How U.S. sanctions hurt Iranian Internet activists

(Credit:CBS/iStockPhoto)

analysis President Bill Clinton's 1997 electronic embargo against Iran, which curbed its citizens' access to U.S.-based software and Web sites, continues to create legal hassles for American Web companies.

In August 1997, Clinton signed an executive order saying U.S. companies and individuals could not provide "goods, technology, or services to Iran" -- a decree that led to unintended consequences such as Utah-based Bluehost giving the boot to Iranian bloggers and opensource software site SourceForge.net denying access to Iranians.

The U.S. Department of the Treasury's announcement yesterday, which was designed to complement President Obama's statement marking the Iranian New Year and comes as advocates of war against Iran are redoubling their efforts, may not be that much help.

Treasury says these forms of "services and software" can be made available to Iran:

Personal Communications (e.g., Yahoo Messenger, Google Talk, Microsoft Live, Skype (non-fee based))Updates to Personal Communications SoftwarePersonal Data Storage (e.g., Dropbox)Browsers/Updates (e.g., Google Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer)Plug-ins (e.g., Flashplayer, Shockwave, Java)Document Readers (e.g., Acrobat Readers)Free Mobile Apps Related to Personal CommunicationsRSS Feed Readers and Aggregators (e.g., Google Feed Burner).

But Treasury spokesman John Sullivan downplayed the significance of yesterday's news. The "announcement was a clarification of existing guidance," Sullivan told CNET in e-mail. "It did not change the guidelines."

The problem is that the existing guidelines -- last liberalized in March 2010 -- are still pretty restrictive.

One example: even after that modest liberalization, Google restricts Iranians' access to the Android Market, now called Google Play. In response to a question at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona last month, Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt blamed Treasury regulations.

"I'm with you," Schmidt said. "But prison--there's no bandwidth."

After the 2010 liberalization, Google did announce that "we're making Google Earth, Picasa, and Chrome available for download in Iran." (A Google representative declined to elaborate when contacted by CNET.)

But Iranian Internet users remain, understandably, peeved that the other restrictions imposed by the U.S. Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control, or OFAC, continue to exist.

They've started a petition saying they're denied access to the Android Market, among other products. We "do not have the slightest interest in the governments' political stances," the petition says. "We just want to be able to use the software like any other person in the world."

The irony: Clinton's anti-Iran order in the 1990s presumably was never meant to restrict access to security software and Web sites that can aid Iranian activists agitating for a freer society. Yet it does. A 2010 article in Foreign Affairs called the current rules "grossly outdated." (A newer set of U.S. sanctions against Iran, restricting financial transactions, is also causing unintended consequences for everyone from drug maker Merck to a Redmond, Wa.-based diaper maker.)

Collin Anderson, an independent researcher in North Dakota who focuses on Internet filtering and censorship in the Middle East, has compiled a list of U.S.-based technology products that remain unavailable to Iranians. Among them: Apple's iOS app store, McAfee's antivirus software, Oracle's Java and MySQL, Adobe's Acrobat Reader, DropBox, Real Player, Google AdWords, and Google Android Market.

After yesterday's list from OFAC that mentions some of those products by name, the list of off-limits apps is likely to shrink. But Anderson notes that OFAC has not authorized some very useful products and services including antivirus applications, privacy-protective VPNs, the ability to buy domain names and SSL certificates, satellite connectivity, and phone or other mobile hardware. VPNs would be especially useful in a country like Iran, which has demonstrated an extraordinary willingness to conduct surveillance of its citizens.

"There are allowances on food and medical supplies that could be modeled for hardware or others, but the executive agencies have been quite evidently afraid of members of Congress like Mark Kirk," Anderson says. Sen. Mark Kirk, an Illinois Republican who holds President Obama's old seat, has been leading the charge to cripple Iran's economy on suspicions it's developing nuclear weapons.

Another limitation is that other countries may not benefit; even though the Treasury Department's OFAC may be edging toward a more liberal approach, Commerce Department regulations still target democracy activists in Syria, where a near-civil war continues. Similarly, downloads of Google Earth are banned for Sudan.

"Restrictions from the Department of Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security still appear to prevent communications tools and services from being exported to Syrians without a license," Electronic Frontier Foundation attorneys Cindy Cohn and Jillian York write in an essay. "Because of these restrictions, Syrians still cannot access Google products Chrome and Earth, cannot download Java, among various other tools, and cannot use hosting services like Rackspace, SuperGreenHosting and others."

The unintended consequences of these electronic sanctions aren't exactly new. In 2003, OFAC sent Monster.com legal guidance that caused it to censor resumes from its users that mentioned Iran, Syria, Sudan, Myanmar, Cuba, and Libya. Back in 1996, citing the Iran and Libya Sanctions Act, a U.S. government official quietly pulled the plug on Iran's Internet connection.

In theory, neither Treasury's OFAC nor Commerce's BIS probably have the authority to interfere with Web communications. The so-called 1988 Berman Amendment to federal law stripped the president of his authority to "directly or indirectly" regulate the export of "information and informational materials."

But in reality, bureaucrats aren't known to relinquish power readily. And while President Obama has been willing to record YouTube videos on the free flow of information, he has yet to reverse his predecessor's decision. Which means that Clinton's 1997 embargo, which claimed Iran posed an "unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States," has forced Iranians and Syrians to remain second-class Internet citizens.

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Android Ice Cream Sandwich coming to Motorola Droid Razr and Razr Maxx, April 4

A leaked image from Best Buy shows the dates of ICS updates.

(Credit:Android Police)

Ice Cream Sandwich cravers, rejoice.

According to Android Police, a leaked image from Best Buy shows that the Motorola Droid Razr and Droid Razr Maxx from Verizon will get an OS update to Ice Cream Sandwich on April 4.

Two days later on April 6, the HTC Rezound will get the same scoop of Android ICS.

A few days prior, another carrier, AT&T, announced a number of its devices will be getting an upgrade as well. Some of these handsets include the LG Nitro, the Samsung Galaxy Note, and the Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9.

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Facebook buys IBM patents

Facebook confirmed Friday that it has added a trove of IBM patents to its arsenal on an increasingly lawsuit-strewn technology battlefield.

Reports that Facebook bought 750 software and networking patents from IBM surfaced less than two weeks after struggling Internet pioneer Yahoo! accused the thriving young firm of infringing on 10 of its patents.

"I can confirm that there was a purchase but I don't have any other details to share," Facebook spokesman Larry Yu said in response to an AFP inquiry.

IBM would not comment.

Acquisition of the patents came as California-based Facebook prepared for an initial public offering and as Internet titans increasingly battle in courts as well as in marketplaces.

Yahoo!, in a lawsuit filed in US District Court for the Northern District of California on March 12, accused Facebook of infringing on patents in several areas including advertising, privacy and messaging.

The Sunnyvale, California-based company asked the court to order Facebook to halt its alleged patent-infringing activities and to assess unspecified damages.

Facebook, which was founded in 2004, a decade after Yahoo!, expressed disappointment with the move.

"We're disappointed that Yahoo!, a longtime business partner of Facebook and a company that has substantially benefited from its association with Facebook, has decided to resort to litigation," a Facebook spokeswoman said.

In the suit, Yahoo! said that Facebook's growth to more than 850 million users "has been based in large part on Facebook's use of Yahoo!'s patented technology."

"For much of the technology upon which Facebook is based, Yahoo! got there first and was therefore granted patents by the United States Patent Office to protect those innovations," Yahoo! said.

"Yahoo!'s patents relate to cutting edge innovations in online products, including in messaging, news feed generation, social commenting, advertising display, preventing click fraud and privacy controls."

Once seen as the Internet's leading light, Yahoo! has struggled in recent years to build a strongly profitable, growing business out of its huge Web presence and global audience.

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SMS Audio SYNC by 50 wireless headphones review

Ah, celebrity-endorsed headphones -- whether it's Beats by Dre or Soul by Ludacris, you've always gotta wonder whether their actual sound-reproduction chops will match up with the steep price tags and fashion-focused designs.

Oftentimes, shocker of shockers, the answer is a resounding "no." One of the newest entrants into this game is SYNC by 50, stemming from a long collaboration between SMS Audio and none other than Curtis James Jackson III -- 50 Cent, of course. Unlike the partners' $250 Street offering, these headphones have the unique selling point of offering both wireless and wired operation, a convenience for which you'll pay a staggering $400.

