├── .github └── workflows │ └── python-package.yml ├── .gitignore ├── .pre-commit-config.yaml ├── CITATION.cff ├── LICENSE.txt ├── README.md ├── data └── bbc │ ├── README.TXT │ └── tech │ ├── tech_001.txt │ ├── tech_002.txt │ ├── tech_003.txt │ ├── tech_004.txt │ ├── tech_005.txt │ ├── tech_006.txt │ ├── tech_007.txt │ ├── tech_008.txt │ ├── tech_009.txt │ ├── tech_010.txt │ ├── tech_011.txt │ ├── tech_012.txt │ ├── tech_013.txt │ ├── tech_014.txt │ ├── tech_015.txt │ ├── tech_016.txt │ ├── tech_017.txt │ ├── tech_018.txt │ ├── tech_019.txt │ ├── tech_020.txt │ ├── tech_021.txt │ ├── tech_022.txt │ ├── tech_023.txt │ ├── tech_024.txt │ ├── tech_025.txt │ ├── tech_026.txt │ ├── tech_027.txt │ ├── tech_028.txt │ ├── tech_029.txt │ ├── tech_030.txt │ ├── tech_031.txt │ ├── tech_032.txt │ ├── tech_033.txt │ ├── tech_034.txt │ ├── tech_035.txt │ ├── tech_036.txt │ ├── tech_037.txt │ ├── tech_038.txt │ ├── tech_039.txt │ ├── tech_040.txt │ ├── tech_041.txt │ ├── tech_042.txt │ ├── tech_043.txt │ ├── tech_044.txt │ ├── tech_045.txt │ ├── tech_046.txt │ ├── tech_047.txt │ ├── tech_048.txt │ ├── tech_049.txt │ ├── tech_050.txt │ ├── tech_051.txt │ ├── tech_052.txt │ ├── tech_053.txt │ ├── tech_054.txt │ ├── tech_055.txt │ ├── tech_056.txt │ ├── tech_057.txt │ ├── tech_058.txt │ ├── tech_059.txt │ ├── tech_060.txt │ ├── tech_061.txt │ ├── tech_062.txt │ ├── tech_063.txt │ ├── tech_064.txt │ ├── tech_065.txt │ ├── tech_066.txt │ ├── tech_067.txt │ ├── tech_068.txt │ ├── tech_069.txt │ ├── tech_070.txt │ ├── tech_071.txt │ ├── tech_072.txt │ ├── tech_073.txt │ ├── tech_074.txt │ ├── tech_075.txt │ ├── tech_076.txt │ ├── tech_077.txt │ ├── tech_078.txt │ ├── tech_079.txt │ ├── tech_080.txt │ ├── tech_081.txt │ ├── tech_082.txt │ ├── tech_083.txt │ ├── tech_084.txt │ ├── tech_085.txt │ ├── tech_086.txt │ ├── tech_087.txt │ ├── tech_088.txt │ ├── tech_089.txt │ ├── tech_090.txt │ ├── tech_091.txt │ ├── tech_092.txt │ ├── tech_093.txt │ ├── tech_094.txt │ ├── tech_095.txt │ ├── tech_096.txt │ ├── tech_097.txt │ ├── tech_098.txt │ ├── tech_099.txt │ ├── tech_100.txt │ ├── tech_101.txt │ ├── tech_102.txt │ ├── tech_103.txt │ ├── tech_104.txt │ ├── tech_105.txt │ ├── tech_106.txt │ ├── tech_107.txt │ ├── tech_108.txt │ ├── tech_109.txt │ ├── tech_110.txt │ ├── tech_111.txt │ ├── tech_112.txt │ ├── tech_113.txt │ ├── tech_114.txt │ ├── tech_115.txt │ ├── tech_116.txt │ ├── tech_117.txt │ ├── tech_118.txt │ ├── tech_119.txt │ ├── tech_120.txt │ ├── tech_121.txt │ ├── tech_122.txt │ ├── tech_123.txt │ ├── tech_124.txt │ ├── tech_125.txt │ ├── tech_126.txt │ ├── tech_127.txt │ ├── tech_128.txt │ ├── tech_129.txt │ ├── tech_130.txt │ ├── tech_131.txt │ ├── tech_132.txt │ ├── tech_133.txt │ ├── tech_134.txt │ ├── tech_135.txt │ ├── tech_136.txt │ ├── tech_137.txt │ ├── tech_138.txt │ ├── tech_139.txt │ ├── tech_140.txt │ ├── tech_141.txt │ ├── tech_142.txt │ ├── tech_143.txt │ ├── tech_144.txt │ ├── tech_145.txt │ ├── tech_146.txt │ ├── tech_147.txt │ ├── tech_148.txt │ ├── tech_149.txt │ ├── tech_150.txt │ ├── tech_151.txt │ ├── tech_152.txt │ ├── tech_153.txt │ ├── tech_154.txt │ ├── tech_155.txt │ ├── tech_156.txt │ ├── tech_157.txt │ ├── tech_158.txt │ ├── tech_159.txt │ ├── tech_160.txt │ ├── tech_161.txt │ ├── tech_162.txt │ ├── tech_163.txt │ ├── tech_164.txt │ ├── tech_165.txt │ ├── tech_166.txt │ ├── tech_167.txt │ ├── tech_168.txt │ ├── tech_169.txt │ ├── tech_170.txt │ ├── tech_171.txt │ ├── tech_172.txt │ ├── tech_173.txt │ ├── tech_174.txt │ ├── tech_175.txt │ ├── tech_176.txt │ ├── tech_177.txt │ ├── tech_178.txt │ ├── tech_179.txt │ ├── tech_180.txt │ ├── tech_181.txt │ ├── tech_182.txt │ ├── tech_183.txt │ ├── tech_184.txt │ ├── tech_185.txt │ ├── tech_186.txt │ ├── tech_187.txt │ ├── tech_188.txt │ ├── tech_189.txt │ ├── tech_190.txt │ ├── tech_191.txt │ ├── tech_192.txt │ ├── tech_193.txt │ ├── tech_194.txt │ ├── tech_195.txt │ ├── tech_196.txt │ ├── tech_197.txt │ ├── tech_198.txt │ ├── tech_199.txt │ ├── tech_200.txt │ ├── tech_201.txt │ ├── tech_202.txt │ ├── tech_203.txt │ ├── tech_204.txt │ ├── tech_205.txt │ ├── tech_206.txt │ ├── tech_207.txt │ ├── tech_208.txt │ ├── tech_209.txt │ ├── tech_210.txt │ ├── tech_211.txt │ ├── tech_212.txt │ ├── tech_213.txt │ ├── tech_214.txt │ ├── tech_215.txt │ ├── tech_216.txt │ ├── tech_217.txt │ ├── tech_218.txt │ ├── tech_219.txt │ ├── tech_220.txt │ ├── tech_221.txt │ ├── tech_222.txt │ ├── tech_223.txt │ ├── tech_224.txt │ ├── tech_225.txt │ ├── tech_226.txt │ ├── tech_227.txt │ ├── tech_228.txt │ ├── tech_229.txt │ ├── tech_230.txt │ ├── tech_231.txt │ ├── tech_232.txt │ ├── tech_233.txt │ ├── tech_234.txt │ ├── tech_235.txt │ ├── tech_236.txt │ ├── tech_237.txt │ ├── tech_238.txt │ ├── tech_239.txt │ ├── tech_240.txt │ ├── tech_241.txt │ ├── tech_242.txt │ ├── tech_243.txt │ ├── tech_244.txt │ ├── tech_245.txt │ ├── tech_246.txt │ ├── tech_247.txt │ ├── tech_248.txt │ ├── tech_249.txt │ ├── tech_250.txt │ ├── tech_251.txt │ ├── tech_252.txt │ ├── tech_253.txt │ ├── tech_254.txt │ ├── tech_255.txt │ ├── tech_256.txt │ ├── tech_257.txt │ ├── tech_258.txt │ ├── tech_259.txt │ ├── tech_260.txt │ ├── tech_261.txt │ ├── tech_262.txt │ ├── tech_263.txt │ ├── tech_264.txt │ ├── tech_265.txt │ ├── tech_266.txt │ ├── tech_267.txt │ ├── tech_268.txt │ ├── tech_269.txt │ ├── tech_270.txt │ ├── tech_271.txt │ ├── tech_272.txt │ ├── tech_273.txt │ ├── tech_274.txt │ ├── tech_275.txt │ ├── tech_276.txt │ ├── tech_277.txt │ ├── tech_278.txt │ ├── tech_279.txt │ ├── tech_280.txt │ ├── tech_281.txt │ ├── tech_282.txt │ ├── tech_283.txt │ ├── tech_284.txt │ ├── tech_285.txt │ ├── tech_286.txt │ ├── tech_287.txt │ ├── tech_288.txt │ ├── tech_289.txt │ ├── tech_290.txt │ ├── tech_291.txt │ ├── tech_292.txt │ ├── tech_293.txt │ ├── tech_294.txt │ ├── tech_295.txt │ ├── tech_296.txt │ ├── tech_297.txt │ ├── tech_298.txt │ ├── tech_299.txt │ ├── tech_300.txt │ ├── tech_301.txt │ ├── tech_302.txt │ ├── tech_303.txt │ ├── tech_304.txt │ ├── tech_305.txt │ ├── tech_306.txt │ ├── tech_307.txt │ ├── tech_308.txt │ ├── tech_309.txt │ ├── tech_310.txt │ ├── tech_311.txt │ ├── tech_312.txt │ ├── tech_313.txt │ ├── tech_314.txt │ ├── tech_315.txt │ ├── tech_316.txt │ ├── tech_317.txt │ ├── tech_318.txt │ ├── tech_319.txt │ ├── tech_320.txt │ ├── tech_321.txt │ ├── tech_322.txt │ ├── tech_323.txt │ ├── tech_324.txt │ ├── tech_325.txt │ ├── tech_326.txt │ ├── tech_327.txt │ ├── tech_328.txt │ ├── tech_329.txt │ ├── tech_330.txt │ ├── tech_331.txt │ ├── tech_332.txt │ ├── tech_333.txt │ ├── tech_334.txt │ ├── tech_335.txt │ ├── tech_336.txt │ ├── tech_337.txt │ ├── tech_338.txt │ ├── tech_339.txt │ ├── tech_340.txt │ ├── tech_341.txt │ ├── tech_342.txt │ ├── tech_343.txt │ ├── tech_344.txt │ ├── tech_345.txt │ ├── tech_346.txt │ ├── tech_347.txt │ ├── tech_348.txt │ ├── tech_349.txt │ ├── tech_350.txt │ ├── tech_351.txt │ ├── tech_352.txt │ ├── tech_353.txt │ ├── tech_354.txt │ ├── tech_355.txt │ ├── tech_356.txt │ ├── tech_357.txt │ ├── tech_358.txt │ ├── tech_359.txt │ ├── tech_360.txt │ ├── tech_361.txt │ ├── tech_362.txt │ ├── tech_363.txt │ ├── tech_364.txt │ ├── tech_365.txt │ ├── tech_366.txt │ ├── tech_367.txt │ ├── tech_368.txt │ ├── tech_369.txt │ ├── tech_370.txt │ ├── tech_371.txt │ ├── tech_372.txt │ ├── tech_373.txt │ ├── tech_374.txt │ ├── tech_375.txt │ ├── tech_376.txt │ ├── tech_377.txt │ ├── tech_378.txt │ ├── tech_379.txt │ ├── tech_380.txt │ ├── tech_381.txt │ ├── tech_382.txt │ ├── tech_383.txt │ ├── tech_384.txt │ ├── tech_385.txt │ ├── tech_386.txt │ ├── tech_387.txt │ ├── tech_388.txt │ ├── tech_389.txt │ ├── tech_390.txt │ ├── tech_391.txt │ ├── tech_392.txt │ ├── tech_393.txt │ ├── tech_394.txt │ ├── tech_395.txt │ ├── tech_396.txt │ ├── tech_397.txt │ ├── tech_398.txt │ ├── tech_399.txt │ ├── tech_400.txt │ └── tech_401.txt ├── examples ├── bbc_demo.py └── synthetic_data.py ├── poetry.lock ├── pyproject.toml ├── scripts ├── __init__.py └── run_hlda.py ├── src └── hlda │ ├── __init__.py │ ├── sampler.py │ └── sklearn_wrapper.py └── tests ├── test_bbc_demo.py ├── test_export_tree_json.py ├── test_run_hlda_utils.py ├── test_sampler_io.py ├── test_sklearn_wrapper.py └── test_synthetic_hlda.py /.github/workflows/python-package.yml: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | name: Python Package using Poetry 2 | 3 | on: [push] 4 | 5 | jobs: 6 | build-linux: 7 | runs-on: ubuntu-latest 8 | steps: 9 | - uses: actions/checkout@v3 10 | - name: Set up Python 3.11 11 | uses: actions/setup-python@v5 12 | with: 13 | python-version: '3.11' 14 | - name: Install Poetry 15 | run: pip install poetry==2.1.3 16 | - name: Install dependencies 17 | run: poetry install --no-interaction --no-root 18 | - name: Lint with flake8 19 | run: poetry run flake8 . --count --select=E9,F63,F7,F82 --show-source --statistics && poetry run flake8 . --count --exit-zero --max-complexity=10 --max-line-length=127 --statistics 20 | - name: Test with pytest 21 | run: poetry run pytest 22 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /.pre-commit-config.yaml: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | repos: 2 | - repo: https://github.com/psf/black 3 | rev: 25.1.0 4 | hooks: 5 | - id: black 6 | - repo: https://github.com/pycqa/flake8 7 | rev: 7.2.0 8 | hooks: 9 | - id: flake8 10 | - repo: local 11 | hooks: 12 | - id: pytest 13 | name: pytest 14 | entry: pytest 15 | language: system 16 | pass_filenames: false 17 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /CITATION.cff: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | cff-version: 1.2.0 2 | message: > 3 | If you use the sample BBC dataset included with this project, 4 | please cite the following publication: 5 | Greene, D., and Cunningham, P. (2006). Practical Solutions to the Problem of 6 | Diagonal Dominance in Kernel Document Clustering. Proceedings of the 7 | 23rd International Conference on Machine Learning. 8 | title: "BBC News Dataset" 9 | authors: 10 | - family-names: Greene 11 | given-names: Derek 12 | - family-names: Cunningham 13 | given-names: P. 14 | version: "1.0" 15 | date-released: 2004-01-01 16 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /LICENSE.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Copyright (c) 2025 Joe Wandy 2 | 3 | Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy 4 | of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal 5 | in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights 6 | to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell 7 | copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is 8 | furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions: 9 | 10 | The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all 11 | copies or substantial portions of the Software. 12 | 13 | THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, 14 | EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF 15 | MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. 16 | IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, 17 | DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR 18 | OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE 19 | OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE. 20 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/README.TXT: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Consists of 2225 documents from the BBC news website corresponding to stories in five topical areas from 2004-2005. 2 | Natural Classes: 5 (business, entertainment, politics, sport, tech) 3 | 4 | If you make use of the dataset, please consider citing the publication: 5 | - D. Greene and P. Cunningham. "Practical Solutions to the Problem of Diagonal Dominance in Kernel Document Clustering", Proc. ICML 2006. 6 | 7 | All rights, including copyright, in the content of the original articles are owned by the BBC. 8 | 9 | Contact Derek Greene for further information. 10 | http://mlg.ucd.ie/datasets/bbc.html 11 | 12 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_003.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Microsoft seeking spyware trojan 2 | 3 | Microsoft is investigating a trojan program that attempts to switch off the firm's anti-spyware software. 4 | 5 | The spyware tool was only released by Microsoft in the last few weeks and has been downloaded by six million people. Stephen Toulouse, a security manager at Microsoft, said the malicious program was called Bankash-A Trojan and was being sent as an e-mail attachment. Microsoft said it did not believe the program was widespread and recommended users to use an anti-virus program. The program attempts to disable or delete Microsoft's anti-spyware tool and suppress warning messages given to users. 6 | 7 | It may also try to steal online banking passwords or other personal information by tracking users' keystrokes. 8 | 9 | Microsoft said in a statement it is investigating what it called a criminal attack on its software. Earlier this week, Microsoft said it would buy anti-virus software maker Sybari Software to improve its security in its Windows and e-mail software. Microsoft has said it plans to offer its own paid-for anti-virus software but it has not yet set a date for its release. The anti-spyware program being targeted is currently only in beta form and aims to help users find and remove spyware - programs which monitor internet use, causes advert pop-ups and slow a PC's performance. 10 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_007.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Microsoft releases bumper patches 2 | 3 | Microsoft has warned PC users to update their systems with the latest security fixes for flaws in Windows programs. 4 | 5 | In its monthly security bulletin, it flagged up eight "critical" security holes which could leave PCs open to attack if left unpatched. The number of holes considered "critical" is more than usual. They affect Windows programs, including Internet Explorer (IE), media player and instant messaging. Four other important fixes were also released. These were considered to be less critical, however. If not updated, either automatically or manually, PC users running the programs could be vulnerable to viruses or other malicious attacks designed to exploit the holes. Many of the flaws could be used by virus writers to take over computers remotely, install programs, change, and delete or see data. 6 | 7 | One of the critical patches Microsoft has made available is an important one that fixes some IE flaws. Stephen Toulouse, a Microsoft security manager, said the flaws were known about, and although the firm had not seen any attacks exploiting the flaw, he did not rule them out. Often, when a critical flaw is announced, spates of viruses follow because home users and businesses leave the flaw unpatched. A further patch fixes a hole in Media Player, Windows Messenger and MSN Messenger which an attacker could use to take control of unprotected machines through .png files. Microsoft announces any vulnerabilities in its software every month. The most important ones are those which are classed as "critical". Its latest releases came the week that the company announced it was to buy security software maker Sybari Software as part of Microsoft's plans to make its own security programs. 8 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_008.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Virus poses as Christmas e-mail 2 | 3 | Security firms are warning about a Windows virus disguising itself as an electronic Christmas card. 4 | 5 | The Zafi.D virus translates the Christmas greeting on its subject line into the language of the person receiving infected e-mail. Anti-virus firms speculate that this multilingual ability is helping the malicious program spread widely online. Anti-virus firm Sophos said that 10% of the e-mail currently on the net was infected with the Zafi virus. 6 | 7 | Like many other Windows viruses, Zafi-D plunders Microsoft Outlook for e-mail addresses and then uses mail-sending software to despatch itself across the web to new victims. To be infected users must open up the attachment travelling with the message which bears the code for the malicious bug. The attachment on the e-mail poses as an electronic Christmas card but anyone opening it will simply get a crude image of two smiley faces. 8 | 9 | The virus' subject line says "Merry Christmas" and translates this into one of 15 languages depending of the final suffix of the e-mail address the infected message has been sent to. The message in the body of the e-mail reads: "Happy Holidays" and this too is translated. On infected machines the virus tries to disable anti-virus and firewall software and opens up a backdoor on the PC to hand over control to the writer of the virus. The virus is thought to have spread most widely in South America, Italy, Spain, Bulgaria and Hungary. The original Zafi virus appeared in April this year. "We have seen these hoaxes for several Christmases already, and personally I prefer traditional pen and paper cards, and we recommend this to all our clients too," said Mikko Hypponen, who heads F-Secure's anti-virus team. 10 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_012.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | IBM puts cash behind Linux push 2 | 3 | IBM is spending $100m (£52m) over the next three years beefing up its commitment to Linux software. 4 | 5 | The cash injection will be used to help its customers use Linux on every type of device from handheld computers and phones right up to powerful servers. IBM said the money will fund a variety of technical, research and marketing initiatives to boost Linux use. IBM said it had taken the step in response to greater customer demand for the open source software. 6 | 7 | In 2004 IBM said it had seen double digit growth in the number of customers using Linux to help staff work together more closely. The money will be used to help this push towards greater collaboration and will add Linux-based elements to IBM's Workplace software. Workplace is a suite of programs and tools that allow workers to get at core business applications no matter what device they use to connect to corporate networks. One of the main focuses of the initiative will be to make it easier to use Linux-based desktop computers and mobile devices with Workplace. Even before IBM announced this latest spending boost it was one of the biggest advocates of the open source way of working. In 2001 it put $300m into a three-year Linux program and has produced Linux versions of many of its programs. Linux and the open source software movement are based on the premise that developers should be free to tinker with the core components of software programs. They reason that more open scrutiny of software produces better programs and fuels innovation. 