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  AFP/ Baikonur A Russian Soyuz spacecraft with three crew on board successfully docked at the International Space Station Saturday after blasting off from Kazakhstan, NASA said, launching a year-long mission on the orbiting outpost. The Soyuz-TMA16M spacecraft's crew included a US astronaut and a Russian cosmonaut who will be the first to spend an entire year on the ISS. The successful docking occurred after the Soyuz took off without a glitch from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 22:42 pm (1942 GMT) Friday, Russian space agency officials said earlier. The hatch opened about two hours later at 0333 GMT, once the pressure between the two space vessels had equalised. The three exchanged enthusiastic hugs with crew members already on board the ISS after the hatch opened. NASA flight engineer Scott Kelly and Russian Mikhail Kornienko will together spend a total of 342 days aboard the ISS, while the third crew member, Russian cosmonaut Gennady Padalka, will spend the usual period of six months. Kelly, 51, and 54-year-old Kornienko will take part in the extended mission to test the effects of long-term space missions on the human body. The trip marks the longest amount of time that two people will live continuously at the ISS, though a handful of Russian cosmonauts spent a year to 14 months at the Russian space station Mir in the 1990s. "This is the first time we're doing it as an international partnership, which I think is one of the great success stories of the International Space Station," Kelly said at a news conference in Baikonur ahead of the launch. He said the experiment could prove vital towards planning future international missions, including to Mars. "If we ever go beyond low Earth orbit again, perhaps to Mars, because of the cost and the complexity it will most likely be an international mission, so I see this as a stepping stone to that." The physical effects of a year in space will be closely monitored by doctors on the ground in an unprecedented study of how the human body withstands the rigours of spaceflight before humans plan to journey to Mars. NASA said the mission was key to planning a future trip to Mars, as it would provide valuable research. "Scott Kelly's mission is critical to advancing the administration's plan to send humans on a journey to Mars," NASA administrator Charles Bolden said. "We'll gain new, detailed insights on the ways long-duration spaceflight affects the human body." Kelly said he was concerned about the impacts of radiation and living in zero gravity, particularly in terms of compromised immunity and bone and vision loss. "I'm hopeful that there is not a big cliff out there with regards to our ability to stay and live and work in space for longer periods of time," he said. "But we are not going to know that until we have actually done it," he added. "The jury is out."   - Space soprano - Kelly's twin brother Mark, a retired US astronaut who has flown to the ISS four times, is part of the experiment and will undergo regular health checks on Earth so doctors can compare the brothers' vital signs. Kelly and Kornienko, both of whom have flown multiple missions to orbit and have each previously spent about six months on the ISS, are set to stay on the space station until March 2016. Three crew members -- Russian Anton Shkaplerov, Italian Samantha Cristoforetti and American Terry Virts -- are currently onboard the space station, due to leave in May. The arriving crew members are expected to coincide with the first space tourist since 2009, British soprano Sarah Brightman, who has paid $52 million for her 10-day stint planned to start on September 1 and has said she will perform in space. "We'll sing together," Kornienko pledged at a news conference ahead of the launch. Space exploration remains a hugely symbolic area of cooperation between Russia and the US, despite the freeze in relations over Russia's alleged actions in Ukraine. Russia last month confirmed that it will continue using the International Space Station in partnership with NASA until 2024, after threatening to pull out and stop financing it in 2020.    

