Next-generation USB is reversible

4 December 2013 Last updated at 13:17 ET By Leo Kelion Technology reporter

USB cable developers have announced that a forthcoming version of the connector's plug is to be reversible.

It means users of the Universal Serial Bus cables will no longer have to worry which way round the part is facing when plugging it into a device.

The specification is due to be completed by mid-2014, and the first product on the market by 2016.

It will neuter one of the advantages Apple's proprietary lightning cable currently has over the USB system.

The first USB cable were released in the mid-1990s and, until now, could only be plugged into a computer or other device one way round to ensure a data connection.

The Promoter Group, which agrees the design of the standard, is currently made up of representatives from Intel, HP, Microsoft, Renesas Electronics, ST-Ericsson and Texas Instruments.

"Consumers are now demanding thinner and sleeker product designs and the USB 3.0 Promoter Group recognises this need," said the group's president Jeff Ravencraft.

He added that the development was unrelated to Apple's move to a reversible system.

Other changes to the current version - USB 3.0 - include:

• A smaller size, giving the full-size USB Type-C plug similar dimensions to the micro-USB format used by many smartphones and tablets
• Support for scalable power charging, allowing the cable to offer up to 100 watts
• Data speed transfers of up to 10 Gbps, double what is possible at the moment
• A promise that the new design will accommodate further upgrades

"This allows USB to increase performance and continue to deliver ease of use to several evolving product categories for years to come," said Roland Sperlich, from Texas Instruments.

One industry watcher welcomed news of the update.

"I don't think consumers buy devices based on the type of plug, so in terms of driving adoption of a certain type of smartphone, tablet or PC it doesn't make a great deal of difference," said Ian Fogg, from consultants IHS.

"Where I think it is important is the convenience of using the devices, and increasingly USB is used not just to connect and share data, but as a way of charging our machines.

"Anything that makes it easier and more convenient to charge is a good thing as it's something we all have to do very frequently."

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UK paves way for driverless cars

5 December 2013 Last updated at 07:07 ET

The government has announced that it wants to make the UK a world centre for the development of driverless cars.

It said it would conduct a review next year to ensure that the legislative and regulatory framework is in place for such vehicles to be incorporated on Britain's roads.

It will also create a £10m prize to fund a town or city to become a testing ground for autonomous vehicles.

Milton Keynes is already experimenting with driverless pods.

By mid-2017 it is planned that 100 fully autonomous vehicles will run on the town's pathways along with pedestrians, using sensors to avoid collisions.

The plans for self-drive cars were announced in the chancellor's National Infrastructure Plan.

Radical change

Continue reading the main story

People will be like the millionaires of old where you just had a driver that did everything"

End Quote Brad Templeton Software engineer

Much of the hype around driverless cars centres around Google. Its self-drive car recently completed 500,000 miles (804,000km) of road tests.

In the US, California, Nevada and Florida have passed legislation to allow driverless cars.

This month Nissan carried out the first public road test of an autonomous vehicle on a Japanese highway.

Many envisage a future when we may not own cars at all but simply hail one to fulfil all our transportation needs.

"I call it mobility on demand. You pop out your mobile phone, say where you want to go and how many people and in a short amount of time a vehicle rolls up," said Brad Templeton, software engineer and adviser to Google on its self-drive car project.

"People will be like the millionaires of old where you just had a driver that did everything. These cars will worry about recharging, parking and refuelling. They will drive down a road without you paying much attention to it," he said.

Such cars will make cities both safer and greener, he thinks.

"It will radically change the amount of energy we use, how congested our streets are and eliminate most of the parking lots that take up a huge amount of space in our cities.

"Humans kill 1.2 million people in car accidents each year so the idea of being able to make a safer vehicle is very appealing," he said.

Many think that the issue of who will be liable in the event of accidents will hold up the development of autonomous vehicles but Mr Templeton is not convinced.

"I think only the barristers will find it the most interesting question," he said.

"For me the more interesting question is whether a machine is more liable than a drunk driver. Countries that decide a machine is more liable will slow the development of this technology," he added.

Car manufacturers suggest that autonomous vehicles will be on the roads within the decade.