8 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_014.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | EU software patent law faces axe 2 | 3 | The European Parliament has thrown out a bill that would have allowed software to be patented. 4 | 5 | Politicians unanimously rejected the bill and now it must go through another round of consultation if it is to have a chance of becoming law. During consultation the software patents bill could be substantially re-drafted or even scrapped. The bill was backed by some hi-tech firms, saying they needed protections it offered to make research worthwhile. 6 | 7 | Hugo Lueders, European director for public policy at CompTIA, an umbrella organization for technology companies, said only when intellectual property was adequately protected would European inventors prosper. He said the benefits of the bill had been obscured by special interest groups which muddied debate over the rights and wrongs of software patents. Other proponents of the bill said it was a good compromise that avoided the excesses of the American system which allows the patenting of business practices as well as software. But opponents of the bill said that it could stifle innovation, be abused by firms keen to protect existing monopolies and could hamper the growth of the open source movement. The proposed law had a troubled passage through the European parliament. Its progress was delayed twice when Polish MEPs rejected plans to adopt it. Also earlier this month the influential European Legal Affairs Committee (JURI) said the law should be re-drafted after it failed to win the support of MEPs. To become law both the European Parliament and a qualified majority of EU states have to approve of the draft wording of the bill. The latest rejection means that now the bill on computer inventions must go back to the EU for re-consideration. 8 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_015.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Xbox power cable 'fire fear' 2 | 3 | Microsoft has said it will replace more than 14 million power cables for its Xbox consoles due to safety concerns. 4 | 5 | The company said the move was a "preventative step" after reports of fire hazard problems with the cables. It affects Xboxes made before 23 October 2003 for all regions but mainland Europe - and consoles in that region made before 13 January 2004. Microsoft said it had received 30 reports of minor injury or property damage due to faulty cables. The firm said fewer than one in 10,000 consoles had experienced component failures. The recall affects almost three quarters of all Xboxes sold around the world since its launch in 2001. 6 | 7 | In a statement, it added: "In almost all instances, any damage caused by these failures was contained within the console itself or limited to the tip of the power cord at the back of the console." But in seven cases, customers reported sustaining a minor burn to their hand. In 23 cases, customers reported smoke damage, or minor damage to a carpet or entertainment centre. "This is a preventative step we're choosing to take despite the rarity of these incidents," said Robbie Bach, senior vice president, Microsoft home and entertainment division. "We regret the inconvenience, but believe offering consumers a free replacement cord is the responsible thing to do." Consumers can order a new cable from the Xbox website or by telephoning 0800 028 9276 in the UK. Microsoft said customers would get replacement cords within two to four weeks from the time of order. It advised users to turn off their Xboxes when not in use. A follow-up to Xbox is expected to released at the end of this year or the beginning of 2006. 8 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_021.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Britons fed up with net service 2 | 3 | A survey conducted by PC Pro Magazine has revealed that many Britons are unhappy with their internet service. 4 | 5 | They are fed up with slow speeds, high prices and the level of customer service they receive. 17% of readers have switched suppliers and a further 16% are considering changing in the near future. It is particularly bad news for BT, the UK's biggest internet supplier, with almost three times as many people trying to leave as joining. 6 | 7 | A third of the 2,000 broadband users interviewed were fed up with their current providers but this could be just the tip of the iceberg thinks Tim Danton, editor of PC Pro Magazine. "We expect these figures to leap in 2005. Every month the prices drop, and more and more people are trying to switch," he said. The survey found that BT and Tiscali have been actively dissuading customers from leaving by offering them a lower price when they phone up to cancel their subscription. Some readers were offered a price drop just 25p more expensive than that offered by an alternative operator, making it hardly worth while swapping. 8 | 9 | Other found themselves tied into 12-month contracts. Broadband has become hugely competitive and providers are desperate to hold on to customers. 12% of those surveyed found themselves unable to swap at all. "We discovered a huge variety of problems, but one of the biggest issues is the current supplier withholding the information that people need to give to their new supplier," said Tim Danton, editor of PC Pro. "This breaks the code of practice, but because that code is voluntary there's nothing we or Ofcom can do to help," he said. There is a vast choice of internet service providers in the UK now and an often bewildering array of broadband packages. With prices set to drop even further in coming months Mr Danton advises everyone to shop around carefully. "If you just stick with your current connection then there's every chance you're being ripped off," he warned. 10 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_022.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Sun offers processing by the hour 2 | 3 | Sun Microsystems has launched a pay-as-you-go service which will allow customers requiring huge computing power to rent it by the hour. 4 | 5 | Sun Grid costs users $1 (53p) for an hour's worth of processing and storage power on systems maintained by Sun. So-called grid computing is the latest buzz phrase in a company which believes that computing capacity is as important a commodity as hardware and software. Sun likened grid computing to the development of electricity. 6 | 7 | The system could mature in the same way utilities such as electricity and water have developed, said Sun's chief operating officer Jonathan Schwartz. "Why build your own grid when you can use ours for a buck an hour?" he asked in a webcast launching Sun's quarterly Network Computing event in California. The company will have to persuade data centre managers to adopt a new model but it said it already had interest from customers in the oil, gas and financial services industries. 8 | 9 | Some of them want to book computing capacity of more than 5,000 processors each, Sun said. Mr Schwartz ran a demonstration of the service, showing how data could be processed in a protein folding experiment. Hundreds of servers were used simultaneously, working on the problem for a few seconds each. 10 | 11 | Although it only took a few seconds, the experiment cost $12 (£6.30) because it had used up 12 hour's worth of computing power. The Sun Grid relies on Solaris, the operating system owned by Sun. Initially it will house the grid in existing premises and will use idle servers to test software before shipping it to customers. It has not said how much the system will cost to develop but it already has a rival in IBM, which argues that its capacity on-demand service is cheaper than that offered by Sun. 12 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_024.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Game firm holds 'cast' auditions 2 | 3 | Video game firm Bioware is to hold open auditions for people to become cast members for future games. 4 | 5 | The company, which makes role playing games such as Knights of the Old Republic and Neverwinter Nights, is seeking people aged 18 to 99. The Canada-based company says it was looking for "a wide variety of people to use as face models for characters". Everyone chosen to appear in a video game will receive a performer's fee for the use of their image. The company is inviting people to come along to a shopping mall in West Edmonton, Alberta, on Friday and Saturday, bringing along a piece of photo identification. 6 | 7 | "There are hundreds and hundreds of characters in a typical Bioware game," said Shauna Perry, Bioware's audio and external resources producer. "Those people live in any city and village and so we need ordinary people, people with interesting faces." She added: "Not everyone is a model in the world so we don't want just models in our games." People chosen to appear in a game will have their head scanned in three dimensions. Hundreds of photos of the person's head are taken so that a model of the head can be generated in 3D. "The 3D model will look exactly like the person - it's really quite incredible how detailed they are," said Ms Perry. She said chosen participants will have no control over how the image is used in a computer game. "We cannot give people any control over how the images are used. "But their face could be used in multiple games - so they could be the hero in one, the villain in another and just a merchant in a third." 8 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_025.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Sony PSP console hits US in March 2 | 3 | US gamers will be able to buy Sony's PlayStation Portable from 24 March, but there is no news of a Europe debut. 4 | 5 | The handheld console will go on sale for $250 (£132) and the first million sold will come with Spider-Man 2 on UMD, the disc format for the machine. Sony has billed the machine as the Walkman of the 21st Century and has sold more than 800,000 units in Japan. The console (12cm by 7.4cm) will play games, movies and music and also offers support for wireless gaming. Sony is entering a market which has been dominated by Nintendo for many years. 6 | 7 | It launched its DS handheld in Japan and the US last year and has sold 2.8 million units. Sony has said it wanted to launch the PSP in Europe at roughly the same time as the US, but gamers will now fear that the launch has been put back. Nintendo has said it will release the DS in Europe from 11 March. "It has gaming at its core, but it's not a gaming device. It's an entertainment device," said Kaz Hirai, president of Sony Computer Entertainment America. 8 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_030.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Reboot ordered for EU patent law 2 | 3 | A European Parliament committee has ordered a rewrite of the proposals for controversial new European Union rules which govern computer-based inventions. 4 | 5 | The Legal Affairs Committee (JURI) said the Commission should re-submit the Computer Implemented Inventions Directive after MEPs failed to back it. It has had vocal critics who say it could favour large over small firms and impact open-source software innovation. Supporters say it would let firms protect their inventions. The directive is intended to offer patent protection to inventions that use software to achieve their effect, in other words, "computer implemented invention". The draft law suffered setbacks when Poland, one of the largest EU member states, rejected its adoption twice in two months. Intense lobbying on the issue has started to gain momentum in some national parliaments putting them under immense pressure. Only two MEPs backed the draft law at the JURI meeting, with one voting to abstain. 6 | 7 | Opponents of the draft directive welcomed the decision and said a new first reading of the proposals would give the EU a chance to have fuller debates about its implications in all member states. In the US, the patenting of computer programs and internet business methods is permitted. This means that the US-based Amazon.com holds a patent for its "one-click shopping" service, for example. Critics are concerned that the directive could lead to a similar model happening in Europe. This, they fear, could hurt small software developers because they do not have the legal and financial might of larger companies if they had to fight patent legal action in court. Supporters say current laws are inefficient and it would serve to even up a playing field without bringing EU laws in line with the US. 8 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_033.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Global digital divide 'narrowing' 2 | 3 | The "digital divide" between rich and poor nations is narrowing fast, according to a World Bank report. 4 | 5 | The World Bank questioned a United Nation's campaign to increase usage and access to technology in poorer nations. "People in the developing world are getting more access at an incredible rate - far faster than... in the past," said the report. But a spokesman for the UN's World Summit on the Information Society said the digital divide remained very real. "The digital divide is rapidly closing," the World Bank report said. 6 | 7 | Half the world's population now has access to a fixed-line telephone, the report said, and 77% to a mobile network. 8 | 9 | The report's figures surpass a WSIS campaign goal that calls for 50% access to telephones by 2015. The UN hopes that widening access to technology such as mobile phones and the net will help eradicate poverty. "Developing countries are catching up with the rich world in terms of access [to mobile networks]," the report said. "Africa is part of a worldwide trend of rapid rollout... this applies to countries rich and poor, reformed or not, African, Asian, European and Latin American." 10 | 11 | A spokesman for the World Summit for the Information Society (WSIS), which is meeting this week in Geneva, told the BBC News website: "The digital divide is very much real and needs to be addressed. "Some financing has to be found to help narrow the divide." On Tuesday, a meeting of the WSIS in Geneva agreed to the creation of a Digital Solitary Fund. "The fund is voluntary and will help finance local community-based projects," said the WSIS spokesman. Under the proposals agreed, voluntary contribution of 1% on contracts obtained by private technology service providers could be made to the Digital Solidarity Fund. The exact financing mechanism of the fund is to be ironed out in the coming days, said the WSIS. Sixty percent of resources collected by the fund will be made available for projects in least developed countries, 30% for projects in developing countries, and 10% for projects in developed countries. 12 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_036.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Microsoft seeking spyware trojan 2 | 3 | Microsoft is investigating a trojan program that attempts to switch off the firm's anti-spyware software. 4 | 5 | The spyware tool was only released by Microsoft in the last few weeks and has been downloaded by six million people. Stephen Toulouse, a security manager at Microsoft, said the malicious program was called Bankash-A Trojan and was being sent as an e-mail attachment. Microsoft said it did not believe the program was widespread and recommended users to use an anti-virus program. The program attempts to disable or delete Microsoft's anti-spyware tool and suppress warning messages given to users. 6 | 7 | It may also try to steal online banking passwords or other personal information by tracking users' keystrokes. 8 | 9 | Microsoft said in a statement it is investigating what it called a criminal attack on its software. Earlier this week, Microsoft said it would buy anti-virus software maker Sybari Software to improve its security in its Windows and e-mail software. Microsoft has said it plans to offer its own paid-for anti-virus software but it has not yet set a date for its release. The anti-spyware program being targeted is currently only in beta form and aims to help users find and remove spyware - programs which monitor internet use, causes advert pop-ups and slow a PC's performance. 10 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_037.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | US woman sues over cartridges 2 | 3 | A US woman is suing Hewlett Packard (HP), saying its printer ink cartridges are secretly programmed to expire on a certain date. 4 | 5 | The unnamed woman from Georgia says that a chip inside the cartridge tells the printer that it needs re-filling even when it does not. The lawsuit seeks to represent anyone in the US who has purchased an HP inkjet printer since February 2001. HP, the world's biggest printer firm, declined to comment on the lawsuit. HP ink cartridges use a chip technology to sense when they are low on ink and advise the user to make a change. 6 | 7 | But the suit claims the chips also shut down the cartridges at a predetermined date regardless of whether they are empty. "The smart chip is dually engineered to prematurely register ink depletion and to render a cartridge unusable through the use of a built-in expiration date that is not revealed to the consumer," the suit said. The lawsuit is asking for restitution, damages and other compensation. The cost of printer cartridges has been a contentious issue in Europe for the last 18 months. The price of inkjet printers has come down to as little as £34 but it could cost up to £1,700 in running costs over an 18-month period due to cartridge, a study by Computeractive Magazine revealed last year. The inkjet printer market has been the subject of an investigation by the UK's Office of Fair Trading (OFT), which concluded in a 2002 report that retailers and manufacturers needed to make pricing more transparent for consumers. 8 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_038.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Movie body hits peer-to-peer nets 2 | 3 | The movie industry has struck out at file-sharing networks with another round of lawsuits in the US. 4 | 5 | The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) also said it had succeeded in getting a network called LokiTorrent closed down. It is the latest network which uses the peer-to-peer system called BitTorrent to be hit by the MPAA. The MPAA began its legal campaign against operators of similar networks across four continents in December. A Dallas court agreed that Hollywood lawyers would be allowed access to LokiTorrent's server records which could let them single out those who were sharing files illegally. In October 2004, the site had provided links to more than 30,000 files. The action came after the operators of LokiTorrent agreed a settlement with the MPAA. A stark message has appeared on the site from the MPAA warning "You can click, but you can't hide". In BitTorrent systems, server sites do not host the files being shared. They host links, called "trackers" that direct people to others that have it instead. 