DETERMINED: Laura Smith-Velazquez is one of 100 semi-finalists in the Mars One programme, which hopes to establish a permanent human settlement on Mars by sending crews of four every two years starting in 2024.By Scott DanceLaura Smith-Velazquez is a dreamer — and she has been dreaming of going to space since the first time she looked into a telescope as an 8-year-old, later imagining herself commanding a starship while watching Star Trek.Every year she tries for a shot at Nasa’s astronaut program, with no luck.But now, the 38-year-old engineer’s chances of getting to space may have improved — the Owings Mills resident is one of 100 semi-finalists named last month by Dutch organisation Mars One for a mission to establish a permanent colony on Mars by 2025. She said she is prepared to leave behind her husband of three years, who also applied for the one-way mission but didn’t make the first cut.The mission, devised by an entrepreneur and a space scientist from The Netherlands, has garnered worldwide attention, especially with its plans to help fund it by making it a reality TV spectacle.Still, the odds are long, Smith-Velazquez and others acknowledge. Many view the Mars One mission as a publicity stunt. Organisations including Nasa and the Planetary Society won’t even comment on it, while scientists like Neil DeGrasse Tyson have questioned its aggressive timeline. An independent feasibility study last year suggested hazards including the possibility that crops grown inside the colony would produce suffocating levels of oxygen.“To get to Mars you need rockets. You need spaceships,” said John M. Logsdon, a professor emeritus at George Washington University who studies space policy. “None of that exists.”But Smith-Velazquez doesn’t mind the scepticism. Just as the “space race” of the 1950s and 1960s seemed to stretch science, if humans don’t strive to reach Mars, it won’t happen, she said. And the scrutiny can only improve preparations for dealing with the planet’s inhospitable environment, she added.“Yeah, there’s a lot of risk, but there’s a lot of risk no matter what you do,” she said. “I’m willing to take that risk.”Mars One acknowledges the risk, too, calling the mission a “phenomenal undertaking” that requires constant efforts to prevent delays and failures. The plan, developed in 2011, calls for sending rovers and cargo to Mars ahead of four-person crews.Under the project’s timeline, a demonstration mission is set for 2018 to prove that technologies needed for a human mission can work. A rover mission would follow in 2020 to select the best location for settlement and to prepare the surface for the arrival of cargo missions, set to begin in 2022.The rover would set up the six cargo units and get the outpost up and running in time for the arrival of the first crew, set to launch some time in 2024 and land seven months later, likely in 2025.Smith-Velazquez said she is used to confined spaces and zooming through the air — she has a pilot’s licence and studied at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Florida, and now works for defence contractor Rockwell Collins designing the interfaces pilots use to control aircraft. But she acknowledged the Mars One mission is daunting, starting with a seven-month journey with a crew of three other people before even making it to the settlement.“It’s not going to be easy, even if you’re not claustrophobic,” she said.Smith-Velazquez said she isn’t sure why she advanced so far in the selection process. Mars One has given little feedback in a process that required a lengthy written application, a video application, study of 40 pages of technical information about Mars, and a video chat interview.The organisation says it is looking for astronauts who are resilient, adaptable, curious, trusting, creative and resourceful, as well as at least 18 years old and physically capable.After miscalculating the time difference with The Netherlands, she mistakenly scheduled her 10-minute interview for 1:20am on a Monday, but she was ready nonetheless and eager to speak with Dr Norbert Kraft, Mars One’s chief medical officer — whom she called “a legend in astronaut selection” for Nasa.She was asked whether she would come back from Mars, if that were possible, and why — something she figured might be intended to weed out those lacking commitment. Her answer was an unequivocal no, she said, “because the people you go with become your family.”Smith-Velazquez speculated it’s her ability to get along with others that may have helped her stand out. Her Cherokee heritage, which was central to her upbringing in rural Michigan, also could be an asset in winning a spot among a diverse group, she said.The project aims to be a global endeavor, with the pool of semi-finalists hailing from all over the world.“It almost seems random in a way,” she said.Smith-Velazquez and her husband, Matthew Velazquez, applied together in August 2013, saying at first that either both would go or neither. But when Velazquez was left out of the first cut, from 200,000 applicants to 1,000, that “fell by the wayside in a big hurry,” he said.“As a husband, what do you do? Do you demand that you continue to have a wife on this planet, or do you let your wife do something she’s always wanted to do?” said the 43-year-old aerospace engineer. “You have to be supportive of that.”Smith-Velazquez said her family also has been supportive.But many in the aerospace industry remain sceptical. Tyson, the scientist known for presenting space to TV viewers on shows like NOVA ScienceNow and Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, told Business Insider he wouldn’t sign up for the mission, which has struggled to find investors, though he said he supported its ambition.Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield, who has served aboard the International Space Station, told an Australian journalist for an article posted on Medium.com that he feared the mission would end up being “a little disillusioning for people, because it’s presented as if for sure it’s going to happen.”Logsdon, the space policy professor, agreed that the attention could have negative consequences, though he said it at least shows a desire for human exploration still exists.“I think people are fascinated with the idea of human travel to Mars,” he said. “But I think their likely failure to do what they say they’re going to do will give the whole idea of humans going to Mars a bad name.”The planet presents would-be explorers with difficult engineering challenges. Mars’ atmosphere is one-hundredth the density of Earth’s, preventing oceans from being able to form on its surface and radiating heat away so effectively that temperatures drop from a comfortable 50-70 degrees in the sunshine to 100 degrees below zero at night.“Any idea of going to Mars is ambitious,” said Frank Summers, an astrophysicist at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore. “How do you pack in enough supplies and figure out how to generate your own supplies — air, heat and oxygen — when you get there? That’s the major problem to solve.”A study by scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that Mars One at least needs to reconsider some elements of its plans to keep settlers alive. While Mars One plans to use existing technology to accomplish the mission, the report found some new technology is needed. For example, a plan to pull water out of the Mars soil might not work, the report found.The report also estimated that a plan to draw oxygen from crops inside the habitat and pump nitrogen from tanks into the air would leave the first settlers unable to breathe within 68 days.Such plans are also, of course, costly. Mars One estimates it will cost $6 billion to get its first crew to Mars, though the MIT report suggested it likely will be higher. MIT scientists estimated that the rockets needed to get the supplies and astronauts to the planet would cost $4.5 billion alone.Mars One plans to raise money through sponsorships, partnerships, sales of broadcast rights, investment from wealthy individuals, revenue from intellectual property and crowdfunding. A campaign on crowdfunding website last year raised $313,744 of a $400,000 goal for its lander mission scheduled for 2018.Still, to Smith-Velazquez and other supporters, the mission is worth attempting. It took more than a dozen missions to orbit Mars — most of them failures — before the first spacecraft landed there in 1971, according to Nasa. Since then, there have been more than a dozen successful missions to the planet, though also more failures.“As a planet, you don’t want to stagnate,” Smith-Velazquez said. “Even if you don’t get there, you get that impetus to spur new technology.” — The Baltimore Sun/TNS

Dubai Facebook and WhatsApp are the most popular social networking sites in the Arab region, reveals a ‘first of its kind’ report on ‘Social Media in the Arab World,’ unveiled on the sidelines of the Arab Social Media Influencers Summit in Dubai. Twitter and Instagram came second with the report highlighting that different countries record varying usage patterns of the social networking sites. According to the report, Facebook is the” most social networking tool”, favoured by 39% of the respondents. Two out of every five users in the Arab world said that Facebook is their clear favourite. Jordan tops in the preference for Facebook, where users accounted for 63%, followed by Libya and Palestine at 50%. It was least favoured in Saudi Arabia and Lebanon with only 24% each respondents, followed by Bahrain at 26%. A vast majority of Facebook users -89% - checked in daily, with the highest usage rate in Palestine and Iraq at 99% each, and the lowest in both Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, at 79% and 81% respectively. WhatsApp is favoured in the Arab world by 41% of the respondents. Nearly two out of five users in the Arab world said that WhatsApp is their most preferred with the highest acceptance in Lebanon and Sudan at 58% and 50% of total respondents, respectively. Users in Jordan least preferred it at only 18%. Nearly 84% of the respondents have access to WhatsApp. According to the survey, preference for Twitter is the lowest at only 4% stating they turn to the social media platform, with the highest preference in Saudi Arabia and the UAE at 12% and 8% respectively, while it is lowest at Egypt at 1%. The report pointed out that preference for Instagram was low with only 6% of the total users stating that they prefer Instagram. It has the highest preference rates in the UAE, Kuwait, and Bahrain at 11% each. Users in each of Syria and Libya least preferred it at only 1% of total users. YouTube also has low preference rate with an average 5% of the total users saying they prefer it, the highest being in Qatar and Bahrain, at 11% and 9%, respectively. YouTube is not the preferred means for users in Syria. About subscription rates, the report showed that the highest subscription rates are in both Lebanon and Morocco, at 75% and 68% respectively, and the lowest rates in both Syria and Palestine, at 12% and 15% respectively. Mohamed al-Gergawi, UAE Minister of Cabinet Affairs, Chairman of the Organising Committee of the Arab Social Media Influencers Summit said, "The report provides important and practical information that enables decision-makers to effectively manage social networking sites through unique insights on usage patterns. As the report opens doors to how the Arab world perceives and uses social networking sites, the findings will help decision-makers to invest optimally in the right tools to support their future plans and programmes.” He said the launch of the report reinforced the leading positon of the Arab Social Media Influencers Summit to delivering an integrated and comprehensive view of the use of social media in the region. Social media has recorded significant progress over the past years and is a key means of exchanging news and information in the region.