Although they don't offer active noise-cancellation like competing models, these headphones are banking on Kleer's tried-and-true wireless audio technology, which touts 16-bit CD-quality resolution. We spent several weeks testing these spendy sound-blasters, so continue on to our full review to learn whether they live up to the hype or could us to a second trip back to the studio for remastering.

As far as headphones go, the SYNCs arrive in a particularly massive package. During our unboxing, we were greeted by a semi-hardshell black zippered case with blue trim. Interestingly, it can stand upright thanks to four plastic feet, and the top section is conveniently molded into the shape of a handle. Unzipping the case gave us access to the real star of the show, the headphones and their unpleasantly odorous materials. Thankfully, a few days of use quelled the odd stench. Nestled in between the 'phones, you'll find a wireless 2.4GHz Kleer 3.5mm audio dongle, along with a USB wall adapter for charging. On the opposite side of the case there's a mesh pocket, which holds a micro-fiber cloth, a blue 3.5mm audio cable with a one-button inline remote / mic, USB-to-mini-USB cable, an airliner adapter and some product booklets.

The basic design elements of the SYNCs unsurprisingly nod to other established brands on the market. Remove the buttons and chromed plastic trim, and you have a near replica of the Beats Studios. Then there's the blue-backlit "S" on each earcup that's similar to Signeo's Soul by Ludacris cans. That said, the folks over at SMS Audio have crafted a robust offering with some notably differentiating design choices. While the plastic doesn't look or feel very high-end, it's ridiculously flexible, which bodes well for their durability over time. Absent are any folding hinges, a design choice that SMS claims to offer more rigidity (albeit at the expense of portability). We bent and twisted the headphones many ways and were left with nary a sign of any stress. The headrail adjusters also click smoothly along their tracks and stayed locked in position while we were out and about. Overall, the build quality is much like what we've come to expect from Samsung's mobile phones: cheap-feeling plastic that's actually rather durable.

Speaking of the trim and finish, you'll have a choice between the white seen here or black, both featuring light blue and chrome trimmings. Although we normally love gizmos that get the unicorn color treatment, our review sample's ear cushions had blue stains from the carry case and quickly began collecting grime after only a few weeks of use. If you're the type who obsesses over keeping your gadgets pristine, we'd advise picking it up in black to save yourself the headache.

Let's move on to specifics. On the left earcup's side, you'll find a power button and another for bass boost / SYNCing (more on that later), while its underside houses a 3.5mm cable input and micro-USB port for charging. Along the right, there's a cluster of playback controls: advance, rewind and volume. Each button is crowned with raised markings that match up with these symbols (say, volume up), making them easy to find just by feeling around. The buttons make a satisfying click, too, though there's no audio feedback confirming you've just adjusted a setting. We should also point out that all of the controls won't work out of the box (details later).

The included cable plugs snugly into the headphones and its right-angle jack on the opposite end works well if you plan on keeping your PMP in your pocket. We're happy to report that cable noise is pretty minimal, and that the single control-button / mic work across a range of Android and iOS devices. Aside from the blue color, though, it's essentially standard fare and we would have liked for another cable or two to be included at this price -- just as you'll find with almost any pair of headphones like this. By the way, if you're hoping for a remote with volume controls, like Control-Talk for iOS devices, nothing of the sort is currently available.

Of course, the headphones are wireless, so let's discuss the dongle for a moment. Starting with build quality, the consistency of the materials is more of the same; however, it ends up seeming flimsier once you notice the wiggly connection at the audio jack. Other than this minor niggle, we didn't run into any actual problems with its materials. On its top is a power slider, along a with a micro-USB port for charging. Using its 2.4GHz wireless signal, the dongle can work up to 50 feet from the headphones, but in practice we rarely made it past 20 or so before our audio would begin to cut out.

Oddly enough, the dongle only enables independent volume control with the headphones, meaning those forward and rewind buttons will remain useless. You will have some options to enable these with add-ons, which we'll detail further below. On a more positive note, you can connect up to four of the headphones to one wireless dongle. We're not exactly sure of the appeal for this beyond speakers, but if your buddies happen to own their own pair you could have an odd sort of listening party, we guess.

Notably, pairing the headphones and transmitter is very simple, as their very name would suggest. After holding down the SYNC button on the dongle for three seconds, you'll do the same for the headphones. While in progress, the LEDs blink in rapidly, eventually matching up at slower pace to let you know that everything got... synced. SMS notes the process takes about 20 seconds, which sounds about right, by our clock. If you're worried about disturbing others with those flashing lights, the blinkers turn off if you hold the rewind button down for three seconds. Take note, though: as far as we've surmised, the dongle's blinker will remain on unless powered down. Sigh.

The headphones will work passively with the included cable, but as a fail-safe to keep the batteries from draining by accident, they'll power off if no sound gets transferred for about a minute. Sadly, there's no way to bypass this feature, which turned out to be a nuisance since we constantly needed to re-pair the devices while using the headphones out and about throughout the day. Speaking of battery life, we were able to get about 16 and a half hours of continuous use (SMS rates them for 17) but annoyingly, the dongle only lasts a bit more than half of that.

Frustratingly enough, although SMS had the foresight to include a USB wall charger, it has just a single input. This means you'll have to charge one unit at a time unless you want to hook one into, say, your computer. So, you might wonder, why not just opt for Bluetooth, sparing the need for a dongle? One of the major selling points on these cans is Kleer -- this wireless technology offers 16-bit CD-quality lossless audio. Despite the claimed high-resolution, these are not aimed at audiophiles, per se, as the headphones expectedly feature a pre-tuned EQ. (We'll save the details for the sound section later on.)

When it comes to fit, the SYNCs perform good in the comfort department. The earcups do have an ample amount of padding, but we would've appreciated a secondary set of cloth pads to avoid swampy ears on hotter days. Sadly, the drivers aren't set very deep, which causes the headphones to fit a bit like supra-aurals despite the over-ear design. Similar to the Klipsch Mode M40s, this means a hard driver plate may rest against your ears, negating the affects the memory-foam padding -- we certainly experienced some mild cartilage cramping.

Still, the headphones are very lightweight, with a loose fit that's just snug enough for them to stay on your head without any serious clamping. Although the cans will remain on your head, that doesn't mean they'll stay in place. The headband is slippery, causing the headphones to slide forward whenever you're walking about. These stand as small quibbles on their own, but we'd be remiss if we didn't point out that many headphones costing far less come out ahead in many of these real-world tests.

Alright, let's get to the key part of any headphone review: audio quality. To begin, it's worth noting that while the headphones are loosely marketed as noise-cancelling, they are actually of the passive noise-isolating variety -- if that. The headphones do an abysmal job of blocking out external sound, and in some cases the world felt louder with them on, as if we were in a tunnel. It's disappointing given how large the headphones are, but we imagine the comfortably care-free fit isn't exactly conducive to a pristine listening experience.

As long as we were in a quiet environment, we generally liked the headphones' voicing, albeit with some caveats. As you'd expect, they're bass-pushers first and foremost, but they're fairly big sounding closed-back cans compared to other high-end options we've tested. We found ourselves engulfed by the spacious soundstage and clarity that the 50mm drivers provided. It's not all good, though. We wouldn't say the mids and highs are tinny, but without EQ guitars always ended up lacking thickness. It becomes especially noticeable once a full band kicks in, as very often the guitars end up fighting with the cymbals for sonic real estate. The lower end is exceptionally smooth, but we did perceive a lack of presence.

For example, with Jimmy Eat World, the bass guitar loses some of its usual top-end bite, and the initial whack of a bass drum winds up buried under its thump. On a related note, you'll be able use a bass booster, dubbed Thumpp, whenever you use the cans wirelessly. The processing gets done using Kleer's tech, which is a partial shame since cord-lovers are left out of the fun. Sadly, bass heads' might want to sit down for this next note -- the bass boost consistently did more harm than good, usually causing some mild, but audible, distortion.