6 | 7 | As well as filing an unspecified number of file suits across the US, the MPAA said it had given operators that host eDonkey servers "take down" notices. Hollywood studios are aggressively clamping down on file-sharers who it says infringe copyright laws by copying films and TV programmes then share the files online. But it is now targeting the operators of BitTorrent networks themselves. It has filed 100 lawsuits against operators of BitTorrent server sites since December. The strategy of hitting those who run the servers which link to copyrighted material is intended to stunt file-sharers' ability to swap content using BitTorrent systems. The film industry says the black market for illegally copied videos and DVDs already costs them billions every year and it is worried that illegal file-sharing is adding to their losses. In December, the legal action claimed its most high-profile victim. The popular Suprnova.org website was forced to close, and others like Phoenix Torrent followed soon after. 8 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_039.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Security warning over 'FBI virus' 2 | 3 | The US Federal Bureau of Investigation is warning that a computer virus is being spread via e-mails that purport to be from the FBI. 4 | 5 | The e-mails show that they have come from an fbi.gov address and tell recipients that they have accessed illegal websites. The messages warn that their internet use has been monitored by the FBI's Internet Fraud Complaint Center. An attachment in the e-mail contains the virus, the FBI said. The message asks recipients to click on the attachment and answer some questions about their internet use. But rather than being a questionnaire, the attachment contains a virus that infects the recipient's computer, according to the agency. It is not clear what the virus does once it has infected a computer. Users are warned never to open attachment from unsolicited e-mails or from people they do not know. 6 | 7 | "Recipients of this or similar solicitations should know that the FBI does not engage in the practice of sending unsolicited e-mails to the public in this manner," the FBI said in a statement. The bureau is investigating the phoney e-mails. The agency earlier this month shut down fbi.gov accounts, used to communicate with the public, because of a security breach. A spokeswoman said the two incidents appear to be unrelated. 8 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_042.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Hotspot users gain free net calls 2 | 3 | People using wireless net hotspots will soon be able to make free phone calls as well as surf the net. 4 | 5 | Wireless provider Broadreach and net telephony firm Skype are rolling out a service at 350 hotspots around the UK this week. Users will need a Skype account - downloadable for free - and they will then be able to make net calls via wi-fi without paying for net access. Skype allows people to make free PC-based calls to other Skype users. 6 | 7 | Users of the system can also make calls to landlines and mobiles for a fee. The system is gaining in popularity and now has 28 million users around the world. Its paid service - dubbed Skype Out - has so far attracted 940,000 users. It plans to add more paid services with forthcoming launches of video conferencing, voice mail and Skype In, a service which would allow users to receive phone calls from landlines and mobiles. London-based software developer Connectotel has unveiled software that will expand the SMS functions of Skype, allowing users to send text messages to mobile phones from the service. Broadreach Networks has around two million users and hotspots in places such as Virgin Megastores, the Travelodge chain of hotels and all London's major rail terminals. The company is due to launch wi-fi on Virgin Trains later in the year. "Skype's success at spreading the world about internet telephony is well-known and we are delighted to be offering free access to Skype users in our hotspots," commented Broadreach chief executive Magnus McEwen-King. 8 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_044.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Apple attacked over sources row 2 | 3 | Civil liberties group the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has joined a legal fight between three US online journalists and Apple. 4 | 5 | Apple wants the reporters to reveal 20 sources used for stories which leaked information about forthcoming products, including the Mac Mini. The EFF, representing the reporters, has asked California's Superior court to stop Apple pursuing the sources. It argues that the journalists are protected by the American constitution. The EFF says the case threatens the basic freedoms of the press. 6 | 7 | Apple is particularly keen to find the source for information about an unreleased product code-named Asteroid and has asked the journalists' e-mail providers to hand over communications relevant to that. "Rather than confronting the issue of reporter's privilege head-on, Apple is going to the journalist's ISPs for his e-mails," said EFF lawyer Kurt Opsahl. "This undermines a fundamental First Amendment right that protects all reporters. "If the court lets Apple get away with this, and exposes the confidences gained by these reporters, potential confidential sources will be deterred from providing information to the media and the public will lose a vital outlet for independent news, analysis and commentary," he said. The case began in December 2004 when Apple asked a local Californian court to get the journalists to reveal their sources for articles published on websites AppleInsider.com and PowerPage.org. 8 | 9 | Apple also sent requested information from the Nfox.com, the internet service provider of PowerPage's publisher Jason O-Grady. As well as looking at how far corporations can go in preventing information from being published, the case will also examine whether online journalists have the same privileges and protections as those writing for newspapers and magazines. The EFF has gained some powerful allies in its legal battle with Apple, including Professor Tom Goldstein, former dean of the Journalism School at the University of California and Dan Gillmor, a well-known Silicon Valley journalist. Apple was not immediately available for comment. 10 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_045.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Sony PSP tipped as a 'must-have' 2 | 3 | Sony's Playstation Portable is the top gadget for 2005, according to a round-up of ultimate gizmos compiled by Stuff Magazine. 4 | 5 | It beats the iPod into second place in the Top Ten Essentials list which predicts what gadget-lovers are likely to covet this year. Owning all 10 gadgets will set the gadget lover back £7,455. That is £1,000 cheaper than last year's list due to falling manufacturing costs making gadgets more affordable. 6 | 7 | Portable gadgets dominate the list, including Sharp's 902 3G mobile phone, the Pentax Optio SV digital camera and Samsung's Yepp YH-999 video jukebox. 8 | 9 | "What this year's Essentials shows is that gadgets are now cheaper, sexier and more indispensable than ever. We've got to the point where we can't live our lives without certain technology," said Adam Vaughan, editor of Stuff Essentials. The proliferation of gadgets in our homes is inexorably altering the role of the high street in our lives thinks Mr Vaughan. "Take digital cameras, who would now pay to develop an entire film of photos? Or legitimate downloads, who would travel miles to a record shop when they could download the song in minutes for 70p?" he asks. Next year will see a new set of technologies capturing the imaginations of gadget lovers, Stuff predicts. The Xbox 2, high-definition TV and MP3 mobiles will be among the list of must-haves that will dominate 2006, it says. The spring launch of the PSP in the UK is eagerly awaited by gaming fans. 10 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_046.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | BBC leads interactive Bafta wins 2 | 3 | The BBC and the National Theatre have led the field at this year's Interactive Bafta awards. 4 | 5 | The National Theatre's Stagework website picked up the prize for best learning as well as top factual site. The BBC collected three awards, including best online entertainment for the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Adventure Game. Spooks Interactive took the best interactive TV prize. The annual awards recognise the best in digital media. BBC Sport Interactive fought off competition from CBBC Newsround and the Guardian to take home the best news and sport trophy for its coverage of England's exit from Euro 2004. It was recognised for its "groundbreaking" use of animation. Bafta's Grant Dean, chair of Bafta's Interactive Entertainment committee, said all the entrants had been of "outstanding quality" and that judging had been "enormously difficult". "Without a doubt, 2005 has been a landmark year for the Bafta Interactive Awards," he added. 6 | 7 | "Many of the top awards this year have gone to the companies we most commonly associate with traditional entertainment, showing how the gap between new media, film and television is closing." 8 | 9 | Awards were given out in 12 different categories, including interactive TV, film, music, design, as well as technical and social innovation, at a London ceremony. The top music award was given to SSEYO miniMIXA, a mobile music sequencer designed to let people write, edit and share compositions. Warner Bros was given two prizes for its "inspiring" efforts in film and DVD interactivity. The Chaplin Collection beat Oasis, Really Bend It Like Beckham, Shaun of the Dead and The Day Today in the DVD category, and Trauma won best film. Elsewhere, fashionista and clothes designer Alexander McQueen took the accolade for the best-designed website. The awards have been running since 1997, but in 2002 the British Academy of Film and Television decided to split them into separate games and interactive ceremonies. On Tuesday Half-Life 2 dominated the games prizes. It collected six Baftas, including best game and best online game. 10 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_047.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Millions buy MP3 players in US 2 | 3 | One in 10 adult Americans - equivalent to 22 million people - owns an MP3 player, according to a survey. 4 | 5 | A study by the Pew Internet and American Life Project found that MP3 players are the gadget of choice among affluent young Americans. The survey did not interview teenagers but it is likely that millions of under-18s also have MP3 players. The American love affair with digital music players has been made possible as more and more homes get broadband. 6 | 7 | Of the 22 million Americans who own MP3 players, 59% are men compared to 41% of women. Those on high income - judged to be $75,000 (£39,000) or above - are four times more likely to have players than those earning less than $30, 000 ( £15,000). Broadband access plays a big part in ownership too. Almost a quarter of those with broadband at home have players, compared to 9% of those who have dial-up access. MP3 players are still the gadget of choice for younger adults. Almost one in five US citizens aged under 30 have one. This compares to 14% of those aged 30-39 and 14% of those aged 40-48. The influence of children also plays a part. Sixteen percent of parents living with children under 18 have digital players compared to 9% of those who don't. The ease of use and growth of music available on the net are the main factors for the upsurge in ownership, the survey found. People are beginning to use them as instruments of social activity - sharing songs and taking part in podcasting - the survey found. "IPods and MP3 players are becoming a mainstream technology for consumers" said Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Internet and American Life Project. "More growth in the market is inevitable as new devices become available, as new players enter the market, and as new social uses for iPods/MP3 players become popular," he added. 8 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_054.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Moving mobile improves golf swing 2 | 3 | A mobile phone that recognises and responds to movements has been launched in Japan. 4 | 5 | The motion-sensitive phone - officially titled the V603SH - was developed by Sharp and launched by Vodafone's Japanese division. Devised mainly for mobile gaming, users can also access other phone functions using a pre-set pattern of arm movements. The phone will allow golf fans to improve their swing via a golfing game. 6 | 7 | Those who prefer shoot-'em-ups will be able to use the phone like a gun to shoot the zombies in the mobile version of Sega's House of the Dead. The phone comes with a tiny motion-control sensor, a computer chip that responds to movement. 8 | 9 | Other features include a display screen that allows users to watch TV and can rotate 180 degrees. It also doubles up as an electronic musical instrument. Users have to select a sound from a menu that includes clapping, tambourine and maracas and shake their phone to create a beat. It is being recommended for the karaoke market. The phone will initially be available in Japan only and is due to go on sale in mid-February. The new gadget could make for interesting people-watching among Japanese commuters, who are able to access their mobiles on the subway. Fishing afficiandos in South Korea are already using a phone that allows them to simulate the movement of a rod. The PH-S6500 phone, dubbed a sports-leisure gadget, was developed by Korean phone giant Pantech and can also be used by runners to measure calorie consumption and distance run. 10 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_055.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Junk e-mails on relentless rise 2 | 3 | Spam traffic is up by 40%, putting the total amount of e-mail that is junk up to an astonishing 90%. 4 | 5 | The figures, from e-mail management firm Email Systems, will alarm firms attempting to cope with the amount of spam in their in-boxes. While virus traffic has slowed down, denial of service attacks are on the increase according to the firm. Virus mail accounts for just over 15% of all e-mail traffic analysis by the firm has found. 6 | 7 | It is no longer just multi-nationals that are in danger of so-called denial of service attacks, in which websites are bombarded by requests for information and rendered inaccessible. Email Systems refers to a small UK-based engineering firm, which received a staggering 12 million e-mails in January. The type of spam currently being sent has subtlety altered in the last few months, according to Email Systems analysis. Half of spam received since Christmas has been health-related with gambling and porn also on the increase. Scam mails, offering ways to make a quick buck, have declined by 40%. "January is clearly a month when consumers are less motivated to purchase financial products or put money into dubious financial opportunities," said Neil Hammerton, managing director of Email Systems. "Spammers seem to have adapted their output to reflect this, focussing instead on medically motivated and pornographic offers, presumably intentionally intended to coincide with what is traditionally considered to be the bleakest month in the calendar," he said. 8 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_057.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Half-Life 2 sweeps Bafta awards 2 | 3 | PC first person shooter Half-Life 2 has won six Bafta Awards, including best game and best online game. 4 | 5 | The title, developed by Valve, was released last year to universal acclaim - receiving special praise for its immersive plot and physics engine. The game also won Baftas for best action adventure, best PC game, art direction and animation. Burnout 3 won three awards in the categories for racing, technical direction and best PlayStation 2 game. Grant Dean, chairman of the Bafta games awards, said at a ceremony in London on Tuesday: "The last year has been a great year for the interactive entertainment industry. 6 | 7 | "These awards reflect the enormous achievements, progress and diversity that we have seen in that time." Halo 2 won the best Xbox game category, while Prince of Persia: Warrior Within was adjudged the best GameCube title. The sports award went to Konami's Pro Evolution Soccer 4. Bafta said the "significant feature" of this year's awards was the number of "non-traditional games". The originality award was won by PlayStation 2 title Singstar while the children's award went to GameCube bongo rhythm game Donkey Konga. The Handheld Award went to Colin McRae Rally 2005 while the mobile category was won by Blue Tooth Byplanes. The audio award was won by Call of Duty: Finest Hour and Hitman: Contracts won the music award. 8 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_058.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | BT boosts its broadband packages 2 | 3 | British Telecom has said it will double the broadband speeds of most of its home and business customers. 4 | 5 | The increased speeds will come at no extra charge and follows a similar move by internet service provider AOL. Many BT customers will now have download speeds of 2Mbps, although there are usage allowances of between one gigabyte and 30 gigabytes a month. The new speeds start to come into effect on 17 February for home customers and 1 April for businesses. "Britain is now broadband Britain," said Duncan Ingram, BT's managing director, broadband and internet services. He added: "Ninety percent of our customers will see real increases in speed. 