Reuters/San Francisco Google Inc is tightening supervision of its freewheeling Play store, forming a special team to screen new apps for malware and sexually explicit material, and strengthening its age-based rating system. The change brings Google Play, a bazaar for digital games, social media apps and entertainment software, closer to Apple Inc's tightly controlled App Store. But Google is not adopting Apple's practice of only approving apps that meet its stringent quality standards. The change underscores the growing importance of apps in the success of the companies' rival mobile gadgets. Google, whose Android software runs most of the world's smartphones, and the iPhone and iPad maker each manage online hubs with more than 1mn apps ranging from calendars to video games. Google said in its official blog on Tuesday that its expert team will screen each app submitted by developers to spot earlier anything that runs afoul of its rules. Google had only used automated technology for screening at the time of submission. The new process will not create bottlenecks, Google said in a post, promising that approved apps will become available on Google Play within "a matter of hours" after submission. Apple does not disclose its app review period, but the website appreviewtimes.com puts the average wait time at seven days for Apple's App Store. Developers must answer special questionnaires about their apps to help independent ratings organisations assign age-based ratings, Google said. "We know that people in different countries have different ideas about what content is appropriate for kids, teens and adults, so today's announcement will help developers better label their apps for the right audience," Google said in the blog post. As of May, apps submitted without the questionnaire will not be published in Google Play, and existing apps that do not seek a rating could be blocked in certain markets or for certain users, Google said. Until now, Google has let developers rate their own apps using a system created by Google.

Losail International Circuit recently played host to Japanese motorcycle manufacturer Kawasaki for the launch of two supercharged machines that will head their famous Ninja range of motorcycles in 2015.Already familiar with the world famous Losail International Circuit (LIC), Kawasaki chose to return to a venue that has played host to the leading motorcycle manufacturer on two previous occasions.With intense motorcycle and automotive media interest in the two 1000cc supercharged machines, journalists from across Europe and as far afield as Brazil and America enjoyed perfect conditions at the 5.38 kilometre circuit. Riding in daylight and under the unique conditions of numerous night-time floodlights, the chance to compare the highway focussed Ninja H2 and the track-only Ninja H2R, the early journalist reviews have been highly enthusiastic.Billed as the fastest accelerating mass production land machine in the world, the Ninja H2R is rated at over 300 horsepower and retails at QAR 225,000, while the Ninja H2 version that is highway friendly will cost QAR 115,200.Commenting on the launch, Mr Shigemi Tanaka for Kawasaki Motors Europe praised the work of the circuit and the warmth shown by the people of Qatar.“Landing at the recently opened Hamad International Airport is the first indication that Qatar is a country with a strong vision of its identity. From our stay at the Ritz-Carlton to time spent with the staff and management of the Losail International Circuit we have had outstanding co-operation and hospitality.As a venue to unveil two of the most iconic machines in the history of our company, Kawasaki could ask no better than be here in Qatar at such a famous state-of-the-art circuit.”         Nasser Khalifa al-Attiyah, QMMF President and LIC General Manager, expressed his happiness to the fact that Kawasaki has chosen Qatar and the LIC to launch a new product for third time. “I am very happy to welcome again Kawasaki to the Losail International Circuit to unveil a new motorbike.”

  AFP/ Kathmandu Google launched a virtual tour of Nepal's Everest region on Thursday, allowing armchair tourists a rare glimpse of life in one of the toughest and most inaccessible places on earth, home to the world's highest mountain. The Street View project takes viewers into the heart of the stunning Sagarmatha national park, where icy blue rivers run below snow-capped peaks, monks play music and yak-herders navigate precipitous stone-strewn trails. Armed with two single-lens tripod cameras and a 15-lens custom-built "Trekker" unit designed for backpacks, teams travelled on foot to capture more than 45,000 panoramic images of the remote eastern Himalayan villages inhabited by the ethnic Sherpa community. Google worked on the project with Kathmandu-based start-up Story Cycle and Nepalese climber Apa Sherpa, who scaled Mount Everest a record 21 times before he retired from climbing and set up an educational charity. "Everyone in the world knows Mount Everest but very few people know how hard life is in these villages," said Apa Sherpa, who was forced to drop out of school at 12 and work as a porter after his father died. "Thanks to Google Street View, everyone can see these villages and understand that people here need help. Hopefully we can then raise funds to build more schools and hospitals for them." Nepal's Sherpa community, who have long laboured as guides and porters on mountaineering expeditions, hope the project will promote the region and raise funds to improve access to education, offering future generations a way out of the high-risk climbing industry. "Googlers, Story Cycle employees and Apa Sherpa spent about 11 days on the move last March, using the tripod cameras and fisheye lenses to shoot inside monasteries, schools, clinics," said Raleigh Seamster, programme manager for Google Earth Outreach. "We used the Trekker unit to capture outdoor imagery." Apa Sherpa, now 55, first climbed the 8,848-metre (29,029-foot) high peak as a porter, and described the feat as "a dream that had never been mine". "My dream is that one day, young kids in Nepal won't have to risk working on the mountain as porters or guides, they will be able to get an education and build better lives for themselves," Sherpa told AFP. Sixteen Nepalese guides, including 14 members of the Sherpa community, died last April in an avalanche, marking the deadliest accident to hit the world's highest peak.    

  AFP/ Moscow Two Russian cosmonauts and an American astronaut on Thursday returned to Earth aboard a Soyuz space capsule after spending six months at the International Space Station. Yelena Serova -- the first female Russian cosmonaut to have spent time on the ISS -- landed along with Alexander Samokutyaev and Barry Wilmore in snowy Kazakhstan just after sunrise. "The Expedition 42 crew is back on Earth," said NASA commentator Rob Navias on the US space agency's live broadcast of the event. "They have landed in a vertical position, upright," he added, citing Russian search and recovery forces which routinely go out to pick up the returning space-farers after they touch down on the remote steppe southeast of Dzhezkazgan. Russia's space agency Roscosmos also confirmed that the crew had "successfully returned to Earth". "The piloted descent craft completed its landing at 05:14 Moscow Time (0214 GMT)," the agency said in a statement. The trio left Earth on September 26. They spent 167 days in space and traveled more than 70 million miles (112 million kilometers) during that time, NASA said. Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, who oversees the space industry, said that the crew had been picked up and were all in good health.  "Everything is in order. The crew has been retrieved from the capsule. They're feeling good. Serova is best off in terms of blood pressure," Rogozin wrote on Twitter. Television footage showed the smiling crew members being lifted out of the capsule by a recovery team and loaded into waiting vehicles wrapped in thick blankets. The next crew launches from Baikonur, Kazakhstan on March 27, Roscosmos has said. The men on board will be US astronaut Scott Kelly and Russian cosmonauts Mikhail Kornienko and Gennady Padalka. Kelly and Kornienko will stay at the research outpost for an entire year instead of the usual six months, "collecting valuable biomedical data that will inform future deep space, long-duration missions," NASA said. Meanwhile, three crew members -- Russian Anton Shkaplerov, Italian Samantha Cristoforetti and American Terry Virts -- remain onboard the space station. Russia last month confirmed that it will continue using the International Space Station in partnership with NASA until 2024. NASA had already said the ageing ISS will remain operational until 2024 but Moscow had threatened to pull out and stop financing it by 2020.  