Despite the headphones' inherent bass kick, that lacking presence meant that, with genre's like dubstep and hip hop, the low-end was more audible, albeit compressed. When it comes running these wireless, nothing sounded drastically different our ears, which is a good thing considering its supposed to supply lossless quality. Overall, the headphones sound pretty good, but they'll likely seem a bit airy sounding.

That said, when you then realize you paid $400 for the headphones, they're considerably less impressive -- especially up against the thickly voiced M40s. On a positive note, the cable's inline microphone faithfully carried our voice during phone calls without any complaints from those on the other line.

As we mentioned earlier, all of the controls on the SYNCs don't work out of the box with any device. While there isn't a magic accessory to quell this curious design choice, SMS would be happy to offer you one of two more dongles for an extra fee. Computer users will benefit from SMS' Kleer USB dongle, which, unlike the audio jack-purposed one included, allows all of the headphones' controls to work. While we're glad the option is there, the dongle is huge compared to the average flash drive and it costs a whopping $80 dollars.

According to the included manual, a 30-pin iDevice version of the headphone jack dongle is also on the way. There's no specific word on a price or release date, but it'll likely set you back another 50 dollars or so. Of course, this dongle would enable the playback controls, which remain functionless otherwise.

When it comes down to it, SMS Audio's SYNC by 50 wireless headphones are simply too expensive for what you get. Sure, they're stylish with a decent fit and good sound, but the experience is just messy. The 16-bit lossless audio via Kleer wireless is an intriguing prospect, but fussing with dongles is always a hard pill to swallow. Furthermore, the whole implementation feels half-baked once you factor in the mixed compatibility between features.

Thumpp bass boost will only work with the dongles due to the sound processing. You only have the option for a microphone when using a cable. The one dongle that does makes all of the headphones' on-board features work isn't included in this already exceptionally expensive package.

The list goes on, but you've likely gotten the gist by now. All that said, we're always suckers for gadgets stuffed with bells and whistles, so here's to a more seamless experience -- and some more reasonable pricing -- in version 2.0. That is, if there ever is a second generation.

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Best gaming desktops big and small

Gaming desktops have become impressively diverse over the past few months. The best part is that even the lower-end systems are remarkably capable. It's now possible to spend less than $1,000 on a ready-made gaming desktop from a specialized vendor that will play pretty much any current title you can throw at it.

Whether that accessibility has come from better-designed hardware components, or game graphics stagnating because of the longer life cycle for consoles, it's a great time to be in the market for a new gaming desktop. Below you'll find four of the best systems in the category.

(Credit:Sarah Tew/CNET)

Alienware x51Alienware started off 2012 with one of the more innovative gaming desktops to hit the market. Slim tower desktops can typically only accommodate half-height expansion cards, restricting those systems to slower budget-priced 3D cards at best. Thanks to some clever motherboard design, the Alienware x51 can accept a full-size graphics card, allowing it to run most current PC games at decent image quality and at 1,920x1,080-pixel resolution. You will also appreciate its price, which starts at $999. Read the full review of the Alienware x51.

(Credit:Sarah Tew/CNET)

Falcon Northwest Mach VOn the other end of the price spectrum, the most recent Mach V from boutique PC granddaddy Falcon Northwest comes with three graphics cards and an overclocked, six-core Core i7 3930K CPU from Intel. The CPU will be overkill for most current games and consumer applications, but if you're a committed gamer and have the need for massive multithreaded processing capability (perhaps you analyze seismic data for your weekend oil and gas scouting club), this Mach V will deliver uncompromising, high-resolution game performance, even across multiple monitors. And all for only $4,995. Read the full review of the Falcon Northwest Mach V.

(Credit:Sarah Tew/CNET)

Origin ChronosOrigin's Chronos is a direct response to the Alienware x51. This system took home an Editors' Choice Award. Alienware's came close, but just missed. The small form factor Chronos only costs $1,199, $200 more than the tiny Alienware system, but with an overclocked Core i7 2550K CPU, a faster graphics card, and a much larger power supply, the Chronos is faster and more upgradeable than Alienware's entry. Read the full review of the Origin Chronos.

(Credit:Sarah Tew/CNET)

Velocity Micro Edge Z55The $2,299 Velocity Micro Edge Z55 lands in the middle of the gaming desktop pricing landscape, but especially if you play on a single monitor, it's hard to argue that you really need to spend more. Its Core i7 2700K CPU comes overclocked to 4.9GHz, and its pair of GeForce GTX 560 Ti 448 graphics cards will play any PC game you can find at smooth frame rates. Read the full review of the Velocity Micro Edge Z55.

Compare these systems head to head.

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Top 5 external drives: Backing up is a personal matter

The last Saturday of March is World Backup Day, and you'll see a lot of storage vendors taking this occasion to pitch their products for backup purposes. I am about to do a similar thing, but from a very different point of view: yours.

None of the vendors goes as far as guaranteeing the integrity of storage on their products. At most, a vendor would give you a new product to replace the broken one, or in the currently unique case of IoSafe, offer to pay up to a certain amount toward data recovery. I, on the other hand, promise, if not guarantee, that if you follow my advice, your data will be safe.

The truth is that backing up is a personal matter that needs to be taken care of on a regular basis -- even daily, if possible. The key thing is to store copies of data in multiple places and never rely on just one medium for your important, irreplaceable data.

Note that commercial movies, music, and other purchasable digital content are replaceable. It's great that you can back everything up, but most of the time, the personal information that you really need to safeguard takes up very little storage space.

Up-to-date backups of your data are like insurance; you need it and at the same time hope to never have to resort to it.

The second thing to note is that even a brand-new hard drive can die at any time, without any warning. You can always lose your portable drive, and your online storage service can go out of business all of sudden. You need to act when everything is in working order -- which can give you a false sense of safety -- because otherwise, most of the time, it's just too late. And let me say this once more time: never use just one medium to keep your important, irreplaceable data.

Up-to-date backups of your data are like insurance; you need it and at the same time hope to never have to resort to it. There are many ways to keep your data safe and you can find out about different types of backups here.

To make it easier, in this roundup, however, I'll focus on external hard drives, which are the most popular, affordable, and easiest way to back up (and restore) data. Even better: you only have to pay for them once. Here are my choices for the top five external hard drives that are great ways to keep your data safe. They are formatted for Windows but can be easily reformatted to work with Macs. They are listed in order of seriousness, with the most casual -- and affordable -- drives on top.

(Credit:Dong Ngo/CNET)

WD 2TB My PassportWestern Digital's 2TB My Passport is the world's first portable drive that offers 2TB of storage space. This is about as large as you can get from a 2.5-inch-based external hard drive given the current perpendicular recording technology. Despite this top capacity, the drive is very compact and is bus-powered. All you need is the included standard Micro-USB 3.0 cable for it to work. (The drive works with both USB 3.0 and USB 2.0.)

The new My Passport offered great performance in my testing and doesn't cost too much, either, at just around $200 at online retail stores. It also comes in 1TB, 750GB, and 500GB versions that cost less accordingly. As an alternative to the new My Passport, you can also check out Seagate's GoFlex Portable series.

For backup purposes, the drive is preloaded with WD Backup software that makes backing up data a very easy job. Read the full review of the WD 2TB My Passport.

Clickfree C6No portable drive can beat the C6 in terms of ease of use. On a Windows machine, the drive's backup software runs by itself and makes a daily backup if it's kept plugged in. You can recover files using its software when Windows is running, and you can also use it as a boot drive to restore the entire system in case of a drive crash or virus infection.

Apart from the C6, there are other drives that offer similar features, such as the HP Portable Hard Drive, and the Clickfree C2N. Read the full review of the Clickfree C6.

(Credit:Dong Ngo/CNET)

Silicon Power Armor A80The Silicon Power Armor A80 takes storage security up a notch with its rugged chassis, which is waterproof down to a depth of 3 feet and can handle shocks and drops from around 4 feet while moving. It survived some serious beating in my tests and also gave great performance.

The 2.5-inch-based portable drive offers up to 1TB of storage and its body has a groove for storing a short USB 3.0 cable. The Silicon Power Armor A80 comes in four capacities: 500GB, 640GB, 750GB, and 1TB, and will make a great backup drive for people who travel a lot or work in rough environments. Read the full review of the Silicon Power Armor A80.

