Smartphone app tests users' urine

27 February 2013 Last updated at 07:09 ET By Jane Wakefield Technology reporter

A smartphone app that uses a phone's camera to analyse urine and check for a range of medical conditions has been shown off at the TED (Technology, Education and Design) conference in Los Angeles.

Uchek tests for 25 different health issues and could help diagnose and treat diseases in the developing world.

Increasingly mobile health is being talked up as a lifesaver in such areas.

The app is the brainchild of TED fellow Myshkin Ingawale.

"I wanted to get medical health checks into users' hands," he told the BBC.

Urine can be tested for the presence of 10 elements - including glucose, proteins and nitrites.

These can be used to pinpoint a range of conditions including diabetes, urinary tract infects, cancers, liver problems as well as being used to keep track of general health.

Users need to collect their urine and dip a standard test strip into it.

Colour chart

The strip is placed on a mat - supplied with the app and intended to normalise the colours on the stick regardless of lighting conditions where the photo is taken.

Once the photo is taken the app will analyse which, if any, condition, the colour applies to.

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There needs to be a rethink in the way healthcare is delivered to people"

End Quote Myshkin Ingawale TED fellow

The app will be available from Apple's app store from the end of March for $20 (£13), which includes the cost of the mat and five dipsticks.

As well as being used by individuals, the app will be put through its paces in the King Edward Memorial hospital in Mumbai, India.

There, its accuracy will be tested against the laboratory machines more normally used to test urine.

"If it does well we can make it available to mobile clinics. Instead of buying a $10,000 machine they can use their existing smartphones," he said.

Currently Uchek is only available for iPhones but versions for Android will be coming soon, Mr Ingawale told the BBC.

While such smartphones may be beyond the budget of many in the developing world, he is hopeful that will not remain the case for ever.

"I'm calling you from a $100 Android phone which I bought from a street market in India. In future smartphones will be even cheaper and all phones will be smart," he said.

Grassroots healthcare

According to the GSMA, the organisation which represents the mobile industry, mobile health service could help save one million lives in Africa over the next five years.

"Mobile health has immense potential to improve people's lives since it increases patient access to quality healthcare whilst reducing costs," said Michael O'Hara, chief marketing officer at the GSMA.

"These positive impacts will only grow as the mobile and health industries collaborate on new connected innovations," he added.

Health apps that allow users to test their heartbeat, monitor sleep patterns and keep a check on a variety of conditions are growing in popularity.

"There is huge potential to get the world of bio-chemistry out to users via apps," said Mr Ingawale.

Last year at TED, Mr Ingawale showed off a blood test that could be taken without drawing blood.

The test was designed to prevent women dying from anaemia and was designed to be easy for healthcare workers - often untrained - to use in the field.

Mr Ingawale is a campaigner for more grassroots medicine, allowing users to play more of a role in their own healthcare.

"There needs to be a rethink in the way healthcare is delivered to people," he said.

"It needs to be far more decentralised. It can become a consumerist movement in the same way that Wikipedia has been for information."

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Music piracy 'down' as revenues rise

27 February 2013 Last updated at 08:34 ET

Online music piracy across the world "declined significantly" in 2012, according to a new report.

The NPD Group said last year the number of users on peer-to-peer (P2P) illegally downloading music fell by 17% - down to 21 million worldwide.

The market research firm cited an increased use of legal streaming music sites as being behind the drop.

It comes as a separate report noted that global music revenues had risen for the first time since 1999.

The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) said that accelerating digital music sales had caused a 0.3% upturn in global revenues - a total of $16.5bn (£10.9bn). A small boost, but it is the first year of growth for well over a decade.

"It is hard to remember a year for the recording industry that has begun with such a palpable buzz in the air," said Frances Moore, chief executive of IFPI.

"These are hard-won successes for an industry that has innovated, battled and transformed itself over a decade.

"They show how the music industry has adapted to the internet world, learned how to meet the needs of consumers and monetised the digital marketplace."

Targeted campaign

The NPD Group's report, based on its annual study of music consumers, said that at P2P file sharing's peak, in 2005, as many as 33 million people used the services - one in five of all internet users aged 13 and older.