AFP/Washington Apple's online stores for product and app purchases went down on Wednesday for at least five hours, affecting its customers worldwide. The tech giant's status page showed the App Store, iTunes, iBooks store and Mac App store went down from 0900 GMT. Similar outages were seen in Apple online services in Britain and France. The Next Web, the international technology news site, said it had reports of outages affecting more than 40 countries. Apple did not immediately respond to an AFP request for comment. The news comes two days after Apple announced details of its smartwatch, which will be available in several markets on April 24, along with a new Macbook computer.

  AFP/ Muscat Solar Impulse 2 took off from Oman on Tuesday bound for India, on the second leg of its epic bid to become the first plane to fly around the world powered solely by the sun. The aircraft took off from Muscat at 6.35 am (0235 GMT) for what is expected to be a 16-hour, 1,465 kilometre (910 mile) journey over the Arabian Sea to Ahmedabad in India. Pilot Bertrand Piccard was at the controls, taking over from fellow Swiss aviator Andre Borschberg. "I will remember #Oman forever!" Piccard tweeted prior to take-off. More than two hours after leaving Muscat, Piccard was over the Arabian Sea, according to a website monitoring his progress. On Monday Borschberg had touched down in Muscat after the first leg of the journey, 13 hours and two minutes after leaving Abu Dhabi. "The adventure has started," Solar Impulse chairman Piccard, 57, said just after Borschberg took off in the early morning from Abu Dhabi's Al-Bateen airport, on a journey that the aviation industry ridiculed when it was first unveiled. Borschberg spoke of an "emotional" trip, telling reporters in Muscat he cruised at 6,000 metres (almost 20,000 feet) because the trip was "short". Piccard is set to fly higher on the trip to Ahmedabad, Borschberg said. UN chief Ban Ki-moon hailed the venture and congratulated the pilots. "With their daring and determination, we can all fly into a new sustainable future," his spokesman said.   - Research and testing - Si2's takeoff, which had originally been scheduled for Saturday but was delayed by high winds, capped 13 years of research and testing by the two Swiss pilots. The pair are hoping the project will boost technology and awareness surrounding environmentally sustainable transport. Live video streaming on the www.solarimpulse.com website monitoring the unique aircraft's progress showed the pilot, wearing an orange jumpsuit, breathing using an oxygen mask. The wingspan of the one-seater Si2 is slightly bigger than that of a jumbo jet, but its weight is around that of a family car. From Muscat, it will make 12 stops on an epic journey spread over five months, with a total flight time of around 25 days. Later legs will take it to Myanmar, China, Hawaii and New York. Landings are also earmarked for the midwestern United States and either southern Europe or North Africa, depending on the weather conditions. The longest single leg will see a lone pilot fly non-stop for five days and nights across the Pacific Ocean between Nanjing, China and Hawaii, a distance of 8,500 kilometres (5,270 miles).   - Intensive training - Borschberg and Piccard will alternate flying the plane, which can fly on autopilot during rest breaks. Both pilots have undergone intensive training in preparation for the trip, including in yoga and self-hypnosis, allowing them to sleep for periods as short as 20 minutes but still awake feeling refreshed. All this will happen without burning a drop of fuel. While in the air, the pilots will be linked to a control centre in Monaco where 65 weathermen, air traffic controllers and engineers will be stationed. A team of 65 ground staff will travel with the two pilots. The plane is powered by more than 17,000 solar cells built into wings that, at 72 metres, are longer than on a Boeing 747 and approaching those of an Airbus A380 superjumbo. Thanks to an innovative design, the lightweight carbon fibre aircraft weighs only 2.3 tonnes, about the same as a family 4X4 and less than one percent of the weight of the A380. The Si2 is the first solar-powered aircraft able to stay aloft for several days and nights. The propeller-driven craft has four 17.5-horsepower electric motors with rechargeable lithium batteries. It will travel at 50-100 kilometres per hour, but slower at night to prevent the batteries from draining too quickly.  

Apple CEO Tim Cook speaks about the Apple Watch during an Apple event at the Flint Center in Cupertino, California, in this September 9, 2014 file photo.  AFP/San Francisco Apple is set to unveil its smartwatch on Monday that could catalyse the market for wearable technology with a strong emphasis on health and fitness. Apple Watch is expected to be the star at a media event being held at the same San Francisco theatre where the California tech giant introduced the iPad. Apple's chief executive Tim Cook has revealed little about the sophisticated wrist wear, but has said that he "can't live without it." The company announced its plans for Apple Watch last year to much fanfare and has said it would begin shipping in April. It will mark Apple's first new product type since the iPad in 2010. Apple enters a market that already has a number of players, ranging from South Korean giants Samsung and LG, to Japan's Sony and startups such as Pebble. Motorola, acquired by Chinese giant Lenovo last year, also produces a smartwatch, and China's Huawei introduced its version at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this month. 'Cohesive value' But analysts expect Apple to lift the market by integrating the watch with the iPhone and its software ecosystem, and its range of apps and sensors for health and fitness. "How Apple creates a cohesive value proposition integrating hardware with software and services is as always the key," said Nick Spencer at ABI Research. "The three main areas of wellness data and services, Apple Pay, along with creating an intelligent and differentiated relationship between the watch and the smartphone must be the foundations of the Apple Watch proposition." Apple has indicated that the entry price would be $349 in the US, and that two different sizes would be available in three collections, including the "Apple Watch Edition," featuring 18-carat gold cases in yellow or rose, sapphire crystal and finely crafted bands and closures. The watch is also expected to include map software that guides people to destinations with gentle "taps" on the wrist. Fitness apps on the Apple Watch and its rivals could spell trouble for makers of fitness bands from companies like Jawbone, Fitbit and Nike. Right balance Jan Dawson at Jackdaw Research said Apple must find the right balance for the new device - giving people alerts and notifications when they need them without overwhelming them. "One of the criticisms of some of the other watches out there is that notifications are something of an all-or-nothing phenomenon: either you get utterly bombarded with notifications or you get none, but it’s been tough to get granular control," Dawson says in a blog post. "So it becomes all the more important that Apple get this right on the Watch. The ability to manage notifications and other activity on the Watch so that you only get notified for the things you really care about is a key value proposition." Apple reportedly had to scale back health tracking features on the watch after some sensors didn't rise to the challenge. Research firm Strategy Analytics predicts Apple will set fire to the market from the outset, projecting sales of 15.4mn units worldwide in 2015, to give Apple a 55% market share. More conservative, ABI Research expects Apple to ship 13.77mn units, just under 50% of the market.