Google has given 2017 as the date its cars will hit the roads. Not to be outdone, Elon Musk, head of electric car company Tesla Motors, has said he will have such vehicles ready in 2016.

Other car manufacturers, including Daimler and Nissan have given a 2020 date for their own versions.

Much of the underlying technology for autonomous driving is already installed in cars such as the Mercedes S500 which uses onboard radar and 3D stereoscopic cameras to gauge the distance from other cars.

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Five held following Bitcoin scams

4 December 2013 Last updated at 11:41 ET

Suspected Bitcoin fraudsters have been taken into police custody in Germany and China.

The German authorities say they arrested two people following an investigation into malware that generated the virtual currency by infecting its victims' PCs.

Xinhua reports three people have been detained in China after a trading platform was shut without warning, cutting off investors from their funds.

The cases do not appear to be related.

The German Federal Criminal Police Office say one of its suspects was arrested in the southern state of Bavaria and the other in the northern region of Lower Saxony.

Continue reading the main story

Bitcoin is often referred to as a new kind of currency.

But it may be best to think of its units being virtual tokens rather than physical coins or notes.

However, like all currencies its value is determined by how much people are willing to exchange it for.

To process Bitcoin transactions, a procedure called "mining" must take place, which involves a computer solving a difficult mathematical problem with a 64-digit solution.

For each problem solved, one block of bitcoins is processed. In addition the miner is rewarded with new bitcoins.

This provides an incentive for people to provide computer processing power to solve the problems.

To compensate for the growing power of computer chips, the difficulty of the puzzles is adjusted to ensure a steady stream of about 3,600 new bitcoins a day.

There are currently about 11 million bitcoins in existence.

To receive a bitcoin a user must have a Bitcoin address - a string of 27-34 letters and numbers - which acts as a kind of virtual postbox to and from which the bitcoins are sent.

Since there is no registry of these addresses, people can use them to protect their anonymity when making a transaction.

These addresses are in turn stored in Bitcoin wallets which are used to manage savings.

They operate like privately run bank accounts - with the proviso that if the data is lost, so are the bitcoins owned.

It accuses them of being behind a botnet that allowed its operators to secretly use other people's computers to carry out "Bitcoin mining".

The technique - which involves using processing power to solve complicated mathematical problems - is used to create a secure record of Bitcoin transactions.

The incentive for the malware's creators to commit their crime was the fact that Bitcoin miners are rewarded for their help with new bitcoins generated as a side-effect of the process.

The reward for each puzzle solved is currently 25 bitcoins, currently worth a total of $29,075 (£17,788).

Bitcoin breached the $1,000 mark for the first time last week.

The police say they are also investigating related cases of fraud, copyright violations and offences related to the distribution of pornography.

Chinese detentions

The Chinese case relates to the closure of GBL, an online Bitcoin exchange platform based in Hong Kong, launched in May.

According to Xinhua, by the end of September it had 4,493 registered members, and a trading volume that made it the fourth biggest in the country.

China's official news agency says that on 26 October the site shut operations, leaving a fake postal address as a contact.

It adds that three suspects were subsequently apprehended in different locations on the mainland.

The agency says that the amount of money involved is unclear. However, the Hong Kong Standard has previously reported that up to HK$31.8m (£2.5m) was at stake.

Bitcoin gained fame in China after film star Jet Li's charity One Foundation received a donation in the currency in April to help the victims of an earthquake.

In recent weeks there have been a series of articles highlighting its use as a way to circumvent restrictions on money transfers out of the mainland - a factor that analysts say has helped propel a surge in Bitcoin's value.

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Google ramps up plan to make robots

4 December 2013 Last updated at 06:37 ET By Leo Kelion Technology reporter

Google has revealed it has taken over seven robotics companies in the past half a year and has begun hiring staff to develop its own product.

A spokesman confirmed the effort was being headed up by Andy Rubin, who was previously in charge of the Android operating system.

The spokesman was unwilling to discuss what kind of robot was being developed.

But the New York Times reports that at this stage Google does not plan to sell the resulting product to consumers.