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1. Carly Rae Jepsen, Call Me Maybe, 12.5 million units
2. Gotye, Somebody That I Used To Know, 11.8 million
3. PSY, Gangnam Style, 9.7 million
4. Fun, We Are Young, 9.6 million
5. Maroon 5, Payphone, 9.1 million
6. Michel Telo, Ai Se Eu Te Pego, 7.2 million
7. Nicki Minaj, Starships, 7.2 million
8. Maroon 5, One More Night, 6.9 million
9. Flo Rida, Whistle, 6.6 million
10. Flo Rida, Wild Ones, 6.5 million

Source: IFPI

But in 2012 that number was measured as being down to 21 million people.

The report said as many as 40% of people who used illegal music services in 2011 stopped doing so in 2012.

Of those, 20% said this was due to the fact the illegal service they were using had been shut down, or had contained spyware and viruses.

More than half the users who stopped using illegal sites said they now preferred legal services such as the UK-headquartered Spotify.

The music industry has undertaken a sizable campaign over several years to see illegal sites and services put out of business.

In the UK, the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) took action to the courts, obtaining a court order to force internet service providers to block access to file-sharing site The Pirate Bay.

The Pirate Party UK - a political group that campaigns for an "open" internet - launched a proxy service to allow UK users to circumvent the block of The Pirate Bay, but that too was closed following legal threats from the BPI.

"In recent years, we've seen less P2P activity, because the music industry has successfully used litigation to shut down [P2P client] Limewire and other services," said Russ Crupnick, senior vice president of NPD.

"Many of those who continued to use P2P services reported poor experiences, due to rampant spyware and viruses on illegal P2P sites."

Removing barriers

Despite the seemingly good news, controversial measures to curb piracy further are still taking place.

On Tuesday, the "six strikes" campaign - where users engaging in piracy are given six warnings before action is taken - came into force in the US.

The music industry has also started to refocus its efforts by targeting those who make profiting from illegal music possible, such as advertisers, as well as the piracy sites themselves.

Elsewhere, search engines like Google have been pressured to demote piracy websites in their search results.

More needs to be done on that front, IFPI said: "Searches for the names of popular artists followed by the term "mp3" still return a large number of results for illegal sources on the first page.

"In August 2012, Google announced it would take into account the number of valid copyright notices it receives when returning search results.

"That was a welcome step in principle but unfortunately has not been translated into results."

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Willetts urges universities online

27 February 2013 Last updated at 09:00 ET By Sean Coughlan BBC News education correspondent

UK universities should invest in online courses if they are to take advantage of an "historic opportunity", said Universities Minister David Willetts.

Countries such as India and Indonesia have a soaring demand for university courses - creating a market for the UK's universities, says Mr Willetts.

But he argued that the scale of demand would need to be met by online courses as well as campus universities.

Online universities were going to be "very significant," he said.

Mr Willetts, speaking at the Guardian Higher Education Summit, told university leaders that online universities were going to be an important part of the global expansion in student numbers.

Online learning

The minister described as "astounding" the likely rise in demand in Asian countries for university places, driven by demographic and economic changes.

But he questioned whether the "classic model" of a traditional campus university would be able to respond to such a "huge appetite" for higher education.

Online universities were no longer going to be seen as an "alternative", outside of the mainstream, he argued.

"Online learning is going to be a big thing, very significant, when you look at the hunger for higher education," he told the conference, held at the University of London.

The online university market is currently dominated by networks set up by leading universities in the United States.

Coursera, set up by Stanford academics, and edX, set up by Harvard and MIT, have registered more than 3.5 million students within a year of launching.

These have already set up partnerships with universities in Asia and Europe as well as in the United States.

There are also universities offering courses both through Coursera and edX.

They have also taken the first steps towards arranging for these online course units to count towards full university degrees.

In the UK, the Futurelearn consortium of 18 institutions, headed by the Open University, has announced plans to offer online courses from later this year.

Such courses are intended to be cheaper and more flexible than conventional, campus-based degrees, bringing higher education to a wider range of people.

And the conference also heard about measures to maintain access to the UK's universities, from Les Ebdon, director of the Office for Fair Access.

Prof Ebdon said that there were proposals for a national strategy for access, which would co-ordinate efforts across the education sector, funding councils and government, with details expected later this year.

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3D see-through computer revealed

27 February 2013 Last updated at 11:20 ET By Jane Wakefield Technology reporter

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A video from MIT Media Lab/Microsoft Applied Sciences shows how the technology works

A transparent computer that allows users to reach inside and touch digital content has been unveiled at the TED conference in Los Angeles.