(Credit:Dong Ngo/CNET)

IoSafe Rugged Portable hard drive

Speaking of rugged, this drive literally has that as its middle name. The IoSafe Rugged Portable has a full-metal casing (there are versions that are made of titanium) and can withstand basically anything you throw at it.

I personally shot the drive with a shotgun a few times during a demo and it survived that just fine. The drive can also handle serious water submersion and other abuse. The only thing it can't withstand is extreme heat.

As I referred to above, IoSafe bundles the Rugged Portable with a year of Data Recovery Service that pays up to $5,000 (depending on which model you buy) to recover data if the drive is damaged for whatever reason. This service can be extended to three or five years. It also comes with a full version of the Genie9 Timeline Pro backup software. Read the full review of the IoSafe Rugged Portable hard drive.

(Credit:Dong Ngo/CNET)

IoSafe SoloPro Disaster-Proof Hard DriveThe IoSafe SoloPro is the ultimate backup drive that can satisfy even people who are worried about their data safety to the point of paranoia. The drive is huge and weighs about 15 pounds. This is because of the multiple layers of protective material that keep the internal hard drive safe from extreme heat (up to 1,550 degrees Fahrenheit for 30 minutes). The drive is also able to survive submersion in up to 10 feet of water for three days. The reason it should only be used as a backup drive is that it's a single-volume storage device, therefore, susceptible to hard-drive failure.

Like the Rugged Portable, the SoloPro comes with one year of a data recovery plan that covers up to $5,000 worth of damage. Recently, IoSafe introduced the Solo G3, which will soon be reviewed. Read the full review of the IoSafe SoloPro drive.

Want to find out how these five drives stack up against one another? Compare them head-to-head.

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iPad smugglers face fresh pressures

Shipping Apple's tablets to the Far East can make big profits – but is threatened by tougher customs, mail costs and global rollout

Early on the morning of 16 March, Wong Tat joined a line of about 100 people waiting for the launch of the new iPad in a chilly rain outside an Apple store on the outskirts of San Francisco. When the doors opened, he was among the first to buy his quota of two iPads – the maximum Apple allows per person. Then, sporting a bright red cap for easy identification, Wong began to direct a stream of people toting their new tablets to a silver Mercedes 4x4 in the parking lot.

After about two dozen of the neatly boxed iPads had been put in the trunk, the 4x4 sped to a nearby run-down hair salon and massage parlour. There, the haul of tablets, costing about $12,000, was transferred to red, white and blue wholesale bags, which Wong then spirited out the back door into another car. "They're headed for China," said Amy, a thirtysomething hair stylist at the salon who had joined in the pre-dawn operation outside the Apple store. She would not divulge her last name.

The iPads had embarked on the first leg of a journey that would ironically return them to the country where they were assembled in the first place. They may have been stuffed into suitcases and taken by passengers on a flight to China, or possibly flown by courier to the duty-free territory of Hong Kong and smuggled in students' backpacks across the border onto the mainland.

Demand for Apple products, coupled with severe constraints on local supply, has created a thriving black market. A 16Gb iPad bought in San Francisco for $499 – about $540 including tax – can be sold for more than $1,000 in Shanghai the next day. Apple says it sold more than 3m of the devices – which now come 4G-ready with a sharper "retina" display – in its first weekend.

"You can pretty much determine when the first iPad arrives in China by monitoring the first flight out from the US on launch day," said an Apple employee who was not authorised to speak on behalf of the company.

The same process happens in other cities: on the same day that Wong was at work in San Francisco, the London Evening Standard reported that "black market gangs" had hijacked the launch, with buyers leaving the Apple Store in Westfield with the standard two iPads and then handing them, still in their shrinkwrapped boxes, over to eastern European men. It quoted Martin, 33, one of the people who queued to go into the Apple Store in Covent Garden again and again, and who explained: "I hope to get around 70 iPads today. I will be sending them on to India. The guys who are queuing get paid £10 or £20 for a day's work. I know them from my community centre, word gets round that this job has to be done."

Companies that make iPad accessories, such as cases and speakers, also hire people to wait in line on launch day, a source involved in that business said. Because accessory makers do not get an early peek at Apple products, they have to scramble as soon as new iPads and iPhones hit the streets to reconfigure assembly lines and craft accessories that fit any tweaks in the design, he said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

Nursing the husk of a new machine

People like Wong, dubbed huangniu, or "yellow-bull black-market operator" in Chinese, have operated richly lucrative businesses. They pay people like Amy – codenamed "nurses" because the word "hush" sounds like "helpers" in Chinese – $20 to $30 to queue to buy an iPad or iPhone for resale on the black market. Factor in as little as $12 to ship each device via a Chinese shipping agent, and small wonder Wong and his ilk found it worth their while.

But it is getting tougher and costlier to smuggle the devices into China as the Chinese customs authority has told some US-based shipping agents not to accept orders of iPads, and warned travellers to declare their gadgets at the border and pay a 10% import duty on electronics.

Two small shipping companies that ship to China, BLZ Express and Global Courier Services, said they now refuse iPad shipments. BLZ, based in Fremont, California, posted a notice on its website this month saying: "Our clearing warehouses have stopped receiving iPad in accordance with a recent customs authority notification." UPS and FedEx, the largest US package delivery companies, did not return requests for comment.

In Shenzhen, across the border from Hong Kong, an online report from the state-owned Guangzhou Daily – a mouthpiece of the local government – said the newest iPad was among 20 taxable goods that should be declared by travellers.

"I stopped carrying iPad a few months ago because now the customs at Shenzhen can be pretty strict," said a Chinese student in Hong Kong, who declined to reveal his payoff for smuggling.

Meanwhile, Apple now simultaneously launches devices in multiple countries, boosting availability and depressing black market prices, although the new iPad with its higher-quality display was available in fewer countries initially than its predecessor. A key launch venue is Hong Kong, however, which was among the 10 countries for the initial launch – unlike last year, when the territory, a key channel to China, was not included in the launch day.

"It's getting really hard to do this compared to previous years," said Amy, who wore a dyed red streak in her hair, as she trimmed a young man's "faux-hawk" hair style in the San Francisco area salon. An electronics dealer in Oakland, California, said he struggled to break even this year, a far cry from previous iPad releases when he shipped upwards of 1,000 tablets and pocketed profits of $50 to $100 per device sent to his buyer in Hong Kong.

This year, he had no choice but to send 250 iPads via FedEx – which quotes $110 to ship a tablet weighing about 1kg to China – hours after they hit US stores. The same-day launch of the tablet in 10 territories, notably including Hong Kong, curtailed demand. "This whole game is over," the dealer complained. "There's an overabundance of supply. The market's flooded." He said he visited only a couple of stores in the San Francisco bay area for tablets, with the Chinese black-market selling-price falling every day that passes.

Proudly worn

Despite that expansion in inventory, demand in China still outstrips supply. Online retail site Taobao.com carried iPad listings last week for as much as $1,100, though $600 to $700 price tags were more common. While iPads and iPhones have become badges of western chic and status to upwardly mobile Chinese, they are usually the last to be able to buy them directly from Apple stores.

Industry sources say smugglers operate out of multiple countries, but mainly in the US because that is where stores carry the most products.

Last Friday in Hong Kong, stores ran out of the newest iPad within hours. They are now sold via a daily lottery there, while they are still readily available in many US stores.

The Chinese "nurses" are easy to spot: they stroll in, hand over a note describing the model they want and leave as soon as they get it, whereas an ordinary buyer will often take their gadget out for a test drive before leaving the store and ask sales staff numerous questions. "Apple has gotten so big that they can flood the market. Before they released it, they probably had been making them for six months and had them sitting in a warehouse. Now they are selling it in Asia and Australia, and it's out 16 hours before us," said the Oakland dealer.

• iPad
• Apple
• Computing
• Tablet computers
• China
• Asia Pacific

Charles Arthur

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Rare bird species appear in Kon Tum

VietNamNet Bridge – Crocias langbianbis, a rare and endemic species of bird of Vietnam has been discovered in the Central Highland province of Kon Tum.

The Crocias langbianbis is a species of bird in the Timaliidae family. It is endemic to Vietnam. Its natural habitat is subtropical or tropical moist mountains. It is threatened by habitat loss.