Instead, the newspaper suggests, Google's robots could be paired with its self-driving car research to help automate the delivery of goods to people's doors.

It notes the company has recently begun a same-day grocery delivery service in San Francisco and San Jose, called Google Shopping Express.

That would pitch the initiative against Amazon's Prime Air Project, which envisages using drones to transport goods to its customers by air.

"Any description of what Andy and his team might actually create are speculations of the author and the people he interviewed," said Google of the NYT article.

One UK-based expert welcomed the news.

"This is a clear sign that days of personalised robotic technology entering the mainstream market is imminent," said Prof Sethu Vijayakumar, director of the Robotics Lab at the University of Edinburgh.

"Movement and sensing systems for robotics technology have made great strides. Now, with mainstream companies like Google taking up the challenge, other elements such as robust software integration, standardisation and modular design will pick up pace."

The search giant's robotics project is based in Palo Alto, California, and will have an office in Japan - one of the world's leading nations in the field.

Speaking to the NYT, Mr Rubin said Google had a "10-year vision" for bringing the effort to fruition.

"I feel with robotics it's a green field," he said.

"We're building hardware, we're building software. We're building systems, so one team will be able to understand the whole stack."

The companies acquired by Google to jumpstart its effort are:

• Autofuss - a San Francisco company that employed robotics to create adverts. It has worked on several campaigns for Google's Nexus-branded products.
• Bot & Dolly - a sister company to Autofuss that specialised in precise-motion robotics and film-making. Its systems were used to make the film Gravity.
• Holomni - a Mountain View, California-based company that specialised in caster wheel modules that could accelerate a vehicle's motion in any direction.
• Industrial Perception - a Palo Alto-headquartered business that focused on the use of 3D vision-guided robotic technologies to automate the loading and unloading of trucks, and handle packages.
• Meka Robotics - A spin-off from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) that built robot parts that appeared friendly and safe to humans. Its products included heads with big eye sensors, arms and a "humanoid torso".
• Redwood Robotics - a San Francisco-based company that focused on creating next-generation robot arms for use in manufacturing, distribution and service industries such as healthcare.
• Schaft - a spin-off from the University of Tokyo that focused on the creation and operation of humanoid robots.

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Two million stolen passwords online

4 December 2013 Last updated at 07:44 ET

More than two million stolen passwords used for sites such as Facebook, Google and Yahoo and other web services have been posted online.

The details had probably been uploaded by a criminal gang, security experts said.

It is suspected the data was taken from computers infected with malicious software that logged key presses.

It is not known how old the details are - but the experts warned that even out-dated information posed a risk.

"We don't know how many of these details still work," said security researcher Graham Cluley. "But we know that 30-40% of people use the same passwords on different websites.

"That's certainly something people shouldn't do."

Criminal botnet

The site containing the passwords was discovered by researchers working for security firm Trustwave.

In a blog post outlining its findings, the team said it believed the passwords had been harvested by a large botnet - dubbed Pony - that had scooped up information from thousands of infected computers worldwide.

A botnet is a network of machines controlled by criminals thanks to malicious software being installed on to computers without the owner's knowledge.

Often, criminal gangs will use botnets to steal large amounts of personal data, which can then be sold on to others or held to ransom.

In this instance, it was log-in information for popular social networks that featured most heavily.

The site - written in Russian - claimed to offer 318,121 username and password combinations for Facebook. Other services, including Google, Yahoo, Twitter and LinkedIn, all had entries in the database.

Russian-language sites VKontakte and Odnoklassniki also featured.

Chocolate teapot passwords

Trustwave said it had notified the sites and services hit prior to posting the blog entry.

Facebook highlighted that it was not at fault, and that this security risk was due to infected user machines.

"While details of this case are not yet clear, it appears that people's computers may have been attacked by hackers using malware to scrape information directly from their web browsers," a spokesman said in an email.

Continue reading the main story

• Bot - one of the individual computers in a botnet; bots are also called drones or zombies
• Botnet - a network of hijacked home computers, typically controlled by a criminal gang
• Malware - an abbreviation for malicious software ie a virus, trojan or worm that infects a PC
• DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) - an attack that knocks out a computer by overwhelming it with data; thousands of PCs can take part, hence the "distributed"
• Drive-by download - a virus or trojan that starts to install as soon as a user visits a particular website
• IP address - the numerical identifier every machine connected to the net needs to ensure data goes to the right place

"People can help protect themselves when using Facebook by activating Login Approvals and Login Notifications in their security settings.