TED fellow Jinha Lee has been working on the SpaceTop 3D desktop in collaboration with Microsoft.

Allowing people to interact with machines in the same way they do with solid objects could make computing much more intuitive, he told the BBC.

He can see the system coming into general use within a decade.

The system consists of a transparent LED display with built-in cameras, which track the user's gestures and eye movements.

Human touch

The design was inspired by what he sees as a human need to interact with things.

"Spatial memory, where the body intuitively remembers where things are, is a very human skill," he said.

Translating this to the digital world will enable people to use computers more easily as well as complete more complex tasks.

"If you are working on a document you can pick it up and flip through it like a book," he told the BBC.

For more precise tasks, where hand gestures are not accurate, there is a touchpad. It will allow, for example architects to manipulate 3D models.

"The gap between what the designer thinks and what the computer can do is huge. If you can put your hands inside the computer and handle digital content you can express ideas more completely," he said.

Not everyone is convinced by the Minority Report-style future that will see us interact with machine via touch.

In an interview with The Awl website designer Christian Brown said: "Human hands and fingers are good at feeling texture and detail, and good at gripping things - neither of which touch interfaces take advantage of.

"The real future of interfaces will take advantage of our natural abilities to tell the difference between textures, to use our hands to do things without looking at them."

Magic ball

Mr Lee, a graduate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is currently serving his military obligation in South Korea at Samsung Electronics, where he is working on TV interfaces.

At TED, which stands for Technology, Education and Design, he also demonstrated other projects he is working on, including ZeroN, a floating ball, which can literally be placed in midair.

It utilises electromagnetism to stay afloat and when coupled with software can be used for a variety of applications.

"It could be used in schools," said Mr Lee.

"If kids are learning about planetary movement they can pick up a model of a planet and place it in orbit. That is tangible and makes the learning experience so much more powerful."

He is also working on an augmented reality shopping app, which combined with a virtual reality handset would allow users to try on items such as watches from online shops.

For Mr Lee the ultimate goal is to unite the digital and physical worlds.

"I don't want to look back on my life and find that I have just been typing on a keyboard," he said.

"It is one of our key human skills to be able to interact with 3D spaces and I wanted to let people do the same with digital content."

Computers are becoming more user-friendly as the gap between the real world and technology closes.

"With the first computers there was a huge gap but that gap is getting smaller with things such as touchscreens," he said.

"The only boundary left is our imagination."

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Shorter .uk web address idea shelved

27 February 2013 Last updated at 14:03 ET

Nominet, the organisation that oversees UK web addresses, has put the brakes on plans to launch an optional new service for sites ending with ".uk".

Companies would have had the chance to take the address "name.uk" rather than "name.co.uk".

It would have cost more to register but extra security features would have been provided to sites that opted to change.

But a three-month consultation had revealed there was insufficient support for the idea, the body said.

While those taking part in the consultation had agreed a shorter URL would be beneficial, there had been concerns it would be confusing for consumers, especially as it would exist alongside the current ".co.uk" domain, Nominet said.

There was also support for one of the added security features proposed, which was that .uk sites would all be DNSSEC-signed (Domain Name System Security Extensions), making them harder to hack.

However, the idea of a "trust mark" stamp to indicate the security of the site had been greeted with "scepticism" the group said.

A revised proposal will now be drawn up by the not-for-profit organisation.

It will focus on security measures, pricing and registration verification, in response to the feedback received.

"We are going to explore whether it is possible to present a revised proposal that meets the principles of increasing trust and security and maintaining the relevance of the .uk proposition in a changing landscape," Nominet said in a statement.

"We would like to thank all those who took the time to give their views."

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Apple boss laments share price fall

27 February 2013 Last updated at 17:39 ET

Apple's chief executive Tim Cook has acknowledged shareholder unease over the technology giant's falling share price, but said the company was working on a pipeline of "great stuff".

He told Apple's annual meeting that no-one enjoyed seeing the share price fall some 35% from its September high.

"I don't like it either. The board doesn't like it," he said.

The fall has led to calls for Apple to give shareholders some of its $137bn (£90bn) cash pile.

Mr Cook said that a return of cash to investors was an option for the board to consider, though he made no promises.