“This is the first time the Crocias langbianbis species, which is extremely endangered in the whole world, is reported to appear in Kon Tum,” said Mr. Le Trong Trai from the Birdlife International in Vietnam.

Previously, this species of bird was only discovered in the Langbian area of the Ba Mount in Lam Dong province and some areas in Dak Lak province.

The recent discovery shows that the residence of this species has expanded by around 300km to northern Vietnam.

Crocias langbianbis is among the rarest species of birds in the world. Documents about this species are negligible. They were just described by scientists in 1939 and 1994.

Na Son

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VN worries about future supplies of water, food

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24 hours in apps media disruption

How mobile is sparking innovation in publishing, music, television, games and beyond

In 2012, smartphone and tablet apps are at the heart of disruption across the media and entertainment industries. Which sounds like a grandiose claim, but the evidence is there to back it up. In fact, the last 24 hours alone provide a good snapshot of it.

It's happening in the publishing world. Start with Next Issue Media, which is a joint venture between US magazine publishers Condé Nast, Hearst, Meredith, News Corp. and Time Inc.

The company has released an Android tablet app called Next Issue offering 32 digital magazines from its founders, including Elle, Time, Vanity Fair and Sports Illustrated.

They're available as standalone-issue purchases and individual magazine subscriptions, but the most disruptive element is the all-you-can-read subscription: $9.99 a month to get all of the bi-weekly and monthly mags, and $14.99 a month for that plus all the weekly ones.

It's the equivalent of Spotify or Netflix for digital magazines. An iPad version will be submitted to Apple "in the coming weeks", but its disruptive potential for that company's own Newsstand could lead to some approval fun and frolics.

Also in publishing, two of the more high-profile news aggregation apps, Zite and Pulse, have announced new partnerships with publishers to make the latter's content available within their apps.

Zite launched a Publisher Program to provide sites and publications with their own sections on its iOS and Android apps, starting with Bleacher Report, CNN, The Daily Beast, FOX Sports, HLNtv, The Huffington Post, Motley Fool, The Next Web and VentureBeat.

Rival Pulse has also expanded its deal with magazine publisher Bonnier, adding 20 of its titles' content to its aggregation app, following a deal signed way back in July 2011 for its Popular Science title.

Apps like Zite and Pulse, along with Flipboard, FLUD and others have sometimes been seen as disruptive in the wrong way by publishers, concerned at the possible impact of content-scraping on their advertising revenues. Partnerships like these show there is scope for the two sides to work together.

Meanwhile, Marvel Comics has just unveiled a new digital comic-book format, Marvel Infinite, which involves comics hand-drawn specifically with full-screen tablet reading in mind – as opposed to simply digitising a print comic. The first to get the treatment is Avengers vs. X-Men #1, within the Marvel Comics app.

Spotify subscriptions

Apps disruption is happening in the music industry too. The last 24 hours has seen Spotify fending off suggestions in the New York Post that the pace at which it's signing up paying subscribers in the US has been disappointing for labels.

There were figures to go with this too: 3m Spotify users in the US since its launch in July 2011, with 600,000 of them now paying subscribers.

An alternative way of looking at it, though, is that Spotify has persuaded 600,000 people in the US to pay up to $9.99 a month for a streaming music service just nine months after launching there – by contrast its biggest US rival Rhapsody took 10 years to reach 1m subscribers.

The disruptive apps element is that if the US matches Spotify's subscriber-splits elsewhere in the world, 85% of its paying users are on the $9.99 tier required to use its mobile apps.

Meanwhile, Propellerhead Software's new app Figure is an example of a different kind of music disruption: one that's bringing the technology previously seen in professional tools like the same company's ReBirth to the general public.

It's one of a number of apps democratising music creation – although just to be clear, I'm not saying it's turning any iPhone owner into Richie Hawtin or the Chemical Brothers. Instead, it's bringing the joy of music creation to people who aren't professional musicians – much like what Instagram is doing to photography.

Talking of which... The last 24 hours has also seen Instagram notch up more than 1m downloads for its Android app in its first day on Google's Play store.

Cord cutters growing

Apps disruption is happening in the TV and film industries too. Again, just in the last 24 hours there have been apps with new ways for Discovery Channel and National Geographic to get their content to people: Discovery News and National Geographic Daily for iPhone and iPad respectively.

A story that's more high-profile in the US than in the UK (for now) is cord-cutting: people cancelling their cable TV accounts because they're getting their TV elsewhere – particularly services like Netflix and Hulu, although also BitTorrent (in the UK, iPlayer, Sky Go and other catch-up services would figure in this conversation too).

A new report called The Battle for the North American Couch Potato by Convergence Consulting claims that more than 2.65m Americans cut their cords between 2008 and 2011, with more than 1m doing it in 2011, and 3.6m expected to in 2012.

As with Spotify, apps aren't the only reason for cord-cutting, but they're a key part of the business models of the companies that are fuelling the trend. But apps are also one of the key weapons cable providers and TV networks are using to persuade people to keep their cords: apps providing access to TV channels around the house (or even outside) as part of their subscriptions.

Meanwhile, there is more disruption in the TV world from developments in second-screen companion apps for popular shows.

Brand new in the last day are an app for Jennifer Lopez-fronted Latin American talent show ¡Q'VIVA! The Chosen that synchronises social feeds, photos and other content with the live show; and also an iPad app for drama series Titanic that helps viewers dig more into the real-life story of the ship and its surviving passengers.

I was at the MIPTV conference in Cannes this week, and one of the most interesting strands of discussion focused on an upcoming battle for control of the second screen between broadcasters, producers, cable/satellite providers, hardware firms and technology firms like Zeebox, Shazam, GetGlue, Miso, Yahoo-owned IntoNow.

More disruption. And as I published this article, Shazam announced that all the episodes remaining in the US American Idol show will be taggable using its app...

Freemium debate

It's happening in games too: Zynga revealed that its recently-acquired Draw Something game is now past the 50m downloads milestone – that's 50m since the start of February when it launched, and 15m downloads added in a couple of weeks since its developer OMGPOP was bought for $180m.

Also brand new: Children's film franchise Ice Age has been turned into a freemium iOS game by publisher Gameloft, which has the potential to reignite the debate around in-app purchases in games aimed at kids.

Should parents be more on top of their iOS device settings to ensure their children aren't blowing their monthly budget on virtual items, or should publishers be thinking hard about whether a "treasure chest" of virtual coins costing £69.99 has any place in a game based on a film like Ice Age?

Elsewhere, a startup called The Tap Lab has raised $550,000 to make location-based mobile games, with its investors including Harmonix co-founders Alex Rigopoulos and Eran Egozy, while another startup called PerBlu has launched its second massively multiplayer location RPG, Parallel Mafia.

Ads evolution

Also in the last 24 hours, information has emerged about Samsung launching its own mobile advertising network, Apple has added Twitter functionality to its own iAd platform, Bic and Purina have become the latest brands to launch marketing apps, and Google has taken the wrappers off its long-rumoured augmented reality glasses project.

The key point here is that all this happened – or at least the news broke – in the last 24 hours. If I'd expanded this snapshot to be the last week, there'd be stories like Open University signing up 1m subscribers on iTunes U, Rovio announcing a 52-episode Angry Birds TV series, Outfit7's Talking Friends apps passing 360m downloads, mobile ad network Millennial Media being valued at $2bn after its IPO; figures showing US digital magazine circulation increased by 125% in the second half of 2011; Augmented reality startup Layar adding video to its app; Disney signing up to make mobile social games based on its characters with Japanese publisher DeNA...

Hopefully you get the idea. This snapshot isn't some kind of flag-waving attempt to claim apps are revolutionising all media. It's more pointing out that wherever you find disruptive and innovative startups and business models across the media industries, apps won't be far from the action.

• Apps
• iPhone
• Android
• iPad
• Smartphones
• Tablet computers
• Mobile phones
• Zynga
• Spotify
• Location based services
• Advertising

Stuart Dredge

guardian.co.uk © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

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Hipmunk travel search apps now connect to your calendar

The vertical strips indicate scheduled events from your mobile device's calendar.