"They will be notified when anyone tries to access their account from an unrecognized browser and new logins will require a unique passcode generated on their mobile phone."

The social network said all of the users found in the database had been put through a password reset process.

Analysis of the passwords by Trustwave showed a familiar picture - the most popular password, found in the database over 15,000 times, was "123456".

Such predictable combinations made passwords completely ineffective, said Mr Cluley.

"It's as much use a chocolate teapot," he said. "Absolutely useless."

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Launch of world's biggest 'ship'

4 December 2013 Last updated at 09:03 ET

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Shell has published this footage of Prelude's hull being tested at a shipyard in Geoje, South Korea

A floating vessel that is longer than the Empire State Building is high has taken to the water for the first time.

The hull of Shell's Prelude was floated in South Korea.

When fully built, Prelude will be the largest floating facility ever created, weighing more than 600,000 tonnes.

It would be used to help in the production of natural gas from 2017, Shell said, and would operate for 25 years off Australia's north-west coast.

The area has a yearly cyclone season from November to April, but Prelude has been designed to withstand such conditions. It is hoped the facility will be able to produce enough gas to power a city the size of Hong Kong.

Despite appearances, Prelude cannot strictly be described as a ship as it needs to be towed to its destination rather than travelling under its own power.

Shell has not disclosed how much the vessel will cost, but industry analysts told Reuters that it would be likely to command a price of between $10.8bn and $12.6bn (£6.6bn - £7.7bn).

Not content with Prelude's record-breaking size, Shell said it had already started work on an even bigger facility.

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Drones 'vulnerable to flying hack'

4 December 2013 Last updated at 09:47 ET By Leo Kelion Technology reporter

A security researcher has created a flying contraption that he says can hijack control of other flying drones made by one of the industry's leading manufacturers, Parrot.

Samy Kamkar said he was able to achieve the feat because the company's products do not support a way of encrypting or authenticating the wi-fi data they use.

The BBC understands that the company is looking into the allegation.

Other experts said Parrot appeared to have ignored well-known guidelines.

However, they played down Mr Kamkar's suggestion that the technique might one day be adapted to hijack drones used by Amazon and others.

A spokesman for Parrot said he was unable to comment yet.

Mr Kamkar has previously made a name for himself by developing malware that exposed a flaw in the MySpace social network and for revealing that several smartphones were sending back location data identifying their owners' movements to the makers of their operating systems.

"I think it's critical that drones have some additional protection," he told the BBC.

"While the drones I'm demonstrating this attack on are consumer-based, they're still flying unmanned-vehicles, and the fact that they're this easy to take over is scary, especially when they will be much more ubiquitous soon."

'Design blunder'

In his latest blog - entitled Skyjack - he reveals how he combined a Parrot Drone with a Raspberry Pi computer, a wi-fi transmitter, a battery pack, existing hacking software and his own code.

"The Parrots actually launch their own wireless network which is how the owner of the drone connects," he explained.

"We take over by deauthenticating the owner, then connecting now that the drone is waiting for its owner to connect back in, exploiting the fact that we destroyed their wireless connection."

He said that the hack took advantage of the fact that Parrot's drones used a specific block of publicly registered MAC addresses to identify themselves, meaning the attack drone could pick them out from other wi-fi connected equipment in the area.

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Parrot showed off its drone at the CES tech show earlier this year

Mr Kamkar added that the SkyJack technique could also be run from computer equipment on the ground to hijack Parrot drones flying overhead.

"This appears to be a basic design blunder," Prof Ross Anderson, head of the University of Cambridge's computer security research group, told the BBC.

He explained Parrot had two easily implemented options to prevent the hack:

• Use a secret key, shared by the controller and the drone, to authenticate each command message sent to the drone
• Encrypt the data sent between the machines, which has the added benefit of ensuring the content of any message remains private

Parrot targets its drones at enthusiasts who want to take videos or photos from above, controlling the devices via their smartphones or tablets.

