-demand services allow people to build up buddy lists so they can return and play against the same people. this aspect of community is crucial for gamers who just want to have quick access to free or cheap games without committing long periods of time immersed in £30 to £40 console or pc titles said the panel. about 120 000 people are expected to attend the ces trade show which stretches over more than 1.5 million square feet and which officially runs from 6 to 9 january. the main theme is how new devices are getting better at talking to each other allowing people to enjoy digital content like audio video and images when they want and where they want.

Science_and_Techology

ebbers aware of worldcom fraud former worldcom boss bernie ebbers was directly involved in the $11bn financial fraud at the firm his closest associate has told a us court. giving evidence in the criminal trial of mr ebbers ex-finance chief scott sullivan implicated his colleague in the accounting scandal at the firm. mr sullivan worldcom s former number two is the government s chief witness in its case against mr ebbers. mr ebbers has denied multiple charges of conspiracy and fraud. senior worldcom executives are accused of orchestrating a huge fraud at the former telecoms company in which they exaggerated revenues and hid the cost of expenses. the firm was forced into bankruptcy the largest in us history. mr sullivan 42 pleaded guilty to fraud last year and agreed to assist the government with its case against mr ebbers. prosecutors have alleged that mr ebbers 63 directed mr sullivan to hide the true state of the company s finances by providing false information to the firm s accountants. mr ebbers has denied all the charges saying he was unaware of the fraud. his lawyers claim that their client was unfamiliar with detailed accounting practices and left that side of the business to mr sullivan. however on monday mr sullivan named mr ebbers as one of five executives who participated in the accounting fraud. he [ebbers] has got a hands-on grasp of financial information mr sullivan told a new york court. on his first day of questioning mr sullivan admitted to falsifying the company s financial statements. we did not disclose these adjustments he said. we did not talk about these adjustments and the information was false. mr sullivan said his former boss knew more about accounting matters than many chief financial officers and described him as detail-oriented . he portrayed mr ebbers a charismatic businessman who built up worldcom from a small regional operator into one of america s largest telecoms firms as obsessed with costs. he would talk about that there were more coffee filters than coffee bags and that means employees are taking coffee home he said. we needed to cut expenses. we needed to cut a lot more than coffee expenses. mr sullivan is at the centre of the government s case against mr ebbers. mr ebbers could face a sentence of 85 years if convicted of all the charges he is facing.

Business