(Credit:Hipmunk)

Quirky and innovative travel search service Hipmunk has just updated its mobile apps (Android | iOS) with a nifty new calendar integration feature. As of today, the already powerful travel apps can now take inventory of your Microsoft Outlook, Google Calendar, or Apple iCal events, and overlay its findings on your travel search results pages. This can be an especially useful tool for business travelers with difficult schedules.

If you haven't used Hipmunk before, it's a Kayak-like travel search service on the Web and mobile devices. What makes it unique is its capability to factor in things like departure time, arrival time, stopovers, and price, to return travel itineraries based on level of "agony." What's more, it presents its results on a visual chart rather than text listings, making it easy to compare several travel options and weigh several criteria all on one screen.

And now that the Hipmunk app integrates your mobile calendar events, it's even easier to see which flight options fit your schedule, thanks to the vertical strips overlaid on your search results.

(Credit:Hipmunk)

The new calendar integration doesn't just help with booking flights, though. Perhaps even more helpful, Hipmunk's hotel search tool can plot your scheduled events on a map. This way, you can easily find hotels that are conveniently located next to your meetings. Couple this feature with Hipmunk's "Heatmaps" and you get a pretty powerful travel search resource.

The newest version of Hipmunk (Android | iOS) is a free download available now for Android and iOS devices.

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Verizon: Hacktivists stole 100 million+ records in 2011

This table shows how most of the external causes for data breaches (which is nearly all of them) are organized crime, but that hacktivists were behind theft of most of the individual records. Hactivists were more interested in larger organizations than smaller ones.

(Credit:Verizon)Financially motivated criminals were behind most of last year's data breaches, but hacktivists stole almost twice as many records from organizations and government agencies, according to the Data Breach Investigations Report being released by Verizon today.

While more than 80 percent of the data breaches in 2011 were due to organized criminal activity, the number of records pilfered from activist groups represented 58 percent of the total, the report finds.

In particular, hacktivists targeted corporations and big agencies, and consumer data. Activist groups accounted for more than 22 percent of the data breaches targeting large organizations. Meanwhile, 95 percent of the records compromised last year included personal information about individuals, compared with only 1 percent the year before, Verizon said.

Financially motivated cyberthieves tend to do more breaches in total than hacktivists, but grab smaller amounts of data at a time and target smaller organizations that are low-hanging fruit, according to the report.

"This new trend contrasts sharply with the data breach pattern of the past several years in which most of the data was stolen by cybercriminals whose primary motivation is financial gain," said Wade Baker, Verizon's director of risk intelligence.

In total, there were 855 data breaches across 174 million stolen records, representing the second highest data loss Verizon researchers have seen since they began compiling data in 2004. More than 80 percent used hacking, nearly 70 percent incorporated malware, and only 7 percent used social tactics.

Related storiesSEC orders disclosure of 'potential' security breachesAttacks on Sony, others show it's open hacking seasonSony hires first information-security czarA different study released this week found that for the first time data breach costs have decreased and fewer customers are abandoning companies that have been compromised.

The Ponemon Institute and Symantec released a report yesterday that found that the average total cost of a data breach last year dropped to $5.5 million from $7.2 million a year earlier. Per record, the cost dropped to $194. "It's not a huge difference, but it's not chump change either when you add up the records," said Larry Ponemon, chairman and founder of the Ponemon Institute.

Lost business costs from a breach declined 34 percent to $3 million, which includes abnormal turnover of customers, or churn, increased customer acquisition activities, reputation losses, and diminished goodwill. The average abnormal churn rate was down 18 percent. Meanwhile, malicious attacks represented 37 percent of all data breaches, negligent insiders caused 39 percent of the cases, and system glitches were attributed in 24 percent, according to Ponemon.

Not surprisingly, organizations that have a chief information security officer had lower costs for data breaches. "It is a signal that the organization has got its act together from a governance perspective and are more likely to be able to deal with a breach from a regulatory and controls standpoint," Ponemon said.

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Google testing heads-up display glasses in public, won't make you look like Robocop

Nissan NV200 Taxi of Tomorrow hands-on

It is, admittedly, difficult to get too excited about a ride in a taxi. Taxis tend to smell, their drivers tend to be rather abrupt in their piloting style and there's a good chance you won't be able to find one when you really need it.

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The final frontier is yours to explore on your iPad

An animated model of the black hole in the Andromeda galaxy is one of many spectacles to behold in Wonders of the Universe.

(Credit:Screenshot by Jason Parker/CNET)

Wonders of the Universe -- based on the BBC series of the same name from HarperCollins -- is an elegant and visually gorgeous app that lets you explore our known universe on your iPad. The app comes with more than 2.5 hours of HD video, dazzling 3D graphics of everything from subatomic particles to galaxies, and tons of information to read as you explore, and it offers an excellent use of the iPad's touch-screen interface to browse all the content.

We got a sneak peak at the app, but Wonders of the Universe will not be available until tomorrow in the iTunes App Store. HarperCollins says the app will be at the discounted price of $6.99 initially, but will go up to $9.99 sometime after the launch.

Swipe to read content, or situate the video (top) in the middle of the screen to start the movie.

(Credit:Screenshot by Jason Parker/CNET)

The app starts you off by explaining the touch-screen interface and how to navigate through all of the content. While looking at an animated celestial body, you can touch and swipe to look around, or touch a named star or planet to zoom in and get more information. When you're not looking at celestial bodies full-screen, panels come up at the bottom of the interface, and touching and dragging a panel upward lets you view the text or video content associated with what you're currently looking at. Videos and images are embedded in the text, so you can swipe up to read the information until you reach a video, then watch as the video is switched to full-screen automatically. Another swipe lets you continue reading, and once you get to the end you can swipe the text to the top of the screen to return to the paneled view.

There's plenty of content to browse, but exploring the universe is where the app really shines. At the top of the screen you have a button for quickly viewing content from different levels. Zoomed all the way out, you can look at the known universe in its entirety, and you can switch to more close-in views, such as looking at planets, zooming in through every step, all the way to subatomic particles. You're not required to use the quick navigation button, though; you also can use pinch gestures to zoom in and touch object names to view more information.

Read and watch video of information about the solar system's biggest planet or get a closer look at its moons.

(Credit:Screenshot by Jason Parker/CNET)

Wonders of the Universe features video commentary about places you explore in the app from Brian Cox's award-winning BBC series (of the same name) and 210 full-color articles to browse. As you explore, there are hundreds of images you can refer to for more information as well. But whether you're exploring the content point by point, or simply jumping around to different parts of the universe, the app is a joy to use and looks amazing on the iPad 2 -- and even better on the new iPad.

HarperCollins says the app will eventually become available for the iPhone as well, but couldn't give an exact date at this time for the launch.

Get a look at the particles that make up our universe by drilling down to the subatomic level.

(Credit:Screenshot by Jason Parker/CNET)

Wonders of the Universe might be one of the best educational apps to date for iOS, with tons of scientific content to browse, an excellent touch interface, and beautifully animated celestial bodies you can explore. Anyone with an interest in the universe around us or who just likes to browse a well-made app with exceptional visuals should download Wonders of the Universe.

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HCM City warned urban flooding will be more severe

VietNamNet Bridge – The recent research works all show that the landslide occurs in many areas of HCM City--which are sinking when the sea water rises.

When water “attacks” the city

According to Luu Duc Cuong, Director of the Center for Urban and Rural Area Research and Programing, the development of the water drainage system in HCM City still cannot catch up with the urbanization progress. Meanwhile, the climate changes and sea water rise have not got appropriate attention state agencies when programming the urban development.

Therefore, urban flooding has become a more serious problem to HCM City.

In 2008, HCM City authorities built up a plan to fight against the flooding which aimed to gradually settle the flooding caused by high tides and control the upstream floods. The plan to build a dyke system from Suc Station to Kinh Lo River with 13 tide control portals, the plan to upgrade the canals and the plan to build water reservoirs were also drawn up.

A lot of projects have been carried out to improve the quality of the environment in HCM City, including the one on improving the environment in Nhieu Loc – Thi Nghe – Tau Hu – Ben Nghe, and Tan Hoa – Lo Gom have been implemented. The city has also run the projects on preventing floods in the inner city’s areas, such as the Tham Luong – Ben Cat project.