Hedge fund manager David Einhorn has led calls for Apple to boost the return earned by shareholders, which he complains is dragged down by the low income the company earns on its cash hoard.

Mr Einhorn has argued that Apple could do this by issuing more preference shares to investors, even going to court over the issue.

Mr Cook called Mr Einhorn's campaign a "silly sideshow".

Apple has seen its share price fall from a record $702.10 on the back of disappointing sales and worries about competitors such as Samsung. On 14 March, Samsung will launch the Galaxy SIV, the version of its flagship smartphone

However, Mr Cook told the meeting that Apple was working on a string of new products, although he gave no details.

There has been speculation that the maker of the iPhone and iPad is working on a project to revolutionize the television market, and also to produce a smart "iWatch."

Mr Cook, who took over from Steve Jobs after Apple's co-founder died, answered a variety of questions from shareholders, including some on Apple's new headquarters, working conditions in its factories and product plans.

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4D printed objects 'make themselves'

28 February 2013 Last updated at 05:39 ET By Jane Wakefield Technology reporter

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Video of cube self-folding strand courtesy Self-Assembly Lab, MIT/Stratasys

Many are only just getting their heads around the idea of 3D printing but scientists at MIT are already working on an upgrade: 4D printing.

At the TED conference in Los Angeles, architect and computer scientist Skylar Tibbits showed how the process allows objects to self-assemble.

It could be used to install objects in hard-to-reach places such as underground water pipes, he suggested.

It might also herald an age of self-assembling furniture, said experts.

Smart materials

TED fellow Mr Tibbits, from the MIT's (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) self-assembly lab, explained what the extra dimension involved.

"We're proposing that the fourth dimension is time and that over time static objects will transform and adapt," he told the BBC.

The process uses a specialised 3D printer that can create multi-layered materials.

It combines a strand of standard plastic with a layer made from a "smart" material that can absorb water.

The water acts as an energy source for the material to expand once it is printed.

"The rigid material becomes a structure and the other layer is the force that can start bending and twisting it," said Mr Tibbits.

"Essentially the printing is nothing new, it is about what happens after," he added.

Such a process could in future be used to build furniture, bikes, cars and even buildings, he thinks.

For the time being he is seeking a manufacturing partner to explore the innovation.

"We are looking for applications and products that wouldn't be possible without these materials," he added.

"Imagine water pipes that can expand to cope with different capacities or flows and save digging up the street."

Nature's inspiration

Engineering software developer Autodesk, which collaborated on the project, is looking even further into the future.

"Imagine a scenario where you go to Ikea and buy a chair, put it in your room and it self-assembles," said Carlo Olguin, principal research scientist at the software firm.

The 4D printing concept draws inspiration from nature which already has the ability to self-replicate.

"We already have 3D printers that can be injected with stem cells, printing micro slices of liver," Mr Olguin added.

"The idea behind 4D printing is to use the sheer power of biology and modify it. But it is still an elusive goal."

The next stage for the research is to move from printing single strands to sheets and eventually whole structures. And water need not be the process's only energy source.

"We could also have heat, vibration and sound," said Mr Tibbits.

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Court orders UK web piracy blocks

28 February 2013 Last updated at 06:06 ET By Dave Lee Technology Reporter

The High Court has ordered the UK's major internet service providers to block three websites offering links to pirated material.

The ISPs must stop their users from accessing Kickass Torrents, H33T and Fenopy.

Music industry group the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) said the sites infringed copyright on a "significant scale".

Opponents have argued that blocking sites in this way was ineffective.

The block follows a similar ruling last year involving The Pirate Bay, a much larger site founded in Sweden.

Data seen by the BBC suggested that the blocking of The Pirate Bay had only had a short-term effect on the level of pirate activity online - with levels of peer-to-peer sharing returning to normal soon after.

However, a recent report from market research firm NPD suggested that there had been a large reduction in the number of users illegally downloading music, with fans instead favouring legal options like streaming site Spotify.

Speaking of Thursday's decision, BPI chief executive Geoff Taylor said: "The growth of digital music in the UK is held back by a raft of illegal businesses commercially exploiting music online without permission.

"Blocking illegal sites helps ensure that the legal digital market can grow and labels can continue to sign and develop new talent."

Loz Kaye, the leader of Pirate Party UK, which had offered UK users a workaround for the ban on The Pirate Bay, said the BPI was "out of control".