The heart of the project is an old shipping container, which three young Dutch architects converted to a 3D printer, the “Kamer-Maker” or “room-builder.” It has already produced stairs, walls, and parts of the façade, writes Annette BirschelThe enormous nozzle turns slowly, spraying out a millimetre-thin synthetic material which looks like ridiculously long spaghetti. “That’s going to be a column,” says Nathalie Swords. The 25-year-old German architecture student is sitting on a camping stool and pauses now and then to type something into her laptop. “It’ll be 1.6 metres high. That’ll take eight hours.” Swords is completing an internship at what is possibly the world’s most exciting construction site, in Amsterdam. In the borough of Noord, a canal-side house with four storeys, 13 rooms and the stepped gables typical of the Dutch city is being built — or rather, printed.The scene is nothing like that of a typical building site. Neither cranes nor bulldozers trundle around the site, which is just behind Amsterdam’s futuristic film museum. Instead of the chug of cement mixers, there is the sound of seagulls screeching overhead and the quiet hum of the printer.The heart of the project is an old shipping container, which three young Dutch architects converted to a 3D printer, the “Kamer-Maker” or “room-builder.”It is 3 metres high and around 2 metres by 2 metres wide. It has already produced stairs, walls, and parts of the facade. Outwardly, one sees only the smooth surfaces. Inside, the elements are not solid, but have a honeycomb-type structure.And now everything is ready to assemble — no bricklayers required.“It’s like Lego for grown-ups,” laughs Hedwig Heinsman. The 34-year-old belongs to the trio from the Dutch architecture firm Dus which designed the canal house: narrow, tall and highly ornate gables, just like its 400-year-old predecessors, but without the red and white bricks.The room-builder is fed with small white balls of organic matter.“It’s made of 80-per-cent vegetable oil,” says Heinsman. It is heated up, fed through the nozzles and, like ink in a normal printer, sprayed onto the surface area. As soon as one layer is firm, the next is printed, millimetre by millimetre.The German chemicals and glues corporation Henkel is a partner in the project and is developing the building material, for example from linseed. “Now and then we get a new sack with different balls to try,” says Heinsman.Of course, the relatively light walls and the roof have to be able to withstand the blustery Amsterdam weather. Dutch firm Heijmans is developing the construction methods. For example, the hollow spaces between the individual parts could be filled with a concrete foam.“3D technology is revolutionising the whole construction,” says Heinsman confidently. Anybody can be their own architect, she says, and design facades or rooms on the computer. “We just design the building’s DNA.”The 3D house is also aimed at making architecture more affordable. It could also be used in disaster areas, say the Dus architects. Instead of having to transport expensive building materials, all that would be needed would be to set up a couple of the enormous printers and print accommodation from materials at hand.Everything is possible, they say, from villas built out of old bottles to schools built from potato peelings. A builders’ hut on the site contains an exhibition on the building materials of the future, showing for example a tea service made of potato peelings. That took even US President Barack Obama’s breath away, says Heinsman. On a visit earlier this year, he said “Wow!”Amsterdam’s Dus architects are pioneers, even if they have lost the race to construct the world’s first printed house — China is reportedly already printing 10 bungalows a day.“For us it’s not about the product but the process,” says Heinsman.Those are no empty words — businesses, universities, city planners and Amsterdam’s citizens are also contributing to the project.The production of the 3D-print canal house is continuing apace. A second giant printer has been set up, capable of printing parts up to 5 metres long. Soon the first sections will be put together on the banks of the IJ lake. Right opposite the traditional Amsterdam canal houses which inspired it.

AFP/BarcelonaIs your toddler being mean to his baby sister while you're out of the room? Is your eight-year-old making unauthorised detours to the sweetshop after school? Chill. Mobile entrepreneurs have got your back, with smartphone-controlled baby cameras and wristwatch tracking devices that let you spy on your kids via your handset. Among countless new "wearable" gadgets presented this week at the Mobile World Congress trade fair in Barcelona, several companies were peddling brightly-coloured rubber wristwatch devices for four to 11-year-olds. The watches let parents track their child's movements on the screen of their smartphone and receive alerts if the child wanders outside a pre-set "safety zone". Spanish phone firm Telefonica announced the launch in Europe and Latin America of the FiLIP, a wrist device that has taken off in the United States since 2013. The watch lets the child talk via their wrist to authorised adults who have the app on their smartphone. "The idea is before they have their first smartphone, which is full of dangers for a small child, to have a way of locating and contacting them," said Carla Becker, a project manager at Telefonica, presenting the FiLIP in Barcelona. "The idea is not to be able to track them all the time. It is for when you need it." Other smaller companies trying to market child trackers included B-On, a multinational firm that presented a purple prototype of its Amigo child watch in Barcelona. "There are more and more tracking devices on the market, for kids, pets, cars," said B-On vice-president Ishay Shani. "Now is exactly the right time. Tracking is growing and the product is getting smaller."  Don't trust the babysitter For those who miss their child while away -- or who just don't trust the babysitter -- Taiwanese firm D-Link showcased its latest home baby-monitoring camera, the EyeOn Baby. From an application on a smartphone, the parent can view and talk to the child, play lullabies, take pictures and videos and set the app up to deliver alerts if the baby cries or moves. "It's the next step for the traditional baby monitor," said Anselmo Trejo, a D-Link marketing representative in Spain where he said 50,000 such cameras were sold last year. "Of course, you will still leave the child with a babysitter. But I don't trust all babysitters," he said. "From a hotel on the other side of the world you can see if the children are alright. You can see your child playing, or if they've had dinner and done their homework."  Selling peace of mind A typical connected child tracker or monitoring camera costs about $150 (135 euros). Few figures were available for how many child wrist trackers have been sold. Ben Wood, an analyst at tech research consultancy CCS Insight, said FiLIP was thought to be the biggest-selling child tracker watch in the United States, "but with relatively small volumes". "Connected devices for children have always been a popular concept but they remain problematic," said Wood. "Numerous issues exist, not least privacy but also health-related implications, particularly on cellular devices. This makes retailers nervous." Companies were careful to market their watches as a kind of telephone, to overcome concerns about privacy and surveillance. "It's more to do with a sense of comfort," said Bobby Moore, one of the directors of US-based company Trackimo. His firm has a range of smartphone-linked trackers for kids' or adults' wrists as well as tags for pets' collars or luggage. "You feel more safe and secure knowing where your children are, or your pets or old people," he said. "There is a security aspect, but we try to take out the Big Brother element."