The firm's latest model can fly at up to 40km/h (25mph) and at altitudes of 165m (540ft).

The news site Ars Technica has highlighted the fact that at least half a million Parrot drones have been sold since 2010.

Delivery drones

Mr Kamkar's blog appears to have been inspired by Amazon's announcement that it is carrying out tests of drone-based deliveries.

"How fun would it be to take over drones, carrying Amazon packages… or take over any other drones, and make them my little zombie drones?" Mr Kamkar wrote.

Package service UPS and Domino's Pizza are among other companies to have declared they are investigating a similar use of the technology.

However, one security consultant suggested such firms would be unlikely to ignore security guidelines if they ever brought their products to market.

"Both the ISO27001 and PCI DSS voluntary best practice standards state that any management traffic must be authenticated and encrypted," said Vladimir Jirasek from Jirasek Consulting Services.

"If Parrot is not following good practice this could lead to security incident, potentially followed by an accident. Imagine a drone disturbing traffic on a motorway.

"But I do not think Amazon would be lax in its security measures."

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Virgin joins Formula E racing series

5 December 2013 Last updated at 05:01 ET

Virgin is to enter a team for the first FIA Formula E Championship, which gets out of the grids next year.

The electric racing car series will take place on purpose-built street circuits in 10 cities around the world.

The Virgin Racing Formula E Team is headed by team principal Alex Tai and has the backing of Sir Richard Branson.

The announcement means just one more team is left to be announced before the inaugural 2014/2015 season gets under way.

The championship is intending to showcase electric car technology and speed up development and innovation amongst manufacturers.

"The need to create fast, dependable and durable race cars will help to accelerate the sector and showcase electric cars to a large global audience," said Sir Richard Branson.

Big names

Formula E is the highest class of competition for one-make, single-seat, electrically-powered racing cars.

The 10 city hosts are Beijing, Putrajaya, Rio de Janeiro, Punta del Este, Buenos Aires, Los Angeles, Miami, Monte Carlo, Berlin and London.

Continue reading the main story

• Season starts in September 2014, with 10 races
• Qualifying and racing on same day
• Each race to last about one hour
• Drivers will switch cars when batteries run out after about 25 minutes
• Tyre changes, unless for a puncture, are not permitted during this pit stop
• Top speed is about 225 km/h (140mph)
• 0-60mph in about 3 seconds
• Teams will have a budget cap of 2.5m euros

Virgin's announcement sees its return to motor sport after a team competed in Formula 1 in 2010 and 2011.

The series starts in China in September 2014, with 10 teams, 20 drivers, and 40 cars - each team having two drivers and four cars.

The racing cars are designed and built by Spark Racing Technology and Renault. The chassis comes from Dallara, which for decades has provided some of the highest-spec racing bodies in motorsport.

Much of the technical wizardry inside the cars is from two big names in F1 - McLaren and Williams. And the tyres have been specially developed by Michelin.

Sponsors - or partners - already signed up include US technology group Qualcomm, transport giant DHL, and Tag Heuer, best known for its luxury watches.

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NSA 'tracking' millions of mobiles

5 December 2013 Last updated at 06:34 ET

Almost five billion mobile phone location records are logged by the NSA every day, reports the Washington Post.

The data is said to help the NSA track individuals, and map who they know, to aid the agency's anti-terror work.

The "dragnet surveillance" was condemned by digital rights groups who called for the NSA's snooping efforts to be reined in.

The news comes as Microsoft plans to use more encryption to thwart NSA spying on it and its customers.

Wrong target

The huge database built up by the NSA (National Security Agency) keeps an eye on "hundreds of millions" of mobile phones, said the Post, adding that it let the agency map movements and relationships in ways that were "previously unimaginable".

It added that the vast programme potentially surpassed any other NSA project in terms of its impact on privacy. Information about the programme was in papers released to the Post by whistleblower Edward Snowden.

The spying agency is said to have accumulated so much data, about 27 terabytes according to leaked papers seen by the Post, that it was "outpacing" the NSA's ability to analyse the information in a timely fashion.