"The British music industry has nothing positive to show from their site blocks and personal legal threats," he said.

"Looking at sales figures from 2012, you can't draw the conclusion that stopping access to the Pirate Bay did anything to help artists.

"The UK has now handed the power over what we see on the internet to corporate lobbyists."

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UK educationalist wins TED prize

28 February 2013 Last updated at 06:50 ET By Jane Wakefield Technology reporter

A UK educationalist with radical ideas about the future of education has won a coveted $1m (£658,000) award.

The annual TED prize, handed out by organisers of the Technology, Entertainment and Design conference, has gone Dr Sugata Mitra, from Newcastle University.

He promised to use the money to "build a school in the cloud".

Dr Mitra is most famous for hole-in-the-wall computers which he put in the slums of India.

The experiment, begun in 1999, has spurred imitations all over the world and helped inspire the book Q&A which was later turned into the movie Slumdog Millionaire.

The machines came with no instructions but children quickly learnt to use them.

The project led Dr Mitra to set up the Granny Cloud, which uses volunteers - usually retired people - in the UK to teach Indian children via Skype's video chat software.

He has since gone on to experiment with the idea of self-learning, offering software to children living in remote parts of India so that they can teach themselves.

Computing innovations

Accepting his prize, Dr Mitra said: "In an ideal world, we would have great schools with great teachers absolutely everywhere. Yet the reality is that there will always be places where good teachers cannot or will not go.

"If we are going to level the education playing field around the world, we need an alternative system that also prepares children to enter a technology driven workplace."

The answer, he said, is an internet-based school.

"Help me build the school in the cloud, a learning lab in India where children can embark on intellectual adventures by engaging and connecting with information and mentoring online," he said.

He plans for a network of retired teachers to offer tuition via webcams. In addition, a real-world school will be built in India offering children a place to receive the remote lessons, and it well also serve as a research centre into self-directed learning.

Prof Chris Brink, vice-chancellor of Newcastle University said: "This is a tremendous honour for Sugata. He has dedicated over 20 years of his research career to improving the lives and opportunities of some of the world's poorest people through his innovations in computing."

Previous TED prize winners include Bill Clinton, chef Jamie Oliver and musician Bono.

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All-time high for Bitcoin currency

28 February 2013 Last updated at 10:13 ET

The value of virtual currency Bitcoin has reached an all-time high, trading at more than $33 (£22).

Its appreciation - up from just $2 in November 2011 - has been attributed to increased trust in security efforts.

The surge coincided with Japan-based MT Gox, Bitcoin's biggest exchange, announcing a tie-up with US firm CoinLab to bring its operations to the States.

However, recent high-profile thefts continue to worry some investors.

In September last year, 24,000 Bitcoins - which at the time were worth £157,800 - were stolen from another large exchange, Bitfloor.

In June 2011, a huge instance of fraud led to a market crash, with the value of Bitcoins at one point plummeting to almost zero.

But since then the currency has steadied somewhat, thanks in part to adoption by key websites such as Reddit and Kim Dotcom's file storage site Mega.

Other reasons given for the rise in value include the popularity of gambling websites accepting the currency. Bitcoin casinos have been reported to be bringing in about $500,000 (£330,000) profit every six months - with more growth expected.

'Light years ahead'

Unlike other currencies, Bitcoins are not issued by a central bank or other centralised authority. Instead they are created in a process called "mining", in which coins are issued to a user when they solve a complicated mathematical problem using their computer.

Part of the attraction is they can be used to make transactions that are difficult to trace, offering privacy to their users, and the currency has been adopted by Wikileaks and other sites to receive donations.

Bitcoins can also be exchanged for "real" money - the value of which is tracked by services like Mt Gox.

Mt Gox's move to the States was announced in a statement from Peter Vessenes, chief executive of CoinLab, the firm that will administer the exchange in the US, in partnership with Silicon Valley Bank.

"There are two major difficulties Bitcoin exchange customers have traditionally faced: banking troubles for the underlying exchange, and security of their coins," he said.

"When our team discussed how to tackle these issues in the US, it seemed clear that Mt Gox had by far the best security record in the Bitcoin exchange landscape.

"After I personally came to Japan and audited their fraud and security procedures, I understood why - they are light years ahead of other exchanges at this stuff - the fraud and security experience (some of it hard-won) they bring to the table is incredibly impressive."

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