Lawmaker seeks cooperation from Google, Facebook

WASHINGTON: The head of the House Judiciary Committee is asking Google Inc. and Facebook to cooperate with any government inquiries into privacy practices at both companies.

Michigan Democrat John Conyers sent letters to Google and Facebook on Friday amid mounting concern in Congress that the two online companies are not adequately protecting personal privacy on the Internet.

Facebook has come under fire for sharing user information with a handful of other online services as part of its new “instant personalization” program, which is intended to let Facebook members share their interests in everything from music to restaurants with others in their social network. The program draws information from a member’s profile to customize several other sites, including the music service Pandora.

Facebook simplified its privacy controls this week in response to the backlash among users. As part of the changes, it added a tool to make it easier for members to turn off the instant personalization service.

Conyers asked Facebook on Friday to provide details about its sharing of member information with third parties and about its privacy policies. Several privacy watchdog groups, including the Electronic Privacy Information Center, have already filed a complaint against Facebook with the Federal Trade Commission. The FTC has been reviewing the privacy policies of Facebook and other social networks.

Facebook spokesman Andrew Noyes said the company looks forward to meeting with Conyers’ staff to explain its privacy practices and policies.

Conyers stopped short of saying the Judiciary Committee will begin its own investigations into Facebook and Google.

Google recently admitted that it had sucked up fragments of e-mails, Web surfing behavior and other online activities over public Wi-Fi networks in more than 30 countries while it was photographing neighborhoods for its ''Street View'' mapping feature. The company said it discovered the problem following an inquiry by German regulators.

Conyers is asking Google to retain the data collected by its Street View cars along with related records until any federal and state inquiries are complete. At least two House members, Republican Rep. Joe Barton and Democratic Rep. Edward Markey, have already asked the FTC to look into the matter and are seeking more information from Google about the incident.

Google said it is not deleting US data. The FTC has yet to say whether it is investigating Google.

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McDonald's pulls 12M cadmium-tainted glasses

LOS ANGELES – Cadmium has been discovered in the painted design on "Shrek"-themed drinking glasses being sold across the US at McDonald's, forcing the burger giant to recall 12 million of the cheap US-made collectibles.

The US Consumer Product Safety Commission, which announced the voluntary recall early Friday, warned consumers to immediately stop using the glasses; McDonald's said it would post instructions on its website next week regarding refunds.

The 16-ounce glasses, being sold for about $2 each as part of a promotional campaign for the movie "Shrek Forever After," were available in four designs depicting the characters Shrek, Princess Fiona, Puss in Boots and Donkey.

The CPSC noted in its recall notice that "long-term exposure to cadmium can cause adverse health effects." Cadmium is a known carcinogen that research shows also can cause bone softening and severe kidney problems.

In the case of the Shrek-themed glassware, the potential danger would be long-term exposure to low levels of cadmium, which could leach from the paint onto a child's hand, then enter the body if the child puts that unwashed hand to his or her mouth.

Cadmium can be used to create reds and yellows in paint. McDonald's USA spokesman Bill Whitman said a pigment in paint on the glasses contained cadmium.

"A very small amount of cadmium can come to the surface of the glass, and in order to be as protective as possible of children, CPSC and McDonald's worked together on this recall," said CPSC spokesman Scott Wolfson.

He would not specify the amounts of cadmium that leached from the paint in tests, but said the amounts were "slightly above the protective level currently being developed by the agency."

Wolfson said the glasses have "far less cadmium than the children's metal jewelry that CPSC has previously recalled."

Concerns about cadmium exposure emerged in January, when The Associated Press reported that some items of children's jewelry sold at major national chains contained up to 91 percent of the metal. Federal regulators worry that kids could ingest cadmium by biting, sucking or even swallowing contaminated pendants and bracelets.

The consumer protection agency has issued three recalls this spring for jewelry highlighted in the AP stories, including products sold at Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer; at Claire's, a major jewelry and accessories chain in North America and Europe; and at discount and dollar stores.

Those recalls all involved children's metal jewelry — and all of that jewelry was made in China.

Manufactured by ARC International of Millville, N.J., the glasses were to be sold from May 21 into June. Roughly seven million of the glasses had been sold; another approximately five million are in stores or have not yet been shipped, said Whitman.

Associated Press reporters tried unsuccessfully to buy the glasses late Thursday at McDonald's in New York, Los Angeles and northern New Jersey but were alternately told the merchandise was sold out, no longer available or "there'll be more tomorrow."

E-mails sent after business hours to two spokesmen for ARC International seeking comment were not immediately returned.

McDonald's said it was asking customers to stop using the glasses "out of an abundance of caution."

"We believe the Shrek glassware is safe for consumer use," Whitman said. "However, again to ensure that our customers receive safe products from us, we made the decision to stop selling them and voluntarily recall these products effective immediately."

Whitman said that as the CPSC develops new protocols and standards for cadmium in consumer products, "we adjust as necessary to ensure that our customers can continue to trust what they receive from McDonald's."

"Our children's health should not depend on the consciences of anonymous sources," Speier said in a statement Friday.