6 | 7 | "These speed increases will give people the opportunity to do a lot more with their broadband connections," he said. Upload speeds - the speed at which information is sent from a PC via broadband - will remain at the same speed, said Mr Ingram. Despite the increases, BT will continue to have usage allowances for home customers. "The allowances are extremely generous," said Mr Ingram "For what we are seeing in the market place - they are really not an issue." BT will begin enforcing the allowances in the summer. Customers who exceed the amounts will either be able to pay for a bigger allowance or see their download speeds reduced. BT now has a 36% share of the broadband market - down from 39% - which is becoming increasingly competitive. In the last few months, many rival ISPs have begun to offer 2Mbps services, including AOL, Plusnet and UK Online. 8 | 9 | But Britain continues to lag behind some countries - especially Japan and South Korea - which offer broadband speeds of up to 40Mbps. But Mr Ingram said it was important to "separate hype from reality". He said that a limited number of people with those connections consistently received speeds of 40Mbps. Customers will not see their connections double immediately on 17 February. Mr Ingram said there would be a roll out across the network in order to prevent any problems. 10 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_060.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Microsoft releases patches 2 | 3 | Microsoft has warned PC users to update their systems with the latest security fixes for flaws in Windows programs. 4 | 5 | In its monthly security bulletin, it flagged up eight "critical" security holes which could leave PCs open to attack if left unpatched. The number of holes considered "critical" is more than usual. They affect Windows programs, including Internet Explorer (IE), media player and instant messaging. Four other important fixes were also released. These were considered to be less critical, however. If not updated, either automatically or manually, PC users running the programs could be vulnerable to viruses or other malicious attacks designed to exploit the holes. Many of the flaws could be used by virus writers to take over computers remotely, install programs, change, and delete or see data. 6 | 7 | One of the critical patches Microsoft has made available is an important one that fixes some IE flaws. Stephen Toulouse, a Microsoft security manager, said the flaws were known about, and although the firm had not seen any attacks exploiting the flaw, he did not rule them out. Often, when a critical flaw is announced, spates of viruses follow because home users and businesses leave the flaw unpatched. A further patch fixes a hole in Media Player, Windows Messenger and MSN Messenger which an attacker could use to take control of unprotected machines through .png files. Microsoft announces any vulnerabilities in its software every month. The most important ones are those which are classed as "critical". Its latest releases came the week that the company announced it was to buy security software maker Sybari Software as part of Microsoft's plans to make its own security programs. 8 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_065.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Yahoo celebrates a decade online 2 | 3 | Yahoo, one of the net's most iconic companies, is celebrating its 10th anniversary this week. 4 | 5 | The web portal has undergone remarkable change since it was set up by Stanford University students David Filo and Jerry Yang in a campus trailer. The students wanted a way of keeping track of their web-based interests. The categories lists they devised soon became popular to hundreds of people and the two saw business potential in their idea. 6 | 7 | Originally dubbed "Jerry's Guide to the World Wide Web" the firm adopted the moniker Yahoo because the founders liked the dictionary definition of a yahoo as a rude, unsophisticated, uncouth person. The term was popularised by the 18th Century satirist Jonathan Swift in his classic novel, Gulliver's Travels. "We were certainly not sophisticated or civilised," Mr Yang told reporters ahead of the anniversary, which will be officially recognised on 2 March. 8 | 9 | They did have business brains however, and in April 1995 persuaded venture capitalists Sequoia Capital, which also invested in Apple Computer and Cisco Systems, to fund Yahoo to the tune of $2m (£1.04m). A second round of funding followed in the autumn and the company floated in April 1996 with less than 50 employees. Now the firm employs 7,600 workers and insists its dot com culture of "work hard, play hard" still remains. It is one of just a handful of survivors of the dot-com crash although it now faces intense rivalry from firms such as Google, MSN and AOL. Jerry Yang, who remains the firm's "Chief Yahoo", is proud of what the company has achieved. "In just one decade, the internet has changed the way consumers do just about everything - and it's been a remarkable and wonderful experience," he said. Through it all, we wanted to build products that satisfied our users wants and needs, but it's even more than that - it's to help every one of us to discover, get more done, share and interact." 10 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_070.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Telewest to challenge Sky Plus 2 | 3 | Cable firm Telewest is to offer a personal video recorder (PVR) in a set -top box to challenge Sky Plus. 4 | 5 | Sky Plus is the market leader in the field of digital video recorders in the UK, with 474,000 subscribers. PVRs record TV programmes to a hard drive, letting viewers pause, and rewind live television and effectively "time shift" the viewing experience. A number of PVRs incorporating Freeview digital terrestrial TV are also on the market but their success is limited. Telewest's PVR will offer a 160GB hard drive, which has storage for up to 80 hours of programmes. The box has three tuners, which means viewers can record two channels simultaneously while watching a third channel. 6 | 7 | Sky Plus boxes come in two versions - a 20GB version for £99 and a 160GB version for £399. Sky also charges a £10 subscription fee to the service, unless viewers have a subscription to one of its premium packages. Telewest has yet to reveal pricing for the new box or if it will be charging a subscription fee for the service. 8 | 9 | Eric Tveter, president and chief operating officer at Telewest Broadband, said: "We will make our PVR set-top box available later this year, putting a stop to missed soaps, interrupted films and arguments over which programmes to record." PVRs and recordable DVD players are set to replace video recorders as the standard method of recording and saving favourite TV programmes. Last year, high street retailer Dixons said it was going to stop selling VHS machines in favour of PVRs and recordable DVD machines. Sky has said it aims to have 25% of its subscribers using Sky Plus by 2010 - it is predicting 10 million total subscribers by that date. It currently has 7.4 million subscribers, while Telewest provides digital cable to 1.7 million customers. 10 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_075.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | US peer-to-peer pirates convicted 2 | 3 | The first convictions for piracy over peer-to-peer networks have been handed down in the US. 4 | 5 | New Yorker William Trowbridge and Texan Michael Chicoine have pleaded guilty to charges that they infringed copyright by illegally sharing music, movies and software. The two men faced charges following raids in August on suspected pirates by the FBI. The pair face jail terms of up to five years and a $250,000 (£130,000) fine. 6 | 7 | In a statement the US Department of Justice said the two men operated the central hubs in a piracy community organised across the Direct Connect peer-to-peer network. The piracy group called itself the Underground Network and membership of it demanded that users share between one and 100 gigabytes of files. Direct Connect allows users to set themselves up as central servers that act as co-ordinating spots for sharers. Users would swap files, such as films and music, by exchanging data over the network. During its investigation FBI agents reportedly downloaded 84 movies, 40 software programs, 13 games and 178 "sound recordings" from the five hubs that made up the larger piracy group. The raids were organised under the umbrella of Operation Digital Gridlock which was aimed at fighting "criminal copyright theft on peer-to-peer networks". In total, six raids were carried out in August. Five were on the homes of suspected copyright thieves and one on a net service firm. The Department of Justice said that both men pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit felony copyright infringement. They also pleaded guilty to acting for commercial advantage. The two men are due to be sentenced on 29 April. 8 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_076.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Google launches TV search service 2 | 3 | The net search giant Google has launched a search service that lets people look for TV programmes. 4 | 5 | The service, Google Video beta, searches closed caption information that comes with programmes. It only searches US channel content currently. Results list programmes with still images and text from the point where the search phrase was spoken. It should expand over time to include content from more channels, said a Google spokesperson. The first version of the service is part of Google's expanding efforts to be a ubiquitous search engine for people to find what they want on the web and beyond. "We think TV is a big part of people's lives," said Jonathan Rosenberg, Google's vice president of product management. "Ultimately, we would like to have all TV programming indexed." 6 | 7 | Google Video has been indexing US-based programmes from PBS, the NBA, Fox News, and C-SPAN since December. But there were few clues from Google about when more global broadcasters would be included. "Over time, we plan to increase the number of television channels and video content available via Google Video but don't have more product details to share with you today," a Google spokesperson told the BBC News website. 8 | 9 | The results thrown up by the search will also include programme and episode information like channel, date and time. It also lets people find the next time and channel where a programme will aired locally using a US zip code search function. Rival search engine Yahoo has been developing a similar type of video search for webcasts and TV clips which it promotes from its homepage. It offers direct links to websites with movies or other clips relevant to the search query, but does not pinpoint when the search query occurred. A spokeswoman told the Financial Times on Monday that Yahoo was adding captioning for Bloomberg, BBC and BSkyB broadcasts. A smaller service, blinkx.tv, was launched last month. It searches for and links to TV news, film trailers, and other video and audio clips. 10 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_078.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Blog reading explodes in America 2 | 3 | Americans are becoming avid blog readers, with 32 million getting hooked in 2004, according to new research. 4 | 5 | The survey, conducted by the Pew Internet and American Life Project, showed that blog readership has shot up by 58% in the last year. Some of this growth is attributable to political blogs written and read during the US presidential campaign. Despite the explosive growth, more than 60% of online Americans have still never heard of blogs, the survey found. Blogs, or web logs, are online spaces in which people can publish their thoughts, opinions or spread news events in their own words. Companies such as Google and Microsoft provide users with the tools to publish their own blogs. 6 | 7 | The rise of blogs has spawned a new desire for immediate news and information, with six million Americans now using RSS aggregators. RSS aggregators are downloaded to PCs and are programmed to subscribe to feeds from blogs, news sites and other websites. The aggregators automatically compile the latest information published online from the blogs or news sites. Reading blogs remains far more popular than writing them, the survey found. Only 7% of the 120 million US adults who use the internet had created a blog or web-based diary. Getting involved is becoming more popular though, with 12% saying they had posted material or comments on other people's blogs. 8 | 9 | Just under one in 10 of the US's internet users read political blogs such as the Daily Kos or Instapundit during the US presidential campaign. Kerry voters were slightly more likely to read them than Bush voters. Blog creators were likely to be young, well-educated, net-savvy males with good incomes and college educations, the survey found. This was also true of the average blog reader, although the survey found there was a greater than average growth in blog readership among women and those in minorities. The survey was conducted during November and involved telephone surveys of 1,324 internet users. 10 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_080.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | New delay hits EU software laws 2 | 3 | A fresh delay has hit controversial new European Union rules which govern computer-based inventions. 4 | 5 | The draft law was not adopted by EU ministers as planned at a Brussels meeting on Monday during which it was supposed to have been discussed. The fresh delay came after Polish officials had raised concerns about the law for the second time in two months. Critics say the law would favour large companies over small ones and could impact open-source software innovation. "There was at one point the intention to put the item on today's agenda. But in the end we could not put it on," an EU spokesman told the Reuters agency. He added that no date had been chosen for more discussion of the law. 6 | 7 | In December, Poland requested more time to consider the issue because it was concerned that the law could lead to the patenting of pure computer software. Its ministers want to see the phrasing of the text of the Directive on the Patentability of Computer-Implemented Inventions changed so that it excludes software patenting. Poland is a large EU member, so its backing for the legislation is vital. The EU says the law would bring Europe more in line with how such laws work in the US, but this has caused some angry debate amongst critics and supporters. In the US, the patenting of computer programs and internet business methods is permitted. This means that the US-based Amazon.com holds a patent for its "one-click shopping" service. Critics say a similar model in Europe would hurt small software developers which do not have the legal and financial might of larger companies. But supporters say current law does not let big companies protect inventions which they have spent years developing. 8 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_096.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | California sets fines for spyware 2 | 3 | The makers of computer programs that secretly spy on what people do with their home PCs could face hefty fines in California. 4 | 5 | From 1 January, a new law is being introduced to protect computer users from software known as spyware. The legislation, which was approved by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, is designed to safeguard people from hackers and help protect their personal information. Spyware is considered by computer experts to be one of the biggest nuisance and security threats facing PC users in the coming year. The software buries itself in computers and can collect a wide range of information. At its worst, it has the ability to hijack personal data, like passwords, login details and credit card numbers. The programs are so sophisticated they change frequently and become impossible to eradicate. 6 | 7 | One form of spyware called adware has the ability to collect information on a computer user's web-surfing. It can result in people being bombarded with pop-up ads that are hard to close. In Washington, Congress has been debating four anti-spyware bills, but California is a step ahead. The state's Consumer Protection Against Spyware Act bans the installation of software that takes control of another computer. It also requires companies and websites to disclose whether their systems will install spyware. Consumers are able to seek up to $1,000 in damages if they think they have fallen victim to the intrusive software. The new law marks a continuing trend in California towards tougher privacy rights. A recent survey by Earthlink and Webroot found that 90% of PCs are infested with the surreptitious software and that, on average, each one is harbouring 28 separate spyware programs. Currently users wanting protection from spyware have turned to free programs such as Spybot and Ad-Aware. 8 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_100.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Honour for UK games maker 2 | 3 | Leading British computer games maker Peter Molyneux has been made an OBE in the New Year Honours list. 4 | 5 | The head of Surrey's Lionhead Studios was granted the honour for services to the computer games industry. Mr Molyneux has been behind many of the ground-breaking games of the last 15 years such as Populous, Theme Park, Dungeon Keeper and Black and White. He is widely credited with helping to create and popularise the so-called god-game genre. 6 | 7 | Speaking to the BBC News website Mr Molyneux said receiving the honour was something of a surprise. It's come completely out of the blue," he said, "I never would have guessed that I'd have that kind of honour." He said he was surprised as much because, not too long ago, many people thought computer gaming was a fad. 8 | 9 | "It was thought to be like skateboarding," he said, "a craze that everyone thought would go away." Now, he said, the gaming world rivals the movie industry for sales and cultural influence. "Britain plays a big part in it," he said. "It's one of the founding nations that made the industry what it is." Mr Molyneux has been a pivotal figure in the computer games industry for almost 20 years. His career started at Bullfrog Studios which in 1987 produced Populous one of the first God-games. The title gave players control over the lives a small population of computerised people. Mr Molyneux said that his involvement with the games industry started almost by accident as back in the early days game making was more a hobby than a career. "I thought everyone would treat Populous as weird," he said, "but it became a huge international success." He left Bullfrog in 1997 to set up Lionhead Studios which was behind the ambitous and widely acclaimed game Black & White. One of the next titles to come from Lionhead puts players in charge of a movie studio and tasks them with producing and directing a hit film. The veteran game maker says he has one problem still to solve. "Being an absolute geek I've got no idea what I'm going to wear when I go and pick it up," he said. 10 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_101.