Reuters/WashingtonTwitter Inc and law enforcement authorities are investigating alleged threats made by Islamic State militants against the social media network's co-founder and other employees, the company said in reaction to media reports. Islamic State supporters, in online posts on Sunday, called for attacks against Twitter and its "interests," including death threats, according to the online news media company Buzzfeed as well as the NBC news network. "Our security team is investigating the veracity of these threats with relevant law enforcement officials," a representative for Twitter said in a statement on Monday. Buzzfeed first reported the story on Sunday. One alleged threat was directed to Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, NBC reported. Dorsey didn't address or acknowledge the threats in his latest tweets on Sunday. The messages were posted on an anonymous file-sharing website called Pastebin, according to the media reports. "Your virtual war on us will cause a real war on you," one post by Islamic State supporters said, according to Buzzfeed. "We told you from the beginning it's not your war, but you didn't get it and kept closing our accounts on Twitter, but we always come back." Islamic State militants have relied heavily on Twitter and other social media networks to coordinate and to communicate, including the publishing of shocking videos of beheadings and other violent acts against its enemies. But social media companies, including Twitter, have also removed content and suspended accounts that post gruesome content, such as executions. Twitter's user policy prohibits the use of the service for violence and threats, stating on its website: "You may not publish or post direct, specific threats of violence against others." The company does not, however, "proactively monitor content," a spokesperson for the network told Reuters last week, adding that such policies were in place for other similar companies. Twitter's platform, which allows people to post 140-character messages with pictures and brief video clips, has more than 288 million users across the world, the company says.   

  Reuters/New York Honeywell International Inc  said on Monday it has teamed up with satellite internet startup OneWeb Ltd to expand the high-speed data services it offers to aircraft. OneWeb, whose investors include Richard Branson's Virgin Group and Qualcomm Inc, plans to build a network of 648 low-orbit satellites capable of beaming fast internet around the world starting in 2019. Honeywell will use OneWeb's bandwidth to provide aircraft services such as streaming maintenance data from engines and other equipment to the ground, transmitting weather and navigation data to pilots and supplying fast internet connections to passengers. The system also could stream black box flight data or cockpit video, ideas regulators are discussing, Honeywell said. Honeywell already supplies some services through satellite providers such as Iridium Communications Inc and Inmarsat Plc. But the faster speeds and low latency that OneWeb promises - at least 50 megabits per second per aircraft, and possibly much more - could in theory increase Honeywell's market by three to five times, Carl Esposito, vice president of marketing and product management at Honeywell Aerospace, said in an interview. "It's a big opportunity," he said. Because of the high bandwidth, "it really is transformational across the entire aircraft." The deal does not rule out or alter other partnerships. "It is very complementary to the solutions we're already providing," he said. Honeywell will also sell equipment that connects the aircraft to the satellite. Honeywell says the agreement will allow it to target a wider range of aircraft, including smaller business and military planes, along with commercial jetliners. OneWeb says its system will be capable of providing 10 terabits of data per second, and much of that bandwidth will go to ground-based users in developing countries seeking internet access. Aircraft add another, potentially lucrative market, although the prices of OneWeb and Honeywell's services have not been set. OneWeb does not see a threat from other technology companies that provide global broadband such as Facebook Inc, Google Inc and SpaceX. "There's an insane appetite for bandwidth," Chief Executive Officer Greg Wyler said. "We're going to make a dent in it with our system. But we're not going to complete it." OneWeb plans to start launching its small satellites in 2017, placing them about 750 miles above Earth. The satellites will weigh 275 pounds (125 kilograms) and will be built with a partner. The satellite and launch partners have not been announced.  

* New Galaxy S6 sports sleek metallic look* Boasts battery and charging innovations* Samsung shares hit near 9-mth high on mobile hopes* Key launch in fight to stay No.1 vs Apple   Reuters/Seoul South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co Ltd unveiled its latest Galaxy S smartphones, featuring a slim body made from aircraft-grade metal, in a bid to reclaim the throne of undisputed global smartphone leader from Apple Inc. Designed from scratch in an operation dubbed "Project Zero", the Galaxy S6 and its curved-edges variant are critical for Samsung's plans to reverse plunging smartphone revenues that led to its first annual earnings fall in three years in 2014. A warm initial reception sent Samsung shares on Monday to their highest in nearly nine months. Some technology publications described the phones as Samsung's best-looking to date after its previous flagship device, the Galaxy S5, failed to impress. The shares closed up 4.9 percent, outperforming a 0.6 percent rise for the broader market. "We listen to our customers and we learn from our missteps," J.K. Shin, Samsung's mobile chief, told a packed hall in Barcelona ahead of the annual Mobile World Congress trade show, where the Galaxy S6 and the Galaxy S6 edge were unveiled on Sunday. By some estimates, arch-rival Apple surpassed Samsung as the world's top smartphone maker in the fourth quarter, with record sales of the big-screen iPhone 6 and 6 Plus. Samsung begins its fight-back on April 10 when the revamped Galaxy phones go on sale in 20 countries in one of the most important product launches in the company's history. Stand-out features include a casing made from light-weight metal used in airplanes, a step up from the plastic that disappointed many critics of the S5, and Corning Inc's  Gorilla Glass on both front and back. In addition to camera and screen upgrades, Samsung stripped out many of its unpopular in-house apps that infuriated users by gobbling up memory. The new phones will be powered by Samsung's own 64-bit, 14-nanometer Exynos processors, a departure from its previous reliance on Qualcomm Inc's chips. In another departure, batteries in the new phones cannot be replaced. To compensate, the devices are the first from Samsung to support wireless charging without a dedicated accessory and can also get four hours of power with a 10-minute charge by cord. Samsung is also touting the Galaxy S6's compatibility with a new mobile payments system it is preparing to launch in the United States and South Korea in the second half of this year. The system, in partnership with major U.S. banks and credit card companies including Visa and MasterCard, will allow users to make mobile payments through magnetic strip-card readers without an external accessory needed for other models. The rival Apple Pay system, launched in the United States in September and rapidly winning retailer support, requires merchants to install near-field card readers, limiting its reach as contactless credit cards have been slow to take off there.      