The analysis, via a computer system called Co-Traveler, was necessary as only a tiny fraction of 1% of the data gathered was actually useful in its anti-terror work, said the paper. The analysis is so detailed that it can be used to thwart attempts to hide from scrutiny by people who use disposable phones or only use a handset briefly before switching it off.

The vast majority of the information gathered is said to come from taps installed on mobile phone networks and used the basic location-information that networks log as people move around. Analysing this data helps the NSA work out which devices are regularly in close proximity and, by implication, exposes a potential connection between the owners of those handsets.

The American Civil Liberties Union said it was "staggering" that the NSA could mount such a vast location-logging system without any public debate. The "dragnet surveillance" broke US obligations that require it to respect the privacy of foreigners and Americans.

"The government should be targeting its surveillance at those suspected of wrong-doing, not assembling massive associational databases that, by their very nature, record the movements of a huge number of innocent people," it added.

The steady flow of information about the NSA's surveillance work has led Microsoft to take steps to protect itself and its customers from unwarranted scrutiny, it said in a blogpost.

Brad Smith, Microsoft legal counsel, said government snooping was now as much of a security problem as computer viruses and other cyber-attacks.

In response, Mr Smith said, Microsoft was expanding its use of encryption; would fight legal orders that stop it telling customers when their data is being sought and would allow a closer look at the code it develops to show there were no backdoors built in.

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Bitcoin trade ban for Chinese banks

5 December 2013 Last updated at 07:31 ET

China has banned its banks from handling transactions involving the Bitcoin virtual currency.

The ban came in a notice issued by the People's Bank of China, financial watchdogs and the nation's IT ministry.

Bitcoins were a "virtual good", had no legal status and should not be used as a currency, it said.

The decision comes after bitcoins' rapid rise in value was called a "bubble" by Alan Greenspan, former US Federal Reserve chairman.

Continue reading the main story

Bitcoin is often referred to as a new kind of currency.

But it may be best to think of its units being virtual tokens rather than physical coins or notes.

However, like all currencies its value is determined by how much people are willing to exchange it for.

To process Bitcoin transactions, a procedure called "mining" must take place, which involves a computer solving a difficult mathematical problem with a 64-digit solution.

For each problem solved, one block of bitcoins is processed. In addition the miner is rewarded with new bitcoins.

This provides an incentive for people to provide computer processing power to solve the problems.

To compensate for the growing power of computer chips, the difficulty of the puzzles is adjusted to ensure a steady stream of about 3,600 new bitcoins a day.

There are currently about 11 million bitcoins in existence.

To receive a bitcoin a user must have a Bitcoin address - a string of 27-34 letters and numbers - which acts as a kind of virtual postbox to and from which the bitcoins are sent.

Since there is no registry of these addresses, people can use them to protect their anonymity when making a transaction.

These addresses are in turn stored in Bitcoin wallets which are used to manage savings.

They operate like privately run bank accounts - with the proviso that if the data is lost, so are the bitcoins owned.

The ban was imposed because bitcoins were not backed by any nation or central authority, said the notice.

It added that it was planning to step up its efforts to curb the use of bitcoins to launder cash.

Individuals were still free to trade in bitcoins but should be aware of the risks involved, said the People's Bank of China (PBOC), adding that it planned to formalise the regulation of exchanges that dealt in the digital cash.

Experts told Reuters the PBOC was moved to make its decision because Chinese nationals were heavily involved in trading the virtual currency. Many believe this is because it helps them avoid controls on trade in the yuan.

Value soar

The value of bitcoins traded on Chinese exchanges fell after the announcement was made.

Interest in the virtual currency has seen its value soar in recent weeks.

On 28 November, the value of one bitcoin surpassed $1,000 for the first time.

The swift rise in value led Mr Greenspan to say the exchange rate for the virtual currency was "unsustainably high" in an interview with Bloomberg.

"It's a bubble", he said, going on to question the financial value people had pinned on bitcoins.

"You have to really stretch your imagination to infer what the intrinsic value of Bitcoin is," he said. "I haven't been able to do it. Maybe somebody else can."

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