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Bush website blocked outside US 2 | 3 | Surfers outside the US have been unable to visit the official re-election site of President George W Bush. 4 | 5 | The blocking of browsers sited outside the US began in the early hours of Monday morning. Since then people outside the US trying to browse the site get a message saying they are not authorised to view it. The blocking does not appear to be due to an attack by vandals or malicious hackers, but as a result of a policy decision by the Bush camp. 6 | 7 | The international exclusion zone around georgewbush.com was spotted by net monitoring firm Netcraft which keeps an eye on traffic patterns across many different sites. Netcraft said that since the early hours of 25 October attempts to view the site through its monitoring stations in London, Amsterdam and Sydney failed. 8 | 9 | By contrast Netcraft's four monitoring stations in the US managed to view the site with no problems. The site can still be seen using anonymous proxy services that are based in the US. Some web users in Canada also report that they can browse the site. The pattern of traffic to the website suggests that the blocking was not due to an attack by vandals or politically motivated hackers. Geographic blocking works because the numerical addresses that the net uses to organise itself are handed out on a regional basis. On 21 October, the George W Bush website began using the services of a company called Akamai to ensure that the pages, videos and other content on its site reaches visitors. Mike Prettejohn, president of Netcraft, speculated that the blocking decision might have been taken to cut costs, and traffic, in the run-up to the election on 2 November. He said the site may see no reason to distribute content to people who will not be voting next week. Managing traffic could also be a good way to ensure that the site stays working in the closing days of the election campaign. However, simply blocking non-US visitors also means that Americans overseas are barred too. Akamai declined to comment, saying it could not talk about customer websites. 10 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_107.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Pandas benefit from wireless net 2 | 3 | The world's dwindling panda population is getting a helping hand from a wireless internet network. 4 | 5 | The Wolong Nature Reserve in the Sichuan Province of southwest China is home to 20% of the remaining 1,500 giant pandas in the world. A broadband and wireless network installed on the reserve has allowed staff to chronicle the pandas' daily activities. The data and images can be shared with colleagues around the world. The reserve conducts vital research on both panda breeding and bamboo ecology. 6 | 7 | Using the network, vets have been able to observe how infant pandas feed and suggest changes to improve the tiny cubs' chances of survival. 8 | 9 | "Digital technology has transformed the way we communicate and share information inside Wolong and with the rest of the world," said Zhang Hemin, director of the Wolong Nature Reserve. "Our researchers now have state-of-the-art digital technology to help foster the panda population and manage our precious surroundings." The network has been developed by Intel, working closely with the staff at Wolong. It includes a 802.11b wireless network and a video monitoring system using five cameras to observe pandas around the clock. 10 | 11 | Before the new infrastructure arrived at the panda park, staff walked or drove to deliver floppy disks across the reserve. Infant panda health was recorded on paper notebooks and research teams in the field had little access to the data. To foster cultural links across the globe, a children's learning lab has been incorporated in the network, in collaboration with Globio (Federation for Global Biodiversity Education for Children), an international non-profit organisation. It will enable children at local primary schools to hook up with their peers in Portland, Oregon in the US. "Digital technology brings this story to life by enabling a global dialogue to help bridge cultures around the world," said Globio founder Gerry Ellis. 12 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_111.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Sony wares win innovation award 2 | 3 | Sony has taken the prize for top innovator at the annual awards of PC Pro Magazine. 4 | 5 | It won the award for taking risks with products and for its "brave" commitment to good design. Conferring the award, PC Pro's staff picked out Sony's PCG-X505/P Vaio laptop as a "stunning piece of engineering". The electronics giant beat off strong competition from Toshiba and chip makers AMD and Intel to take the gong. 6 | 7 | Paul Trotter, news and features editor of PC Pro, said several Sony products helped it to take the innovation award. 8 | 9 | He said Sony's Clie PEG UX50 media player with its swivel screen and qwerty keyboard "broke the design rules yet again". Other Sony products that helped included the Vaio W1 desktop computer and the RA-104 media server. Mr Trotter said Sony's combining of computer, screen and keyboard in the W1 was likely to be widely copied in future home PCs. The company has also become one of the first to use organic LEDs in its products. "While not always inventing new technology itself, Sony was never afraid to innovate around various formats," said Mr Trotter. 10 | 11 | Other awards decided by PC Pro's staff and contributors included one for Canon's EOS 300D digital camera in the Most Wanted Hardware category. 12 | 13 | Microsoft's Media Player 10 took the award for Most Wanted Software. This year was the 10th anniversary of the PC Pro awards, which splits its prizes into two sections. The first are chosen by the magazine's writers and consultants, the second are voted for by readers. Mr Trotter said more than 13,000 people voted for the Reliability and Service Awards, twice as many as in 2003. Net-based memory and video card shop Crucial shared the award for Online Vendor of the year with Novatech. 14 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_112.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Portable PlayStation ready to go 2 | 3 | Sony's PlayStation Portable (PSP) will go on sale in Japan on 12 December. 4 | 5 | The long-awaited handheld game playing gadget will cost about 19,800 yen (145 euros) when it hits the shelves. At launch 21 games will be available for the PSP, including Need for Speed, Ridge Racer, Metal Gear Acid and Vampire Chronicle. Sony has not yet announced when the PSP will be available in Europe and the US, but analysts expect it to debut in those territories in early 2005. 6 | 7 | Fifa 2005 is back at the top of the UK games charts, a week after losing it to rival Pro Evolution Soccer 4. Konami's Pro Evo dropped only one place to two, while the only new entry in the top 10 was another football title, LMA Manager 2005, in at number seven. Tony Hawk's Underground 2 held its own at three, while Star Wars Battlefront inched up to four places to four. There was good news for Disney, with the spin-off from the Shark's Tale film moving up the charts into number eight. 8 | 9 | Fans of the Gran Turismo series in Europe are going to have to wait until next year for the latest version. Sony has said that the PAL version of GT4 will not be ready for Christmas. "The product is localised into 13 different languages across the PAL territories, therefore the process takes considerably longer than it does in Japan," it said. Gran Turismo 4 for the PlayStation 2 is still expected to be released in Japan and the USA this year. 10 | 11 | Halo 2 has broken video game records, with pre-orders of more than 1.5 million in the US alone. Some 6,500 US stores plan to open just after midnight on Tuesday 9 November for the game's release. "Halo 2 is projected to bring in more revenue than any day one box office blockbuster movie in the United States," said Xbox's Peter Moore. "We've even heard rumours of fan anticipation of the 'Halo 2 flu' on 9 November." 12 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_116.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Fast moving phone bugs appear 2 | 3 | Security firms are warning about several mobile phone viruses that can spread much faster than similar bugs. 4 | 5 | The new strains of the Cabir mobile phone virus use short-range radio technology to leap to any vulnerable phone as soon as it is in range. The Cabir virus only affects high-end handsets running the Symbian Series 60 phone operating system. Despite the warnings, there are so far no reports of any phones being infected by the new variants of Cabir. 6 | 7 | The original Cabir worm came to light in mid-June 2004 when it was sent to anti-virus firms as a proof-of-concept program. A mistake in the way the original Cabir was written meant that even if it escaped from the laboratory, the bug would only have been able to infect one phone at a time. 8 | 9 | However, the new Cabir strains have this mistake corrected and will spread via short range Bluetooth technology to any vulnerable phone in range. Bluetooth has an effective range of a few tens of metres. The risk of being infected by Cabir is low because users must give the malicious program permission to download on to their handset and then must manually install it. Users can protect themselves by altering a setting on Symbian phones that conceals the handset from other Bluetooth using devices. Finnish security firm F-Secure issued a warning about the new strains of Cabir but said that the viruses do not do any damage to a phone. All they do is block normal Bluetooth activity and drain the phone's battery. Anti-virus firm Sophos said the source code for Cabir had been posted on the net by a Brazilian programmer which might lead to even more variants of the program being created. So far seven versions of Cabir are know to exist, one of which was inside the malicious Skulls program that was found in late November. Symbian's Series 60 software is licenced by Nokia, LG Electronics, Lenovo, Panasonic, Samsung, Sendo and Siemens. 10 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_117.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Joke e-mail virus tricks users 2 | 3 | A virus that disguises itself as a joke is spreading rapidly across the net. 4 | 5 | Anti-virus firms are issuing high-level warnings about the new version of the Bagle e-mail program that seems to be catching a lot of people out. The Windows virus grabs e-mail addresses from Microsoft Outlook and uses its own mail sending software to spread itself to new victims. When it infects a machine, the Bagle variant turns off security measures that usually protect PCs. 6 | 7 | The new variant is called Bagle.AT, Bagle.BB and Bagle.AU and the attachment bearing the virus code is labelled as either "joke" or "price". 8 | 9 | The body of the virus usually contains nothing but a smiley or emoticon. The virus can strike computers running Windows 95, 98, ME, NT, 2000 and XP. Users will be infected if they open the attachment that travels with the e-mail. As well as plundering Microsoft Outlook for e-mail addresses to send itself to, Bagle.AT also tries to turn off the firewall and security centre services on Windows XP machines. BBC News Online has received five warnings about the virus from security companies. Finnish company F-Secure gave the virus its second highest threat level. "We've had several reports all over the world," said Mikko Hypponen, director of anti-virus research for F-Secure. Security firm Network Box said that it stopped more than 30,000 copies an hour of the virus as the outbreak reached a peak. Black Spider said it had stopped more than 1 million copies of Bagle.AT since the outbreak began at 0630 BST (0530 GMT). Anti-virus firms urged users to be wary of unexpected e-mail messages bearing attachments and to update their software to ensure they are protected against the latest threats. 10 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_118.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Progress on new internet domains 2 | 3 | By early 2005 the net could have two new domain names. 4 | 5 | The .post and .travel net domains have been given preliminary approval by the net's administrative body. The names are just two of a total of 10 proposed domains that are being considered by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, Icann. The other proposed names include a domain for pornography, Asia, mobile phones, an anti-spam domain and one for the Catalan language and culture. 6 | 7 | The .post domain is backed by the Universal Postal Union that wants to use it as the online marker for every type of postal service and to help co-ordinate the e-commerce efforts of national post offices. 8 | 9 | The .travel domain would be used by hotels, travel firms, airlines, tourism offices and would help such organisations distinguish themselves online. It is backed by a New York-based trade group called The Travel Partnership. Icann said its early decision on the two domains was in response to the detailed technical and commercial information the organisations behind the names had submitted. Despite this initial approval, Icann cautioned that there was no guarantee that the domains would actually go into service. At the same time Icann is considering proposals for another eight domains. One that may not win approval is a proposal to set up a .xxx domain for pornographic websites. A similar proposal has been made many times in the past. But Icann has been reluctant to approve it because of the difficulty of making pornographers sign up and use it. In 2000 Icann approved seven other new domains that have had varying degrees of success. Three of the new so-called top level domains were for specific industries or organisations such as .museum and .aero. Others such as .info and .biz were intended to be more generic. In total there are in excess of 200 domain names and the majority of these are for nations. But domains that end in the .com suffix are by far the most numerous. 10 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_126.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | 'Ultimate game' award for Doom 3 2 | 3 | Sci-fi shooter Doom 3 has blasted away the competition at a major games ceremony, the Golden Joystick awards. 4 | 5 | It was the only title to win twice, winning Ultimate Game of the year and best PC game at the awards, presented by Little Britain star Matt Lucas. The much-anticipated sci-fi horror Doom 3 shot straight to the top of the UK games charts on its release in August. Other winners included Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas which took the Most Wanted for Christmas prize. Only released last week, it was closely followed by Halo 2 and Half-Life 2, which are expected to be big hits when they are unleashed later this month. 6 | 7 | But they missed out on the prize for the Most Wanted game of 2005, which went to the Nintendo title, The Legend of Zelda. The original Doom, released in 1994, heralded a new era in computer games and introduced 3D graphics. It helped to establish the concept of the first-person shooter. Doom 3 was developed over four years and is thought to have cost around $15m (£8.3m). The top honour for the best online game of the year went to Battlefield Vietnam. The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay was handed the Unsung Hero Game of 2004. Its release was somewhat eclipsed by Doom 3, which was released on the same week. It was, however, very well received by gamers and was praised for its storyline which differed from the film released around the same time. Electronic Arts was named top publisher of the year, taking the crown from Nintendo which won in 2003. The annual awards are voted for by more than 200,000 readers of computer and video games magazines. Games awards like this have grown in importance. Over the last six years, the UK market for games grew by 100% and was worth a record £1,152m in 2003, according to a recent report by analysts Screen Digest. 8 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_127.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Gadget show heralds MP3 season 2 | 3 | Partners of those who love their hi-tech gear may want to get their presents in early as experts predict a gadget shortage this Christmas. 4 | 5 | With Apple's iPod topping wish lists again, there may not be enough iPod minis to go round, predicts Oliver Irish, editor of gadget magazine Stuff. "The iPod mini is likely to be this year's Tracey Island," said Mr Irish. Stuff has compiled a list of the top 10 gadgets for 2004 and the iPod is at number one. 6 | 7 | For anyone bewildered by the choice of gadgets on the market, Stuff and What Hi-Fi? are hosting a best-of gadget show in London this weekend. Star of the show will be Sony's Qrio Robot, an all-singing, all-dancing, football-playing man-machine who can even hold intelligent conversations. 8 | 9 | But he is not for sale and Sony has no commercial plans for the robot. "He will greet visitors and is flying in from Japan. He probably has his own airplane seat, that is how highly Sony prize him," said Mr Irish. Also on display will be a virtual keyboard which projects itself onto any flat surface. The event will play host to a large collection of digital music players, from companies such as Creative, Sony and Philips as well as the ubiquitously fashionable iPod from Apple. Suggestions that it could be a gaming or wireless Christmas are unlikely to come true as MP3 players remain the most popular stocking filler, said Mr Irish. "Demand is huge and Apple has promised that it can supply enough but people might struggle to get their hands on iPod minis," said Mr Irish. 