Jens Garbas, head of the intelligent-systems lab, with video images where his scared facial expression are being analysed by software that can identify 100 emotions. The system was developed by the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits in Erlangen, Germany. What most regular-ability people can see at a glance can be much harder for people with autism: is that person looking happy or sad, annoyed or surprised? Most people on the autism spectrum have to learn over time what a smile or a wrinkled forehead means.Researchers in the German city of Erlangen are working on software that they hope will make everyday life easier for autists.  Their Shore software (the name stands for “sophisticated high-speed object recognition engine”) is built into a pair of glasses and can show the wearer whether the person they are speaking to is a man or a woman, and their age, more or less.It can also recognise basic emotions.A broad smile will produce the word “happy” and a red bar on the screen.If a person’s mouth forms a round “O” shape and their eyes open wide, the screen shows the word “surprised.”It doesn’t work perfectly, but Shore and similar programmes can usually get the basic emotions — anger, sadness, fear, happiness, surprise and disgust — right.“Studies have shown that these are shown correctly in around 90 per cent of cases,” says Berlin psychologist and emotions researcher Isabel Dziobek. That’s astonishing, she adds, given that human faces can express around 100 emotions. Jens Garbas and his team at Erlangen’s intelligent-systems lab of the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits have been working for around 10 years on the software. The principle behind it is simply one of automated learning.The researchers have fed the programme with more than 30,000 specimen images and a description of whether the faces are of men or women, the position of the mouth, nose and eyes and what kind of emotion they are expressing.Consumer researchers are already using the software for advertising and market research. For example, they can use it to find out how people react on the spot to an advert, and what they view positively or negatively.Cameras with similar software are on the market already: they refuse to take photos unless the subject smiles.The technology is also being used in shops to find out whether shoppers are men or women, their ages, what time of day they come in and how they move around the shop.There are even digital adverts which can react to viewers, asking for example, “You look so sad. Shall I tell you a joke?”The researchers have lots more ideas. “The software could be used anywhere where people interact with machines,” says Garbas. The goal is for the software to recognise ever more emotions, and to detect whether they are real or faked. For example, a real smile is not just made with the mouth, but activates more muscles and causes fine lines around the eyes.The Fraunhofer researchers’ latest idea is to build the software into glasses for people with autism. Friedrich Nolte of the German Society for the Advancement of People with Autism (Bundesverband zur Förderung von Menschen mit Autismus) thinks the idea could work.It could for example be helpful for people on the autism spectrum meeting new people for the first time.“When you don’t know people, it’s more difficult to read their emotions,” says Nolte.But ultimately, he says, it makes more sense to teach people with autism how to read emotions for themselves, rather than with the help of software.“It’s always better to learn a language yourself, rather than having an interpreter standing next to you,” he explains using a simile.Isabel Dziobek is working on just that objective, but with the help of the software.The technology can be used to recognise 40 emotions, created by putting the upper and lower half of a face together.The emotions have been recorded by 70 actors in almost 8,000 video and audio sequences. The idea is that the programme would not just be used by people with autism, but also people in professions in which the ability to recognise emotions is especially important, for example police officers, customs officers and care workers.Garbas rejects the idea that the technology could encroach on privacy.“All of the evaluations take place within the device and the information is stored without any link to the person,” he says. —DPA

  AFP/ Stockholm Global furniture giant Ikea announced on Sunday the launch of desks, tables and lamps that will wirelessly charge phones and other devices. The new collection will use Qi wireless technology to charge devices that are placed on or near the furniture. "Through research and home visits, we know that people hate cable mess. They worry about not finding the charger and running out of power," Ikea's business area manager of lighting and wireless charging, Jeanette Skjelmose, said in a statement. "Our new innovative solutions, which integrate wireless charging into home furnishings, will make life at home simpler," she added. The Home Spot range of desks, bedside tables and lamps will hit stores in Europe and North America in April, Ikea said, with a "global roll-out" in the works. "This is a very early time in the furniture business to blend wireless technology," Jeff Kagan, a technology industry analyst, told AFP. "I expect every other furniture maker to jump on this same bandwagon," he added. In January Ikea -- which employs 147,000 people worldwide -- reported annual profits of $3.74 billion (3.33 billion euros) for 2014, unchanged from the year before.

Yaron Aizenbud, CEO of Tel Aviv-based firm Anagog, shows their parking app on his mobile phone. Reuters/Tel Aviv When it comes to helping drivers, there's no shortage of in-car technology from GPS navigation to collision-warning systems. But now start-ups are tackling a perennial source of frustration - finding a parking space. With the parking industry worth $25bn a year in the US and more than twice that in western Europe, it's no surprise that high-tech firms are scrambling to come up with clever ways to make the process quicker and easier. In Britain, JustPark provides a mobile app that enables users to rent people's private parking spaces. In the US, SpotHero and ParkWhiz allow users to find paid parking areas or book places in advance. German carmaker BMW has been trialling a similar service called ParkNow. But Israeli companies are taking a different approach to the problem: predicting where parking spaces can be found based on mobile data analytics. Anagog, a Tel Aviv-based firm, has developed an app that can guide drivers to empty on-street parking using real-time, crowd-sourced data from mobile phones, similar to what another Israeli app, Waze, has successfully done with navigation. Waze was bought by Google in 2013 for $1bn. Anagog's software learns personal behaviour and knows whether a user is getting into a car or starting to drive away, freeing up a place. "We can direct people to spots that are about to open," said chief marketing officer Jake Levant. The company said it has built up a network of tens of millions of drivers who contribute millions of "parking events" daily. The technology is already attracting attention from the industry, including ParkNow, which recognises that its parking solutions are based on advanced planning rather than predicting or knowing when a space will open up. Joachim Hauser, the director of mobility services at BMW, which has also backed JustPark, said mobile intelligence had implications for the auto industry and mobile service providers beyond finding a parking space, making it particularly attractive. "We will be looking at companies like Anagog to fill the ParkNow brand," he said, without giving details of how that could work. Sharing economy Another Israeli company, ParkLife, takes a similar approach to Anagog but uses a statistical model and mapping data to direct drivers to the best area to find on-street parking. Since it does not need heaps of historical data, it can quickly be adapted to cities around the world. If there's no on-street parking available, it will direct users to a parking lot and provide walking directions to the final destination. "This is a Google economy - it's all about free, about sharing," said Roger Lanctot, an automotive analyst at Strategy Analytics, who believes predictive technology focused on on-street parking is where the market is headed. While most consumers will opt for free parking if they can find it rather than paying for a car park or a pre-booked parking space, the key to the burgeoning industry would appear to be providing users with as many options as possible. Pango Mobile Parking, another Israeli company, started with an app that makes it quicker and easier to pay for parking via mobile phone. It now has agreements with 14 US cities and operations in Brazil and Poland. But it's also providing parking location and valet parking services. "Parking is a big business," said chief executive Zion Harel, pointing out that mobile payments account for only 7% of the US market, whereas in Israel they are already more than 50%. "A lot of Corps are looking to see where this is going," he said. 