"Although McDonald's did the right thing by recalling these products, we need stronger testing standards to ensure that all children's products are proven safe before they hit the shelves."

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Facebook looking to buy Twitter – FT

Social networking company Facebook recently held acquisition talks with Twitter, the micro-blogging company. The negotiations put a valuation of as much as dollar 500 million on Twitter,which has become one of Silicon Valley's most closely watched start-ups. Facebook offered to pay for the acquisition in stock. Putting a value on Twitter's shares proved controversial. If it used the dollar 15 billion valuation at which Microsoft Corp bought a stake in Facebook last year, it would have valued the Twitter purchase at dollar 500 million, though that investment was seen as a high-water mark for Web 2.0.

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IBM and academia work on human brain simulation

Boffins at IBM have teamed up with five universities to use the human brain as a template to buildfaster, smaller computer systems that benefit decision making. Working with experts at Columbia University Medical Centre, Cornell University, Stanford University, the University of California-Merced and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, IBM Research plans to design and develop computers that simulate and emulate how the brain acts, interacts, perceives and senses things, in addition to mirroring its cognition, lower power usage and size. In doing so, it is hoped that business and consumer users alike will be able to make decisions much more quickly as well as helping them to deal with the ever-increasing glut of digital data heading their way each year.

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Blackberry Javelin gets release date

Following the high profile launches of the Blackberry Bold and the Blackberry Storm, RIM continuesits assault on the smartphone market with Javelin. Carphone Warehouse has said that the Blackberry Javelin will be released exclusively in its stores just in time for Christmas on 20 December 2008, with the moniker 'Curve 8900'. Carphone Warehouse could not confirm to IT PRO anything regarding pricing or the network carrier, but did say that the Javelin will have the, "sharpest screen, for the brightest, sharpest icons". At first glance the Javelin looks similar to RIM's Blackberry Bold, featuring a Qwerty keyboard and a trackball. It also has GPS with Blackberry Maps and a 3.2-megapixel camera on the rear. However, it is intended as an entry-level product and lacks 3G connectivity

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Online fraudsters steal billions

All the criminals are happy to work together to steal money from credit cards and bank accounts. This is because card numbers stolen in one country can only be 'cashed out' in their home nation - necessitating contact across borders

Hi-tech thieves who specialise in card fraud have a credit line in excess of $5bn, research suggests.

Security firm Symantec calculated the figure to quantify the scale of fraud it found during a year-long look at the net's underground economy.
Credit card numbers are the most popular item on sale and made up 31 percent of all the goods on offer.

Coming in second are bank details which made up 20 percent of the items being offered on criminal chat channels.

The $5.3bn figure was reached by multiplying the average amount of fraud perpetrated on a stolen card, $350 by the many millions Symantec observed being offered for sale.

Similarly, the report said, "if hi-tech thieves plundered all the bank accounts offered for sale they could net up to $1.7bn."

Symantec said, "these figures are indicative of the value of the underground economy and the potential worth of the market."

"Credit card numbers have proved so popular among hi-tech thieves because they are easy to obtain and use for fraudulent purposes," it added.

Many of the methods favoured by cyber criminals, such as database attacks and magnetic strip skimmers, are designed to steal credit card information.

The existence of a ready market for any stolen data and the growing use of credit cards also helped maintain their popularity, it said.

"High frequency use and the range of available methods for capturing credit card data would generate more opportunities for theft and compromise and, thus, lead to an increased supply on underground economy servers," said the report.

The price card thieves can expect for the numbers they offer for sale also varied by the country of origin. US card numbers are the cheapest because they are so ubiquitous – 74 percent of all cards offered for sale were from the US.

By contrast numbers from cards issued in Europe and the Middle East commanded a premium because they were relatively rare.

The year-long look at the underground economy confirmed to Symantec how serious and organised cyber thieves have become.

Via the covert chat channels and invitation-only discussion forums hi-tech thieves form loose alliances, contact those who specialise in one technique or find individuals who can extract cash from particular credit cards .

Russian and Eastern European gangs seem to be among the most well-organised, said the report. But, it said, all the criminals are happy to work together to steal money from credit cards and bank accounts. This is because card numbers stolen in one country can only be 'cashed out' in their home nation - necessitating contact across borders.

"Symantec research indicates that there is a certain amount of collaboration and organisation occurring on these forums, especially at the administrative level," it said.

"Moreover, considerable evidence exists that organised crime is involved in many cases."

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Nokia launches bike-powered handset

HELSINKI: Want to talk more? Keep pedaling, says Nokia. The world's largest mobile phone maker on Thursday launched four low-priced handsets and a recharger that can be connected to a bicycle's dynamo which charges when the wheels turn.

The bicycle charger kit and handsets —some with a standby battery time of up to six weeks, FM radio and flashlights —are aimed at users with limited access to electricity.

The new devices will be available during the second half of the year, priced at between euro30 and euro45 ($36-$55).

The bike kit has a charger, dynamo and a holder to secure the phone to the bicycle. The dynamo _ a small electrical generator _ uses the movement of the wheels to charge the handset through a standard 2mm charging jack used in most Nokia handsets.