10 | 11 | For those who like their gadgets to be multi-talented, the Gizmondo, a powerful gaming console with GPS and GPRS, that also doubles up as an MP3 player, movie player and camera, could be a must-have. "What is impressive is how much it can do and how well it can do them," said Mr Irish. This Christmas, gadgets will not be an all-male preserve. "Women will be getting gadgets from husbands and boyfriends as well as buying them for themselves," said Mr Irish. "Gadgets nowadays are lifestyle products rather than just for geeks." 12 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_128.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Commodore finds new lease of life 2 | 3 | The once-famous Commodore computer brand could be resurrected after being bought by a US-based digital music distributor. 4 | 5 | New owner Yeahronimo Media Ventures has not ruled out the possibility of a new breed of Commodore computers. It also plans to develop a "worldwide entertainment concept" with the brand, although details are not yet known. The groundbreaking Commodore 64 computer elicits fond memories for those who owned one back in the 1980s. 6 | 7 | In the chronology of home computing, Commodore was one of the pioneers. 8 | 9 | The Commodore 64, launched in 1982, was one of the first affordable home PCs. It was followed a few years later by the Amiga. The Commodore 64 sold more than any other single computer system, even to this day. The brand languished somewhat in the 1990s. Commodore International filed for bankruptcy in 1994 and was sold to Dutch firm Tulip Computers. In the late 1980s the firm was a great rival to Atari, which produced its own range of home computers and is now a brand of video games, formerly known as Infogrames. 10 | 11 | Tulip Computers sold several products under the Commodore name, including portable USB storage devices and digital music players. It had planned to relaunch the brand, following an upsurge of nostalgia for 1980s-era games. Commodore 64 enthusiasts have written emulators for Windows PC, Apple Mac and even PDAs so that the original Commodore games can be still run. The sale of Commodore is expected to be complete in three weeks in a deal worth over £17m. 12 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_132.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | US duo in first spam conviction 2 | 3 | A brother and sister in the US have been convicted of sending hundreds of thousands of unsolicited e-mail messages to AOL subscribers. 4 | 5 | It is the first criminal prosecution of internet spam distributors. Jurors in Virginia recommended that the man, Jeremy Jaynes, serve nine years in prison and that his sister, Jessica DeGroot, be fined $7,500. They were convicted under a state law that bars the sending of bulk e-mails using fake addresses. 6 | 7 | They will be formally sentenced next year. A third defendant, Richard Rutkowski, was acquitted. Prosecutors said Jaynes was "a snake oil salesman in a new format", using the internet to peddle useless wares, news agency Associated Press reported. A "Fed-Ex refund processor" was supposed to allow people to earn $75 an hour working from home. Another item on sale was an "internet history eraser". His sister helped him process credit card payments. Jaynes amassed a fortune of $24m from his sales, prosecutors said. "He's been successful ripping people off all these years," AP quoted prosecutor Russell McGuire as saying. Jaynes was also found guilty of breaking a state law which prohibits the sending of more than 100,000 e-mails in 30 days, Virginia State Attorney General Jerry Kilgore reportedly said. Prosecutors had asked for 15 years in jail for Jaynes, and a jail term for his sister. But Jaynes' lawyer David Oblon called the nine-year recommended term "outrageous" and said his client believed he was innocent. He pointed out that all three of the accused lived in North Carolina and were unaware of the Virginia state law. Spam messages are estimated to account for at least 60% of all e-mails sent. 8 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_136.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | BT offers free net phone calls 2 | 3 | BT is offering customers free internet telephone calls if they sign up to broadband in December. 4 | 5 | The Christmas give-away entitles customers to free telephone calls anywhere in the UK via the internet. Users will need to use BT's internet telephony software, known as BT Communicator, and have a microphone and speakers or headset on their PC. BT has launched the promotion to show off the potential of a broadband connection to customers. 6 | 7 | People wanting to take advantage of the offer will need to be a BT Together fixed-line customer and will have to sign up to broadband online. The offer will be limited to the first 50,000 people who sign up and there are limitations - the free calls do not include calls to mobiles, non-geographical numbers such as 0870, premium numbers or international numbers. BT is keen to provide extra services to its broadband customers. "People already using BT Communicator have found it by far the most convenient way of making a call if they are at their PC," said Andrew Burke, director of value-added services at BT Retail. As more homes get high-speed access, providers are increasingly offering add-ons such as cheap net calls. "Broadband and telephony are attractive to customers and BT wants to make sure it is in the first wave of services," said Ian Fogg, an analyst with Jupiter Research. "BT Communicator had a quiet launch in the summer and now BT is waving the flag a bit more for it," he added. 8 | 9 | BT has struggled to maintain its market share of broadband subscribers as more competitors enter the market. Reports say that BT has lost around 10% of market share over the last year, down from half of broadband users to less than 40%. BT is hoping its latest offer can persuade more people to jump on the broadband bandwagon. It currently has 1.3 million broadband subscribers. 10 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_148.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | ITunes user sues Apple over iPod 2 | 3 | A user of Apple's iTunes music service is suing the firm saying it is unfair he can only use an iPod to play songs. 4 | 5 | He says Apple is breaking anti-competition laws in refusing to let other music players work with the site. Apple, which opened its online store in 2003 after launching the iPod in 2001, uses technology to ensure each song bought only plays on the iPod. Californian Thomas Slattery filed the suit in the US District Court in San Jose and is seeking damages. 6 | 7 | "Apple has turned an open and interactive standard into an artifice that prevents consumers from using the portable hard drive digital music player of their choice," the lawsuit states. The key to such a lawsuit would be convincing a court that a single brand like iTunes is a market in itself separate from the rest of the online music market, according to Ernest Gellhorn, an anti-trust law professor at George Mason University. "As a practical matter, the lower courts have been highly sceptical of such claims," Prof Gellhorn said. Apple has sold more than six million iPods since the gadget was launched and has an 87% share of the market for portable digital music players, market research firm NPD Group has reported. 8 | 9 | More than 200 million songs have been sold by the iTunes music store since it was launched. "Apple has unlawfully bundled, tied, and/or leveraged its monopoly in the market for the sale of legal online digital music recordings to thwart competition in the separate market for portable hard drive digital music players, and vice-versa," the lawsuit said. Mr Slattery called himself an iTunes customer who "was also forced to purchase an Apple iPod" if he wanted to take his music with him to listen to. A spokesman for Apple declined to comment. Apple's online music store uses a different format for songs than Napster, Musicmatch, RealPlayer and others. The rivals use the MP3 format or Microsoft's WMA format while Apple uses AAC, which it says helps thwart piracy. The WMA format also includes so-called Digital Rights Management which is used to block piracy. 10 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_149.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Microsoft gets the blogging bug 2 | 3 | Software giant Microsoft is taking the plunge into the world of blogging. 4 | 5 | It is launching a test service to allow people to publish blogs, or online journals, called MSN Spaces. Microsoft is trailing behind competitors like Google and AOL, which already offer services which make it easy for people to set up web journals. Blogs, short for web logs, have become a popular way for people to talk about their lives and express opinions online. 6 | 7 | MSN Spaces is free to anyone with a Hotmail or MSN Messenger account. People will be able to choose a layout for the page, upload images and share photo albums and music playlists. The service will be supported by banner ads. "This is a simple tool for people to express themselves," said MSN's Blake Irving. This is Microsoft's first foray into blogging, which has taken off as a web phenomenon in the past year. Competitors like Google already offer free services through its Blogger site, while AOL provides its members with journals. Accurate figures for the number of blogs in existence are hard to come by. According to blog analysis firm Technorati, the so-called blogosphere, has doubled every five and a half months for the last 18 months. It now estimates that the number of blogs in existence has exceeded 4.8 million, although some speculate that less than a quarter are regularly maintained. 8 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_150.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Broadband fuels online change 2 | 3 | Fast web access is encouraging more people to express themselves online, research suggests. 4 | 5 | A quarter of broadband users in Britain regularly upload content and have personal sites, according to a report by UK think-tank Demos. It said that having an always-on, fast connection is changing the way people use the internet. More than five million households in the UK have broadband and that number is growing fast. 6 | 7 | The Demos report looked at the impact of broadband on people's net habits. It found that more than half of those with broadband logged on to the web before breakfast. One in five even admitted to getting up in the middle of the night to browse the web. 8 | 9 | More significantly, argues the report, broadband is encouraging people to take a more active role online. It found that one in five post something on the net everyday, ranging from comments or opinions on sites to uploading photographs. "Broadband is putting the 'me' in media as it shifts power from institutions and into the hands of the individual," said John Craig, co-author of the Demos report. "From self-diagnosis to online education, broadband creates social innovation that moves the debate beyond simple questions of access and speed." The Demos report, entitled Broadband Britain: The End Of Asymmetry?, was commissioned by net provider AOL. "Broadband is moving the perception of the internet as a piece of technology to an integral part of home life in the UK," said Karen Thomson, Chief Executive of AOL UK, "with many people spending time on their computers as automatically as they might switch on the television or radio." According to analysts Nielsen//NetRatings, more than 50% of the 22.8 million UK net users regularly accessing the web from home each month are logging on at high speed They spend twice as long online than people on dial-up connections, viewing an average of 1,444 pages per month. The popularity of fast net access is growing, partly fuelled by fierce competition over prices and services. 10 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_152.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | New Year's texting breaks record 2 | 3 | A mobile phone was as essential to the recent New Year's festivities as a party mood and Auld Lang Syne, if the number of text messages sent is anything to go by. 4 | 5 | Between midnight on 31 December and midnight on 1 January, 133m text messages were sent in the UK. It is the highest ever daily total recorded by the Mobile Data Association (MDA). It represents an increase of 20% on last year's figures. 6 | 7 | Wishing a Happy New Year to friends and family via text message has become a staple ingredient of the year's largest party. While texting has not quite overtaken the old-fashioned phone call, it is heading that way, said Mike Short, chairman of the MDA. "In the case of a New Years Eve party, texting is useful if you are unable to speak or hear because of a noisy background," he said. There were also lots of messages sent internationally, where different time zones made traditional calls unfeasible, he said. The British love affair with texting shows no signs of abating and the annual total for 2004 is set to exceed 25bn, according to MDA. The MDA predicts that 2005 could see more than 30bn text messages sent in the UK. "We thought texting might slow down as MMS took off but we have seen no sign of that," said Mr Short. More and more firms are seeing the value in mobile marketing. Restaurants are using text messages to tell customers about special offers and promotions. 8 | 9 | Anyone in need of a bit of January cheer now the party season is over, can use a service set up by Jongleurs comedy club, which will text them a joke a day. For those still wanting to drink and be merry as the long days of winter draw in, the Good Pub Guide offers a service giving the location and address of their nearest recommended pub. Users need to text the word GOODPUB to 85130. If they want to turn the evening into a pub crawl, they simply text the word NEXT. And for those still standing at the end of the night, a taxi service in London is available via text, which will locate the nearest available black cab. 10 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_160.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Halo 2 sells five million copies 2 | 3 | Microsoft is celebrating bumper sales of its Xbox sci-fi shooter, Halo 2. 4 | 5 | The game has sold more than five million copies worldwide since it went on sale in mid-November, the company said. Halo 2 has proved popular online, with gamers notching up a record 28 million hours playing the game on Xbox Live. According to Microsoft, nine out of 10 Xbox Live members have played the game for an average of 91 minutes per session. 6 | 7 | The sequel to the best-selling Need for Speed: Underground has inched ahead of the competition to take the top slot in the official UK games charts. The racing game moved up one spot to first place, nudging GTA: San Andreas down to second place. Halo 2 dropped one place to five, while Half-Life 2 fell to number nine. Last week's new releases, GoldenEye: Rogue Agent and Killzone, both failed to make it into the top 10, debuting at number 11 and 12 respectively. 8 | 9 | Record numbers of Warcraft fans are settling in the games online world. On the opening day of the World of Warcraft massive multi-player online game more than 200,000 players signed up to play. On the evening of the first day more than 100,000 players were in the world, forcing Blizzard to add another 34 servers to cope with the influx. The online game turns the stand alone Warcraft games into a persistent world that players can inhabit not just visit 10 | 11 | Europe's gamers could be waiting until January to hear when they can get their mitts on Nintendo's handheld device, Nintendo DS, says gamesindustry.biz. David Yarnton, Nintendo UK general manager, told a press conference to look out for details in the New Year. Its US launch was on Sunday and it goes on sale in Japan on 2 December. Nintendo has a 95% share of the handheld gaming market and said it expected to sell around five million of the DS by March 2005. 12 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_162.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Microsoft gets the blogging bug 2 | 3 | Software giant Microsoft is taking the plunge into the world of blogging. 4 | 5 | It is launching a test service to allow people to publish blogs, or online journals, called MSN Spaces. Microsoft is trailing behind competitors like Google and AOL, which already offer services which make it easy for people to set up web journals. Blogs, short for web logs, have become a popular way for people to talk about their lives and express opinions online. 6 | 7 | MSN Spaces is free to anyone with a Hotmail or MSN Messenger account. People will be able to choose a layout for the page, upload images and share photo albums and music playlists. The service will be supported by banner ads. "This is a simple tool for people to express themselves," said MSN's Blake Irving. This is Microsoft's first foray into blogging, which has taken off as a web phenomenon in the past year. Competitors like Google already offer free services through its Blogger site, while AOL provides its members with journals. Accurate figures for the number of blogs in existence are hard to come by. According to blog analysis firm Technorati, the so-called blogosphere, has doubled every five and a half months for the last 18 months. It now estimates that the number of blogs in existence has exceeded 4.8 million, although some speculate that less than a quarter are regularly maintained. 8 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_169.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | 2D Metal Slug offers retro fun 2 | 3 | Like some drill sergeant from the past, Metal Slug 3 is a wake-up call to today's gamers molly-coddled with slick visuals and fancy trimmings. 4 | 5 | With its hand-animated sprites and 2D side-scrolling, this was even considered retro when released in arcades four years ago. But a more frantic shooter you will not find at the end of your joypad this year. And yes, that includes Halo 2. Simply choose your grunt and wade through five 2D side-scrolling levels of the most hectic video game blasting you will ever encounter. It is also the toughest game you are likely to play, as hordes of enemies and few lives pile the pressure on. 6 | 7 | Players must battle soldiers, snowmen, zombies, giant crabs and aliens, not to mention the huge, screen-filling bosses that guard each of the five levels. 