According to the HCM City Steering Committee on implementing the action plan to deal with the climate changes, in 2011-2015, the city would carry out 30 projects to deal with the scenario of 75 centimeter sea water rise. With this scenario, the city’s flooded area would be 204 square kilometers, which would directly affect 154 out of the 322 wards and communes.

Four fields would be prioritized to receive investments, including the water resources, energy, waste management and the land resources management. It is estimated that the projects would cost more than 4 trillion dong.

The projects on fighting against the flooding have brought initial results. The number of inundated points in the central area of the city has decreased from 221 in 2008 to 40 in 2011. However, the number of inundated points tends to increase in the suburb areas.

HCM City, whose name is in the list of the 10 cities in the world that would suffer most from the climate changes. Therefore, experts say, if the city does not begin taking actions right now to deal with the climate changes, it would be likely that the city would get inundated under the water in the future.

A research by ICEM, a center for environment management, shows that by 2050, about 30-70 percent of the HCM City’s traffic system would be in the danger of getting flooded, while 70 percent of the land area for agriculture production would suffer from salinity.

Besides, 50 percent of the surface and underground water supply plants, 60 percent of waste water treatment plants and 90 percent of the rubbish dumps would be inundated.

Urban development program needs to get adapted to climate changes

It is obvious that 70 percent of the urban land area in HCM City is located at two meters lower than the sea water level. Meanwhile, the rapid urbanization process in recent years has led to the fact that thousands of hectares of water containing land have disappeared.

As the number of urban dwellers increases rapidly, people tend to fill in the canals and lakes to get land for building houses. In the last 10 years alone, 47 canals with the total area of 16.4 hectares disappeared. The Binh Tien reservoir, 7.4 hectares, which is one of the most important water reservoirs in the city, has been filled.

Just within a short period from 2002 to 2009, the water containing capability of the ponds and lakes in HCM City decreased by 10 times.

Source: TBKTSG

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1920s folding camera + Canon 5D = awesome

(Credit:Jason Bognacki)

The other day I was in a museum dedicated to environmental conservation and it had one of those old black rotary dial phones from way back when, surrounded by dozens of junked cell phones. It was trying to make the point that before manufacturers inflicted planned obsolescence on us, they made goods that would last.

Filmmaker Jason Bognacki's recent experiments with vintage cameras make that point very effectively. In case you missed it, shutterbugs have been drooling over his hybrid camera, a masterful blending of analog and digital technologies.

Bognacki took a battered old Piccolette camera from the 1920s that he bought on eBay years ago. He decided to unite it with his Canon EOS 5D Mark II by having the Piccolette act as a lens for the Canon.

"My latest curiosity has been with vintage uncoated optics and the looks those lenses produce," says the Los Angeles-based Bognacki, whose film credits include "The Red Door," a horror short. "The spirit of experimentation got the best of me and I gave it a try."

The Piccolette-Canon produced some very sharp images.

(Credit:Jason Bognacki)

The relatively simple hack, explained in a recent post on his blog Today's Tomorrow, involved unscrewing the film back of the Piccolette, attaching an M42 extension tube and adapter with hot glue, and locking the 5D to that.

By moving the bellows on the Piccolette back and forth, Bognacki could focus the modified Canon and shoot film and video. He added a loupe when shooting for ease of use.

The results were remarkable. Check out more pics here, and the vid below, which has footage of varying contrast levels.

"I was surprised it worked and equally shocked at the quality of images that that little dusty lens produced," he says. Bognacki has modified a few other old folding cameras and is selling them on eBay.

His next projects involve adapting an old WWII aerial reconnaissance lens to modern cameras, and restoring some vintage anamorphic lenses from the 1970s.

We'll see what that project brings. Meanwhile, I'm still trying to figure out how to get a rotary dial to work with my cell phone.

Near 100yr lens + Canon 5D - Test Footage from Jason Bognacki on Vimeo.

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Apple's new iPhone will use bigger 4.6-inch display: report

T-Mobile to eliminate 1,900 US call center jobs, says more 'restructuring' ahead

T-Mobile USA CEO Philipp Humm sent word to his employees today that the company will be shuttering seven call centers, cutting a total of 3,300 jobs in the process.

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Sustainable development needs green economy

Sustainable development needs green economy Scientists, academics, business leaders and policy makers from Asian Pacific countries gathered in Hanoi on April 4 for a conference on how to create a green economy to ensure sustainable development in the Asia-Pacific region.

The participants focused their discussions on climate change and managing the ocean ecology, with the community’s economic development at the heart of the matter.

Vietnam has many issues with its coastal waters, rivers and canals being eroded. The country is also concerned with environmental changes and the exhaustion of natural resources, all of which were tabled for discussion.

The Vietnamese participants said that Vietnam has been granting certificates to farmers in the Mekong Delta for protecting the marine ecology since 2008.

Meanwhile, Thai delegates emphasised the need to raise the public’s awareness and increase investment to develop technologies that can produce renewable energies, which will save the country’s resources and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

It is essential to zone off enough land to grow trees sas well as an infrastructure up to international environmental standards, they said.

During the conference, Vietnam received valuable advice on technical and financial matters to cope with climate change.-VNA

20th ASEAN Summit
The 20th ASEAN Summit in Phnom Penh came to an end after adopting various joint declarations.

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Brian Cox iPad app touts the Wonders of the Universe

HarperCollins pulls in BBC footage to complement text, photos and infographics

Brian Cox has brought astronomy to a new audience with his books and TV shows in recent years. Now there's an iPad app for that too, combining content from both areas.

The app is called Brian Cox's Wonders of the Universe, and it's the work of book publisher HarperCollins' Collins imprint, which struck a deal with the BBC to include footage from Cox's TV shows Wonders of the Solar System and Wonders of the Universe.

Developed by digital agency The Other Media, and draws on the full text and photos used in HarperCollins' official tie-in books for those series, as well as infographics and 3D models of planets, moons and galaxies.

"We've set a new frontier for digital publishing by positioning Brian's written narrative and related BBC video content in a bespoke 3D environment which changes dynamically as you journey deeper and deeper into the realms of the Universe," says Alex Gatrell, Collins' digital publisher.

That whizzy 3D environment comes at a price: the app only works on Apple's iPad 2 and new (third) iPad, with the original model not quite having the processing grunt to cope with it.

Launching at a promotional £4.99 price, the app is very impressive, from pinching to zoom in on the universe through to its core user interface of scrolling down a single column of text, with photos, videos and interactivity appearing as you go.

"We threw out conventional thinking on multimedia experiences to instead come up with a revolutionary platform that can take complex narratives but deliver them with an intuitive clarity," says The Other Media's managing director George Crabb.

Wonders of the Universe is the latest sign that popular science may be the most suitable book category – along with children's picture-books – for a multimedia app treatment on tablets.

It's also interesting for that partnership between Collins and the BBC. At a time when every media and creative industry is getting excited about apps, you can imagine conflicts emerging if the various players in a big TV/books/etc project all want to make an official app.

Partnerships make more sense. In fact, this app has echoes of what another book publisher, Faber, did with its iPad app for The Waste Land. That involved a partnership with the BBC Arena programme for video interviews of experts talking about T.S. Eliot's poem.

The interactive aspects in the Wonders of the Universe app are also important to differentiate it from a standard e-book. Since the launch of its iBooks 2.0 application, Apple is strongly encouraging publishers making static book-app with a bit of multimedia content to release them as iBooks rather than apps.

3D engines, pinchy universes and interfaces that move away from the idea of page-turns all firmly remain in the apps sphere, though.

Collins will be hoping that Brian Cox's drawing power will make the new app a commercial success on the App Store, following in the footsteps of Touch Press' The Elements and Solar System for iPad, and Random House / Transworld Digital's The Magic of Reality.

The latter, based on a book by Richard Dawkins, sold 23k copies in its first few months on the App Store with a £9.99 price, generating just under £230k of gross revenues before Apple's 30% cut.

In December 2011, Touch Press told The Guardian that it had sold more than 250k copies of The Elements on iOS, bringing in more than $2m of revenues for the company.

Faber has never revealed actual sales figures for The Waste Land, but did say that it recouped its development costs within its first six weeks on the App Store.

The Brian Cox app's £4.99 "promotional launch price" is made for popular appeal, although it's not yet clear when Collins will raise it, and to what price point.