It cuts off at speeds lower than 3 mph (5 kph) and higher than 30 kph (50 kph).

The price of the kit in emerging markets starts at euro15 ($18), and likely will cost more in other markets, Nokia said.

The cheapest of the new handsets —the Nokia C series —is the C1-00, expected to retail for around euro30 ($36). It is also the firm's first model with a 2-in-1 double SIM card solution.

''By simply holding down a key people are able to switch between SIM cards,'' vice president Alex Lambeek said. ''This enables them to take advantage of reduced call rates, flexibility when traveling from one country to another or helps with sharing a phone within a family and still use their own SIM card.''

The C1 has a standby battery time of up to six weeks and features a flashlight and radio, both aimed at regions where electricity is scarce.

The Nokia C2, with an expected price tag of euro45 ($55), has dual SIM standby capability that keeps both SIM cards active, meaning that calls and text messages can come to either number while the handset is on.

One of the cards sit under the battery while the other SIM card is removable without turning off the phone.

The C2 also has the possibility of storing micro-SD cards with 32 gigabytes of memory for music, photos and other data.

Nokia has recently been faced by strong competition in the high-end smart phone market, particularly from RIM's Blackberry, Apple's iPhone and Google's Android, but has maintained its leading global position.

In another strong move to grab new customers in emerging markets it launched three less-expensive smart phones in April, including its first model expected to sell for under euro100 ($125).

Nokia has been the top handset maker since 1998. Last year, it sold 432 million handsets.

It is based in Espoo, near Helsinki, and employs around 126,000 people worldwide.

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'Mars crew' locked up for 520 days of isolation

MOSCOW: Six men from Europe, Russia and China were Thursday locked away from the outside world for the next one-and-a-half years, in an unprecedented experiment to simulate the effects of a mission to Mars.

One Chinese man, one Italian, one Frenchman and three Russians will spend the next 520 days in a 550 cubic metre facility at a Moscow research institute to test how their bodies and minds react to prolonged isolation.

Dressed in blue overalls, the six gave the thumbs-up sign and smiled for the cameras as loved ones and well-wishers gave them an emotional send-off before they entered the facility.

“See you in 520 days,” shouted one of the Russian participants, Sukhrob Kamolov, just before a scientist shut the door on the facility and sealed it shut at around 1000 GMT.

Like in a real Mars mission, the crew will have to survive on limited food rations like those used by real astronauts and their only communication with the outside world will be by email, with a delay of up to 40 minutes.

The hatch will only re-open when the experiment is over or if one of the all-male participants is forced to pull out. Controversially, no women have been selected for the experiment, called Mars 500.

“I am already missing him. I am crying right now,” said Irene Urbina, sister of Italian participant Diego Urbina.

The volunteers are aged between 27 and 38 and include a member of a real-life space programme and a civil engineer. But scientists bristle at the idea that the experiment is an elaborate version of television's “Big Brother”.

“It is not like 'Big Brother'. We do not have surveillance, video cameras everywhere. We hope there will be no fights or scandals,” said Jennifer Ngo-Anh, Mars 500 programme manager.

The volunteers will have their days in the module at the Russian Institute for Biomedical Problems (IBMP) divided into eight hours of sleep, eight hours of work and eight hours of leisure.

A team of three will spend one month aboard a special module meant to represent the Mars landing craft, while two will also spend time exploring a reconstruction of Mars itself.

Chinese member Wang Yue, 27, a candidate astronaut of China's space programme, told reporters before entering the capsule: “It is just a simulation. It is not a matter of life and death.”

“But I think it is very much more than that as it aims at the future of humanity.”

The idea is to exactly mimic the timescale of a Mars mission - 250 days for the trip to Mars, 30 days on the surface and 240 days for the return journey, totalling 520 days.

“You cannot simulate everything. That is obvious,” said Christer Fuglesang, head of science at the directorate for human spaceflight for the European Space Agency, a co-organiser of the project with the IBMP.

“The scare factor cannot be simulated. It's true we don't have this aspect they may not come back.”

The crew also conspicuously lacks women, meaning the experiment will not examine the possible sexual tensions that could arise on a trip to Mars for a mixed-gender crew.

Yury Karash, a Russian space policy expert, said the gender composition of the crew would allow the participants to focus on their professional duties instead of unwittingly competing for attention of female crew members.

“It is better for the crew to be same-sex,” he said on Russian television.

“No one has abolished the basic instinct yet.”

Their diet will be no different to that enjoyed by real-life astronauts on the International Space Station. The crew will be given all the food at the beginning of the experiment, forcing them to ration out their supplies.

The diet will include cereals, bread or pancakes for breakfast and soup, pasta and fish or meat dishes for main meals. Unlike real-life astronauts, the packaging will not have to account for zero gravity.

The ESA and the US space agency NASA have separately sketched dates in around three decades from now for a manned flight to Mars.

The project, the first full-duration simulated mission to Mars, follows a similar experiment in Moscow last year which saw six volunteers shut away for a mere 105 days.

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