8 | 9 | The shoot-anything-that-moves gameplay is peppered with moments of old-school genius. Fans of robotic gastropods should note the title refers, instead, to the vast array of vehicles on offer in a game stuffed with bizarre hardware. Tanks, jets and submarines can be commandeered, as well as cannon-toting camels, elephants and ostriches - more weaponry on offer than in an acre of Iraq. Doling out justice is a joy thanks to ultra responsive controls, and while this is a tough nut to crack, it is addictive enough to have you gagging for that one last go. And at a mere £20, Metal Slug 3 is as cheap as sliced, fried spuds, as the man says. Of course, most of you will ignore this, lacking as it does the visual fireworks of modern blasters. But at a time when blockbuster titles offer only a fresh lick of paint in favour of real innovation, Metal Slug 3 is a fresh gasp of air from an era when the Xbox was not even a twinkle in Bill Gates' eye. 10 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_171.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | 'Ultimate game' award for Doom 3 2 | 3 | Sci-fi shooter Doom 3 has blasted away the competition at a major games ceremony, the Golden Joystick awards. 4 | 5 | It was the only title to win twice, winning Ultimate Game of the year and best PC game at the awards, presented by Little Britain star Matt Lucas. The much-anticipated sci-fi horror Doom 3 shot straight to the top of the UK games charts on its release in August. Other winners included Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas which took the Most Wanted for Christmas prize. Only released last week, it was closely followed by Halo 2 and Half-Life 2, which are expected to be big hits when they are unleashed later this month. 6 | 7 | But they missed out on the prize for the Most Wanted game of 2005, which went to the Nintendo title, The Legend of Zelda. The original Doom, released in 1994, heralded a new era in computer games and introduced 3D graphics. It helped to establish the concept of the first-person shooter. Doom 3 was developed over four years and is thought to have cost around $15m (£8.3m). The top honour for the best online game of the year went to Battlefield Vietnam. The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay was handed the Unsung Hero Game of 2004. Its release was somewhat eclipsed by Doom 3, which was released on the same week. It was, however, very well received by gamers and was praised for its storyline which differed from the film released around the same time. Electronic Arts was named top publisher of the year, taking the crown from Nintendo which won in 2003. The annual awards are voted for by more than 200,000 readers of computer and video games magazines. Games awards like this have grown in importance. Over the last six years, the UK market for games grew by 100% and was worth a record £1,152m in 2003, according to a recent report by analysts Screen Digest. 8 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_172.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Gadget show heralds MP3 Christmas 2 | 3 | Partners of those who love their hi-tech gear may want to get their presents in early as experts predict a gadget shortage this Christmas. 4 | 5 | With Apple's iPod topping wish lists again, there may not be enough iPod minis to go round, predicts Oliver Irish, editor of gadget magazine Stuff. "The iPod mini is likely to be this year's Tracey Island," said Mr Irish. Stuff has compiled a list of the top 10 gadgets for 2004 and the iPod is at number one. 6 | 7 | For anyone bewildered by the choice of gadgets on the market, Stuff and What Hi-Fi? are hosting a best-of gadget show in London this weekend. Star of the show will be Sony's Qrio Robot, an all-singing, all-dancing, football-playing man-machine who can even hold intelligent conversations. 8 | 9 | But he is not for sale and Sony has no commercial plans for the robot. "He will greet visitors and is flying in from Japan. He probably has his own airplane seat, that is how highly Sony prize him," said Mr Irish. Also on display will be a virtual keyboard which projects itself onto any flat surface. The event will play host to a large collection of digital music players, from companies such as Creative, Sony and Philips as well as the ubiquitously fashionable iPod from Apple. Suggestions that it could be a gaming or wireless Christmas are unlikely to come true as MP3 players remain the most popular stocking filler, said Mr Irish. "Demand is huge and Apple has promised that it can supply enough but people might struggle to get their hands on iPod minis," said Mr Irish. 10 | 11 | For those who like their gadgets to be multi-talented, the Gizmondo, a powerful gaming console with GPS and GPRS, that also doubles up as an MP3 player, movie player and camera, could be a must-have. "What is impressive is how much it can do and how well it can do them," said Mr Irish. This Christmas, gadgets will not be an all-male preserve. "Women will be getting gadgets from husbands and boyfriends as well as buying them for themselves," said Mr Irish. "Gadgets nowadays are lifestyle products rather than just for geeks." 12 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_176.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | US duo in first spam conviction 2 | 3 | A brother and sister in the US have been convicted of sending hundreds of thousands of unsolicited e-mail messages to AOL subscribers. 4 | 5 | It is the first criminal prosecution of internet spam distributors. Jurors in Virginia recommended that the man, Jeremy Jaynes, serve nine years in prison and that his sister, Jessica DeGroot, be fined $7,500. They were convicted under a state law that bars the sending of bulk e-mails using fake addresses. 6 | 7 | They will be formally sentenced next year. A third defendant, Richard Rutkowski, was acquitted. Prosecutors said Jaynes was "a snake oil salesman in a new format", using the internet to peddle useless wares, news agency Associated Press reported. A "Fed-Ex refund processor" was supposed to allow people to earn $75 an hour working from home. Another item on sale was an "internet history eraser". His sister helped him process credit card payments. Jaynes amassed a fortune of $24m from his sales, prosecutors said. "He's been successful ripping people off all these years," AP quoted prosecutor Russell McGuire as saying. Jaynes was also found guilty of breaking a state law which prohibits the sending of more than 100,000 e-mails in 30 days, Virginia State Attorney General Jerry Kilgore reportedly said. Prosecutors had asked for 15 years in jail for Jaynes, and a jail term for his sister. But Jaynes' lawyer David Oblon called the nine-year recommended term "outrageous" and said his client believed he was innocent. He pointed out that all three of the accused lived in North Carolina and were unaware of the Virginia state law. Spam messages are estimated to account for at least 60% of all e-mails sent. 8 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_181.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Mobiles double up as bus tickets 2 | 3 | Mobiles could soon double up as travel cards, with Nokia planning to try out a wireless ticket system on German buses. 4 | 5 | Early next year travellers in the city of Hanau, near Frankfurt, will be able to pay for tickets by passing their phone over a smart-card reader already installed on the buses. Passengers will need to own a Nokia 3220 handset which will have a special shell attached to it. The system would reduce queues and make travelling easier, said Nokia. 6 | 7 | Transport systems around the world are seeing the advantage of using ticketless smartcards. Using a mobile phone is the next step, said Gerhard Romen, head of market development at Nokia. 8 | 9 | The ticketless trial will start early in 2005 and people will also be able to access transport information and timetables via their phones. Nokia has worked with electronics giant Philips to develop a shell for the mobile phone that will be compatible with Hanau's existing ticketing system. The system opens up possibilities for mobile devices to be interact with everyday environments, said Mr Romen. "It could be used in shops to get product information, at bus-stops to get information about the next bus or, for example, by being passed over an advert of a rock star to find out details of concerts or get ringtones," he told the BBC News website. He is confident that the trial being run in Germany could be extended to transport systems in other countries. "The technology offers access to a lot of services and makes it easy to get the information you want," he said. 10 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_182.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Mobile gig aims to rock 3G 2 | 3 | Forget about going to a crowded bar to enjoy a gig by the latest darlings of the music press. 4 | 5 | Now you could also be at a live gig on your mobile, via the latest third generation (3G) video phones. Rock outfit Rooster are playing what has been billed as the first ever concert broadcast by phone on Tuesday evening from a London venue. The 45-minute gig is due to be "phone cast" by the 3G mobile phone operator, 3. 3G technology lets people take, watch and send video clips on their phones, as well as swap data much faster than with 2G networks like GSM. People with 3G phones in the UK can already download football and music clips on their handsets. 6 | 7 | Some 1,000 fans of the London-based band will have to pay five pounds for a ticket and need a 3G handset. 8 | 9 | "Once you have paid, you can come and go as much as you like, because we expect the customers to be mobile," said 3 spokesperson Belinda Henderson. "It's like going to a concert hall, except that you are virtually there." The company behind the trial hopes to learn more about how people use their video phones. "We are looking on how long people will stay on average on the streams. Some people may stay the whole time, some may dip in and out," said Ms Henderson. "We actually expect people to dip in and out because they are mobile and they will be doing other things." 3 is looking to music as a way of persuading more people to take up the latest video phones. It is already planning regular gigs throughout 2005. And during the intermission, of course, you would still be able to make a phone call. 10 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_183.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Consumers 'snub portable video' 2 | 3 | Consumers want music rather than movies while on the move, says a report. 4 | 5 | Produced by Jupiter Research the analysis of the portable media player market found only 13% of Europeans want to watch video while out and about. By contrast, almost a third are interested in listening to music on a portable player such as an iPod. The firm said gadget makers should avoid hybrid devices and instead make sure music reproduction was as good as possible. 6 | 7 | The report concluded that the driving force behind the growth of Europe's portable player market was likely to be music, rather than films or any combination of the two. Barely 5% of those questioned said they wanted a player that could play back both music and movies. Only 7% wanted a player that could handle games and video. 8 | 9 | "Dedicated music players are the only established digital media players in Europe today despite their high prices," said Ian Fogg, Jupiter analyst. Mr Fogg said although video players and smartphones were trying to cash in on this success they faced a tough job because of the compromises that had to be made when creating a dual-purpose device. "Europeans care most about music playback," he said. The report showed that 27% of consumers asked are interested in portable music players. The research revealed that French, 39%, and British, 31%, consumers were most interested in music players. Mr Fogg said portable video players were likely to remain a niche product that would not be able to compete with devices dedicated to music playback. 10 | 11 | A separate report by Jupiter forecasts that the European digital music market will grow to 836m euros (£581m) by 2009. At the end of 2003, the market was worth 10.6m euros (£7.36m). Digital music players will be behind this market growth said Jupiter . Apple's iPod was launched in October 2001, but the portable music player market has been growing steadily since the launch of the Creative Nomad Jukebox in mid-2000. Now consumers face an almost overwhelming choice of high-capacity portable music players that let them store every track on every CD that they own. 12 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_186.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | China 'blocks Google news site' 2 | 3 | China has been accused of blocking access to Google News by the media watchdog, Reporters Without Borders. 4 | 5 | The Paris-based pressure group said the English-language news site had been unavailable for the past 10 days. It said the aim was to force people to use a Chinese edition of the site which, according to the watchdog, does not include critical reports. Google told the BBC News website it was aware of the problems and was investigating the causes. 6 | 7 | China is believed to extend greater censorship over the net than any other country in the world. 8 | 9 | A net police force monitors websites and e-mails, and controls on gateways connecting the country to the global internet are designed to prevent access to critical information. Popular Chinese portals such as Sina.com and Sohu.com maintain a close eye on content and delete politically sensitive comments. And all 110,000 net cafes in the country have to use software to control access to websites considered harmful or subversive. 10 | 11 | "China is censoring Google News to force internet users to use the Chinese version of the site which has been purged of the most critical news reports," said the group in a statement. "By agreeing to launch a news service that excludes publications disliked by the government, Google has let itself be used by Beijing," it said. For its part, the search giant said it was looking into the issue. "It appears that many users in China are having difficulty accessing Google News sites in China and we are working to understand and resolve the issue," said a Google spokesperson. Google News gathers information from some 4,500 news sources. Headlines are selected for display entirely by a computer algorithm, with no human editorial intervention. It offers 15 editions of the service, including one tailored for China and one for Hong Kong. Google launched a version in simplified Chinese in September. The site does not filter news results to remove politically sensitive information. But Google does not link to news sources which are inaccessible from within China as this would result in broken links. 12 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_190.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | First look at PlayStation 3 chip 2 | 3 | Some details of the chip inside Sony's PlayStation 3 have been revealed. 4 | 5 | Sony, IBM and Toshiba have released limited data about the so-called Cell chip that will be able to carry out trillions of calculations per second. The chip will be made of several different processing cores that work on tasks together. The PlayStation 3 is expected in 2006 but developers are expecting to get prototypes early next year to tune games that will appear on it at launch. 6 | 7 | The three firms have been working on the chip since 2001 but before now few details have been released about how it might function. In a joint statement the three firms gave hints about how the chip will work but fuller details will be released in February next year at the International Solid State Circuits Conference in San Francisco. 8 | 9 | The three firms claim that the Cell chip will be up to 10 times more powerful than existing processors. When put inside powerful computer servers, the Cell consortium expects it to be capable of handling 16 trillion floating point operations, or calculations, every second. The chip has also been refined to be able to handle the detailed graphics common in games and the data demands of films and broadband media. IBM said it would start producing the chip in early 2005 at manufacturing plants in the US. The first machines off the line using the Cell processor will be computer workstations and servers. A working version of the PS3 is due to be shown off in May 2005 but a full launch of the next generation console is not expected to start until 2006. As well as being inside the PlayStation 3, the chip will also be used inside high-definition TVs and powerful computers. "In the future, all forms of digital content will be converged and fused onto the broadband network," said Ken Kutaragi, Chief Operating Officer of Sony. "Current PC architecture is nearing its limits." 10 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_197.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Smartphones suffer Skulls attack 2 | 3 | Owners of some Nokia smartphones are being warned to watch out for malicious wallpaper. 4 | 5 | Those downloading the software could find all the icons on their 7610 phone swapped for images of skulls. When installed the malicious program also locks many of the 7610's functions making it hard to use and harder to repair. The program is only the latest in a series of viruses produced to attack mobile phones. 6 | 7 | The file, nicknamed Skulls, is thought to have surfaced on shareware sites where people can pick up free add-ons, such as wallpaper, games and ringtones, for their phones Symbian said that it was not sure if the damage Skulls does was intentional or simply a result of bad programming. Soon after being discovered the file is thought to have been removed from the sites that were unwittingly harbouring it. The program is masquerading as software that creates new background images and themes for the main screen of the 7610 phone. The Skulls program is labelled as a file called: 7610.extended.theme.manager.zip. 8 | 9 | Once installed the program replaces all the icons on the main page with skulls and replaces all the working applications, such as contacts, calendar, notebook etc with non-working versions so the phone becomes almost useless. The only thing the phone can do is make and take calls. A statement by Symbian played down the significance of the malicious program and said few people would fall victim to it as users have to go through several steps to install it, one of which includes ignoring a security warning. Symbian said that the spread of the Skulls program was likely to be limited as the program cannot travel from one phone to another by itself. Despite this Finnish anti-virus lab F-Secure said it had sporadic reports of 7610 owners being caught out by it. The firm has produced guidance for users caught out to help them remove the program and get their phone working again. The Skulls program is thought to have been written by a malicious hacker using the alias Tee-222. Symbian phones produced by Sony Ericsson, Motorola, BenQ, Arima and Fujitsu are unaffected by the Skulls program. 