• Apps
• Brian Cox
• Astronomy
• iPad
• Digital media
• Tablet computers

Stuart Dredge

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Imprudent farming, selling lead to instability for cassava growers

Imprudent farming, selling lead to instability for cassava growers

HCM CITY — Cassava farmers in the Central Highlands Province of Kon Tum are leading a roller-coaster existence because production is disorganised and inefficient, the Lao Dong (the Labour) newspaper reported yesterday.

Farmers in the province have rushed to produce cassava without a proper plan and seeking out markets that will purchase their produce regularly at reasonable prices, the report said.

Currently, Kon Tum Province has about 40,000ha dedicated to growing cassava – the second largest cultivation area for the crop in the Central Highlands region and the third largest area nationwide.

A sharp fall in market prices this year have hit the farmers hard, the report said.

Last year, the agreement Dak To Cassava Starch Processing Plant purchased fresh cassava for VND2,760 a kilo, but this year, the price has fallen to VND1,760, while dried cassava prices have fallen from VND4,700 to VND2,700.

The price of cassava is largely dependent on the amount of starch it contains. The company has agreed to a fixed price for cassava with starch content of 30 per cent. If this decreases by one per cent, the purchase price of cassava will decrease by VND30.

Local farmers have failed to do what is necessary to grow cassava with high starch content and are suffering from low productivity, low starch content and land degradation, the report says.

The report claims that without investments in intensive farming, the amount of starch is limited to 26-27 per cent, keeping cassava prices low at approximately VND1,000 per kilo.

The lack of market information and accurate demand forecasting has also been responsible for low prices, as has been the failure to find more markets to buy the farmer's produce.

Nguyen Van Hiep, deputy director of the Dak To plant, said yet another reason for lower prices is that demand from China, the largest buyer of cassava starch, has fallen.

Furthermore, purchases by domestic animal feed processing plants have also been low.

Tran Van Chuong, deputy director of Kon Tum Province's Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, repeated the mantra of intensive farming and the use of new plant varieties with high productivity.

He said farmers and businesses should establish close links with each other and sign contracts for consuming produce. The province, for its part, will implement an agricultural insurance scheme for farmers to minimise damage caused by natural disasters and unexpected price hikes, Chuong said.

He said close farmer-enterprise links will not only help the farmers avoid price squeezes, but businesses will also be confident that farmers would not sell their produce to small traders instead of factories that process the root. — VNS

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EU seeks cooperation on research infrastructures to boost growth, innovation

A common framework for developing research infrastructure will boost scientific advances and economic competitiveness in Europe, said EU officials at a high-level conference here Wednesday.

The International Conference on Research Infrastructures (ICRI 2012), currently underway in Copenhagen, is discussing ways to strengthen public and private sector investments into large-scale research projects, so as to secure future growth and science innovation in the 27-member EU.

"In a scenario where finance ministers might decide their overall budget should be cut, I do not want to see the money for research and innovation squeezed or reduced, because that is the policy area that will help us exit from the current economic crisis," European Commissioner for Research, Innovation and Science Maire Geoghegan-Quinn told journalists at the conference.

Research infrastructure is a collective term for instruments such as large-scale telescopes, microscopes, libraries, and biological banks, which benefit researchers across scientific disciplines.

As such infrastructure is often complex and too expensive for individual EU members to build, a common European platform is more cost effective, the European Commission says.

Such infrastructure enables high-quality research which aids economic growth through establishment of spin-off companies and commercial products, it adds.

"We need to transfer the research we do so well in Europe, all the way to the marketplace. And we need the support systems in between that allow that to happen," Geoghegan-Quinn said.

However, EU countries would need to identify their research strengths and prioritize what investments they need to make, so as to benefit from EU cooperation on research infrastructures, she added.

ICRI 2012 will also provide concrete input to Horizon 2020, an 80-billion-euro (around 105 billion U.S. dollars) program that runs from 2014 to 2020, and aims to strengthen top-level European research.

Earlier Wednesday, Geoghegan-Quinn and Danish Minister for Research and Innovation Morten Ostergaard officially opened the Danish National Biobank at the National Serum Institute, praising it as the kind of collaborative research infrastructure the EU needs.

The biobank, which is a public-private initiative, will link information from some 15 million bio-samples with person data from Danish national registries, and provide anonymous data to researchers worldwide, in fields such as genetics and epidemiology.

As not all EU countries are able to invest equally in research, the European Commission has proposed member states can use common EU structural funds to help develop research infrastructure. This could especially benefit those EU countries currently struggling with deep budget deficits and sovereign debt problems.

"If they can use some of the EU funds to better their research infrastructure, it will encourage these governments to invest more in research and universities by themselves," said Ostergaard.

ICRI 2012, which will end Friday, has attracted some 600 expert delegates, making it one of the biggest events during Denmark's ongoing EU Presidency, which runs from January to June 2012.

VietNamNet/Xinhuanet

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Technology trading floor opened in Ho Chi Minh City

Nhan Dan – A technology trading exchange floor opened yesterday in Ho Chi Minh City to increase trade activities, according to the city’s Department of Science and Technology.

The trading floor aims to supply science and technology information, as well as linking buyers and sellers through consulting and evaluation services.

The floor will act as a bridge to help researchers and businesses advertise the newest technology. It is also considered a step towards creating and promoting the development of the technology market in HCMC in particular and Vietnam as a whole.

A technological transfer contract and memorandum of understanding on technical co-operation and development were also signed on the occasion.

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Australia helps protect vulnerable communities

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Nhân dân English - 22 hour(s) ago 1 readings

Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr announced on March 27 that Australia will support a partnership between Australian and Vietnamese climate scientists to better understand and cope with the impact of climate change.

The announcement was made at the opening of the new Australian Consulate General in Ho Chi Minh City.

Minister Carr, who is currently on a three-day official visit to Vietnam, said Australia will contribute US$2.03 million to the partnership build on the existing agreement between Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), and enhance the capacity of scientists from Vietnam’s Ministry for Natural Resources and Environment and the Hanoi University of Science.

“The fundamental goal of the aid programme is overcoming poverty and addressing climate change which is critical to protecting and improving the lives of those who depend on the natural environment for their income, food and water,” Carr said.

“Vietnam is one of the most vulnerable countries to climate change, particularly the Mekong Delta where rising sea levels, salt water intrusion and flooding are already impacting vulnerable coastal communities,” he added.

The partnership will assist Vietnam in analysing, understanding and undertaking future climate change projections, with Vietnamese PhD students helping to analyse data and climate modelling at CSIRO in Australia.

On March 28, the Australian Foreign Minister is scheduled to meet with Minister of Foreign Affairs Pham Binh Minh, Minister of Planning and Investment Bui Quang Vinh, President Truong Tan Sang and Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong.

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Extinct rhino wins editorial cartoon competition

Extinct rhino wins editorial cartoon competition A cartoon symbolising the extinction of the rhino won top prize at the third The Thao & Van Hoa (Sports and Culture) newspaper's press caricature competition, which, this year, focused on the environment.

Ha Noi-based Tran Hai Nam was granted the Bamboo Dragon Cup for his Mieng Ghep Nguoc (Upside-down Piece) at the award ceremony on March 28.

The rhino cartoon was made in many parts, with the piece representing the rhino's head placed upside down. It was designed to remind people of the fact that the rhino is now extinct in Vietnam .

"The pieces are arranged in the wrong way, similar to the way people behave with the environment," said Nam .

"The competition is an interesting playing field for artists, especially for amateur painters who love cartoon like me," he said.

The competition received support from the Danish Embassy through its Cultural Development and Exchange Fund.

Danish Ambassador to Vietnam John Nielsen stressed at the launch of the competition that "cartoons are a humorous way to create interest and raise awareness about critical issues such as the environment".

"The fact that the environment was chosen as this year's theme is very relevant. Vietnam is facing a number of critical environmental issues due to rapid economic development and the effects of climate change," he said.

Vietnam is among the countries suffering the most from pollution and environmental damages, making it very important to focus on the problem.

Launched last November, the organising board received nearly 500 entries from amateur and professional painters throughout the country.

The artworks will be sold to raise money for the Vietnam News Agency's Agent Orange Pain Fund.-VNA

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