GRAB IT: Android 5.0, dubbed Lollipop, is more focused on design than previous versions of the operating system. By Troy WolvertonTraditionally, the best word to describe Google’s Android operating system has been “utilitarian.” The engineers behind the world’s leading mobile platform have long emphasised features over aesthetics.But that may be starting to change. In its latest version, dubbed Lollipop, which has just started to roll out to older phones and tablets, the look and feel of Android and its primary apps get a major overhaul.Google calls the new look in Android 5.0 “Material Design.” It’s marked by brighter colours, a “flatter” but layered look to applications and icons, and greater emphasis on clear and legible text.The new design borrows ideas from the flat look that Apple introduced to its mobile operating system in iOS 7 and the interface Microsoft designed for its Windows Phone software. Android remains distinct from both, but it now appears to be in the same family.For example, when you turn on Lollipop’s new “battery saver” mode, the notification bar at the top of the screen and the taskbar at bottom turn a bright orange. The look is reminiscent of how the notification bar turns green in iOS when you are on a call or blue when you turn on its personal hotspot feature.Similarly, many of the Google-designed apps in Lollipop have a unique colour in their menu bars that serves to distinguish them from other apps. While Gmail’s accent colour is red, the one for the contacts app is blue.The net result is an operating system that feels less like something designed by engineers for engineers and more like something that is lively, fun and accessible to non-techies. Google made some other design changes in Lollipop. One is to how Android displays open applications when you want to switch between them. In previous versions, when you pressed the “overview” button to see which applications you had running, Android would display a vertical list of thumbnail images of those programs. With Lollipop, Android displays them like a carousel, with the app windows stacked one on top of another. I prefer the new look, because it allows you to see more of the open apps at once. Google has also revamped the quick settings feature in Android. It’s still available in the notifications area, but it’s now accessible by swiping down twice from the top of the screen. It also includes some new settings, such as the ability to turn on a smartphone’s hotspot feature or to turn on a device’s flash to use it as a flashlight.To be sure, Google did more in Lollipop than revamp Android’s look. The updated software also includes lots of new features. Among them are a greater amount of options and controls for notifications. Android users can now respond to alerts that display on their lock screen. They can turn on a privacy feature that allows notifications to be displayed on the lock screen, but blocks their content, such as the actual message in a text message. And they can turn on a mode that will only display alerts from particular people and apps.One of the cool new features of Android is that it gives users more options in how to share their devices with others. Android tablets have been able to support multiple user accounts for a while now. With Lollipop, Android smartphones gain the same ability, allowing consumers to access their own contacts and other data on a friend or family member’s phone. Lollipop also allows users to create guest accounts on both smartphones and tablets that can access any apps, but none of the personal data on them.Of note for parents, the new software has a related feature that allows users to “pin” a particular app to the screen so that a child, say, can’t use any other apps or see anything else on the device. That might be helpful if your kid wants to play a game on your phone, but you don’t want them to see your e-mail or reconfigure your home screen.These types of features — support for multiple users and the ability to easily restrict access to younger users — are ones that I’ve long wished Apple would build into iOS. Google has also enhanced the security in Android. In Lollipop, encryption is turned on by default; previously, it was hard to know that you could use it to protect your data, because to turn it on, you had to find it deep within the system’s settings. While Android’s ability for apps to work together fairly seamlessly was a selling point over iOS until recently, it’s also been a vulnerability, potentially allowing malware to gain access to important functions on the device.In Lollipop, Google limits the access particular programs have to the underlying functions; your apps should still be able to work together, but they should pose a lot less of a threat to the functioning of your phone.As with any new version of Android, the big questions for users are when they will be able to get the new software and the degree to which phone manufacturers will customize it. Although Lollipop has started to become available to certain Android devices, there are lots that still can’t get it. When I tried several days ago to download it to two Android smartphones I’ve been testing — Samsung’s Galaxy Note Edge and Sharp’s Aquos Crystal — it wasn’t available.Meanwhile, few electronics manufacturers offer an unadulterated Android experience. Unless you have one of Google’s Nexus devices, you may not see many of the cool new interface features in Lollipop.Overall, Lollipop is a sweet new update. With both good looks and cool features, it’s well worth downloading if you can get it. — San Jose Mercury News, TNS

AFP/Moscow A wave of cyberattacks since 2013 has cost banks around the globe up to $1bn (870mn euros) according to a report by Russian computer security firm Kaspersky Lab released on Monday. The large-scale theft, which Kaspersky said was still going on, "indicates clearly the coming of a new era for cybercrime". About 100 banks - mainly in Russia but also in the US, Germany, China and Ukraine - have been targeted. It was too early to pin down the source of the attacks, although some evidence points to China, Kaspersky said, while warning that hackers sometimes plant clues intended to mislead investigators. The goal of the attacks "appears to be financial gain rather than espionage," the report said, adding that the attackers are "clearly familiar with the software and networks of financial services". Hackers commonly break into bank networks by tricking staff into clicking on links or email attachments in a process called "phishing." In some cases the hackers follow targeted employees on video surveillance images.   Once the attackers are in, they can then transfer money to accounts under their control or make withdrawals at certain bank machines. Stolen money was transferred to the US and China, Kaspersky said. Hackers had such advanced access to the banks' systems that they could force bank machines to dispense cash at specific times and locations where hackers could pick it up, The New York Times reported on Saturday. Whopping sums of cash were involved, with one institution losing $7.3mn in withdrawals at bank machines as well as $10mn more through its online platform. Kaspersky said the hackers are trying to broaden their European attacks to Middle East, Asia and Africa.