10 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_207.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | How to smash a home computer 2 | 3 | An executive who froze his broken hard disk thinking it would be fixed has topped a list of the weirdest computer mishaps. 4 | 5 | Although computer malfunctions remain the most common cause of file loss, data recovery experts say human behaviour still is to blame in many cases. They say that no matter how effective technology is at rescuing files, users should take more time to back-up and protect important files. The list of the top 10 global data disasters was compiled by recovery company Ontrack. 6 | 7 | Careless - and preventable - mistakes that result in data loss range from reckless file maintenance practices to episodes of pure rage towards a computer. This last category includes the case of a man who became so mad with his malfunctioning laptop that he threw it in the lavatory and flushed a couple of times. "Data can disappear as a result of natural disaster, system fault or computer virus, but human error, including 'computer rage', seems to be a growing problem," said Adrian Palmer, managing director of Ontrack Data Recovery. 8 | 9 | "Nevertheless, victims soon calm down when they realise the damage they've done and come to us with pleas for help to retrieve their valuable information." A far more common situation is when a computer virus strikes and leads to precious files being corrupted or deleted entirely. Mr Palmer recalled the case of a couple who had hundreds of pictures of their baby's first three months on their computer, but managed to reformat the hard drive and erase all the precious memories. "Data can be recovered from computers, servers and even memory cards used in digital devices in most cases," said Mr Palmer. "However, individuals and companies can avoid the hassle and stress this can cause by backing up data on a regular basis." 10 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_209.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Man auctions ad space on forehead 2 | 3 | A 20-year-old US man is selling advertising space on his forehead to the highest bidder on website eBay. 4 | 5 | Andrew Fisher, from Omaha, Nebraska, said he would have a non-permanent logo or brand name tattooed on his head for 30 days. "The way I see it I'm selling something I already own; after 30 days I get it back," he told the BBC Today programme. Mr Fisher has received 39 bids so far, with the largest bid currently at more than $322 (£171). "The winner will be able to send me a tattoo or have me go to a tattoo parlour and get a temporary ink tattoo on my forehead and this will be something they choose, a company name or domain name, perhaps their logo," he told the Radio 4 programme. 6 | 7 | On the online auction, Mr Fisher describes himself as an "average American Joe, give or take". His sales pitch adds: "Take advantage of this radical advertising campaign and become a part of history." Mr Fisher said that while he would accept any brand name or logo, "I wouldn't go around with a swastika or anything racial". He added: "I wouldn't go around with 666, the mark of the beast. "Other than that I wouldn't promote anything socially unacceptable such as adult websites or stores." He said he would use the money to pay college - he is planning to study graphic design. The entrepreneur said his mother was initially surprised by his decision but following all the media attention she felt he was "thinking outside the box". 8 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_219.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Disney backs Sony DVD technology 2 | 3 | A next generation DVD technology backed by Sony has received a major boost. 4 | 5 | Film giant Disney says it will produce its future DVDs using Sony's Blu-ray Disc technology, but has not ruled out a rival format developed by Toshiba. The two competing DVD formats, Blu-ray developed by Sony and others, and Toshiba's HD-DVD, have been courting top film studios for several months. The next generation of DVDs promise very high quality pictures and sound, as well as a lot of data. Both technologies use a blue laser to write information. It has a shorter wavelength so more data can be stored. Disney is the latest studio to announce which technology it is backing in a format battle which mirrors the 1980s Betamax versus VHS war. Sony lost out to JVC in that fight. 6 | 7 | The current battle for Hollywood's hearts and minds is a crucial one because high-definition films will bring in billions of revenue and the studios would prefer to use one standard. Last month, Paramount, Universal and Warner Brothers said they were opting for the Toshiba and NEC-backed format, HD-DVD high-definition discs. 8 | 9 | Those studios currently produce about 45% of DVD content. Sony Pictures Entertainment and MGM Studios have already staked their allegiance with the Blu-ray Disc Association, whose members also include technology companies Dell, Samsung and Matsushita. Twentieth Century Fox is still to announce which technology it will be supporting. If Fox decided to go with Blu-ray too, it would mean the format would have a 47% share of DVD content. Disney said its films would be available on the Blu-ray format when DVD players for the standard went on sale on North America and Japan, expected in 2006. Universal is to start producing films on the HD-DVD format in 2005, and Paramount will start releasing titles using the standard in 2006. Toshiba expects sales of HD-DVDs to reach 300bn yen ($2.9bn, £1.5bn) by 2010. 10 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_224.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Disney backs Sony DVD technology 2 | 3 | A next generation DVD technology backed by Sony has received a major boost. 4 | 5 | Film giant Disney says it will produce its future DVDs using Sony's Blu-ray Disc technology, but has not ruled out a rival format developed by Toshiba. The two competing DVD formats, Blu-ray developed by Sony and others, and Toshiba's HD-DVD, have been courting top film studios for several months. The next generation of DVDs promises very high quality pictures and sound, as well as a lot of data. Both technologies use a blue laser to write information. It has a shorter wavelength so more data can be stored. Disney is the latest studio to announce which technology it is backing in a format battle which mirrors the 1980s Betamax versus VHS war. Sony lost out to JVC in that fight. 6 | 7 | The current battle for Hollywood's hearts and minds is a crucial one because high-definition films will bring in billions of revenue and the studios would prefer to use one standard. Last month, Paramount, Universal and Warner Brothers said they were opting for the Toshiba and NEC-backed format, HD-DVD high-definition discs. 8 | 9 | Those studios currently produce about 45% of DVD content. Sony Pictures Entertainment and MGM Studios have already staked their allegiance with the Blu-ray Disc Association, whose members also include technology companies Dell, Samsung and Matsushita. Twentieth Century Fox is still to announce which technology it will be supporting. If Fox decided to go with Blu-ray too, it would mean the format would have a 47% share of DVD content. Disney said its films would be available on the Blu-ray format when DVD players for the standard went on sale on North America and Japan, expected in 2006. Universal is to start producing films on the HD-DVD format in 2005, and Paramount will start releasing titles using the standard in 2006. Toshiba expects sales of HD-DVDs to reach 300bn yen ($2.9bn, £1.5bn) by 2010. 10 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_230.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Hi-tech posters guide commuters 2 | 3 | Interactive posters are helping Londoners get around the city during the festive season. 4 | 5 | When interrogated with a mobile phone, the posters pass on a number that people can call to get information about the safest route home. Sited at busy underground stations, the posters are fitted with an infra-red port that can beam information directly to a handset. The posters are part of Transport for London's Safe Travel at Night campaign. 6 | 7 | The campaign is intended to help Londoners, especially women, avoid trouble on the way home. In particular it aims to cut the number of sexual assaults by drivers of unlicensed minicabs. Nigel Marson, head of group marketing at Transport for London (TfL), said the posters were useful because they work outside the mobile phone networks. "They can work in previously inaccessible areas such as underground stations which is obviously a huge advantage in a campaign of this sort," he said. 8 | 9 | The posters will automatically beam information to any phone equipped with an IR port that is held close to the glowing red icon on the poster. "We started with infra-red because there are a huge number IR phones out there," said Rachel Harker, spokeswoman for Hypertag which makes the technology fitted to the posters. "It's a well established technology." Hypertag is also now making a poster that uses short-range Bluetooth radio technology to swap data. Although the hypertags in the posters only pass on a phone number, Ms Harker said they can pass on almost any form of data including images, ring tones and video clips. She said that there are no figures for how many people are using the posters but a previous campaign run for a cosmetics firm racked up 12,500 interactions. "Before we ran a campaign there was a big question mark of: 'If we build it will they come?'" she said. "Now we know that, yes, they will." The TfL campaign using the posters will run until Boxing Day. 10 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_232.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | BBC web search aids odd queries 2 | 3 | The BBC's online search engine was used a record amount in 2004, helping with enquires both simple and strange. 4 | 5 | More than 277 million enquiries were made, asking for informaton of a wide range of subjects. The most requested search terms of 2004 included games, EastEnders, CBBC, John Peel, Harry Potter and Olympics. But there were many strange enquiries, including: what is a dog?, how do you say basketball? and what is the biggest collection of naval fluff? The search engine works by matching key words typed in to different web pages but many people still type in natural language questions. Here are some of the strangest queries of 2004 - spelling and grammar errors left untouched - and their possible solutions: 6 | 7 | 8 | - How to fold a serviette like an elf's boot? 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | - How do I structure a French letter? 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | - What is better one long vacation each year or several short vacations throughout the year? 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | - What is so special about the Swiss? 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | - What are the contemporary issue in nurses? 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | - What is the number 4 in this number 40052308090? 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | - What is up? 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | - What is the name of James Martin's dog? 37 | 38 | 39 | Search engines are key to the way people use the internet. Companies such as Google have become of paramount importance as they dictate how people travel through websites while online. 40 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_233.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | 2D Metal Slug offers retro fun 2 | 3 | Like some drill sergeant from the past, Metal Slug 3 is a wake-up call to today's gamers molly-coddled with slick visuals and fancy trimmings. 4 | 5 | With its hand-animated sprites and 2D side-scrolling, this was even considered retro when released in arcades four years ago. But a more frantic shooter you will not find at the end of your joypad this year. And yes, that includes Halo 2. Simply choose your grunt and wade through five 2D side-scrolling levels of the most hectic video game blasting you will ever encounter. It is also the toughest game you are likely to play, as hordes of enemies and few lives pile the pressure on. 6 | 7 | Players must battle soldiers, snowmen, zombies, giant crabs and aliens, not to mention the huge, screen-filling bosses that guard each of the five levels. 8 | 9 | The shoot-anything-that-moves gameplay is peppered with moments of old-school genius. Fans of robotic gastropods should note the title refers, instead, to the vast array of vehicles on offer in a game stuffed with bizarre hardware. Tanks, jets and submarines can be commandeered, as well as cannon-toting camels, elephants and ostriches - more weaponry on offer than in an acre of Iraq. Doling out justice is a joy thanks to ultra responsive controls, and while this is a tough nut to crack, it is addictive enough to have you gagging for that one last go. And at a mere £20, Metal Slug 3 is as cheap as sliced, fried spuds, as the man says. Of course, most of you will ignore this, lacking as it does the visual fireworks of modern blasters. But at a time when blockbuster titles offer only a fresh lick of paint in favour of real innovation, Metal Slug 3 is a fresh gasp of air from an era when the Xbox was not even a twinkle in Bill Gates' eye. 10 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_237.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Microsoft takes on desktop search 2 | 3 | Microsoft has entered the desktop search fray, releasing a test version of its tool to find documents, e-mails and other files on a PC hard drive. 4 | 5 | The beta program only works on PCs running Windows XP or Windows 2000. The desktop search market is becoming increasingly crowded with firms touting programs that help people find files. Search giant Google launched its desktop search tool in October, while Yahoo is planning to release similar software in January. 6 | 7 | "Our ambition for search is to provide the ultimate information tool that can find anything you're looking for," said Yusuf Mehdi, corporate vice president at Microsoft's MSN internet division. Microsoft's program can be used as a toolbar on the Windows desktop, the Internet Explorer browser and within the Outlook e-mail program. The software giant is coming late to the desktop search arena, competing with a large number of rivals. Google has already released a desktop tool. Yahoo is planning to get into the game in January and AOL is expected to offer desktop searching early next year. Small firms such as Blinkx, Copernic, Enfish X1 Technologies and X-Friend offer tools that catalogue the huge amounts of information that people increasingly store on their desktop or home computer. Apple will release a similar search system for its computers called Spotlight that is due to be released with the Tiger operating system. 8 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_238.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Gamers snap up new Sony PSP 2 | 3 | Gamers have bought almost all of the first batch of Sony's new PlayStation Portable (PSP) games console, which went on sale in Japan on Sunday. 4 | 5 | Thousands of people queued for hours to get hold of one of the 200,000 PSPs which were shipped to retailers. The handheld console can play games, music and movies and goes on sale in Europe and North America next year. Despite the demand Sony said it would not increase the 500,000-strong stock of PSPs it plans to ship by year's end. 6 | 7 | Sony says it intends to ship three million of the consoles by March 2005. The company is hoping to challenge the dominance of Nintendo in the handheld market. Nintendo released its new DS console earlier this year and has already raised shipment targets for the device by 40%. The PSP is selling in Japan for 19,800 yen ($188; £98) while Nintendo's DS console sells in the US and Japan for $150 (£78). Nintendo's goal is to ship 5 million of its new Nintendo DS handheld consoles by March 2005. 8 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_239.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Go-ahead for new internet names 2 | 3 | The internet could soon have two new domain names, aimed at mobile services and the jobs market. 4 | 5 | The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann) has given preliminary approval to two new addresses - .mobi and .jobs. They are among 10 new names being considered by the net's oversight body. Others include a domain for pornography, an anti-spam domain as well as .post and .travel, for the postal and travel industries. 6 | 7 | The .mobi domain would be aimed at websites and other services that work specifically around mobile phones, while the .jobs address could be used by companies wanting a dedicated site for job postings. The process to see the new domain names go live in cyberspace could take months and Icann officials warned that there were no guarantees they would ultimately be accepted. Applicants paid £23,000 apiece to have their proposals considered. The application for .mobi was sponsored by technology firms including Nokia, Microsoft and T-Mobile. 8 | 9 | Of the 10 currently under consideration, the least likely to win approval is the .xxx domain for pornographic websites. There are currently around 250 domain names in use around the globe, mostly for specific countries such as .fr for France and .uk for Britain. Perhaps unsurprisingly, .com remains the most popular address on the web. 10 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_241.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Hollywood to sue net film pirates 2 | 3 | The US movie industry has launched legal action to sue people who facilitate illegal film downloading. 4 | 5 | The Motion Picture Association of America wants to stop people using the program BitTorrent to swap movies. The industry is targeting people who run websites which provide information and internet links to movies which have been copied or filmed in cinemas. More than 100 server operators have been targeted in the actions launched in the US and UK, the MPAA added. The suits were filed against users of the file-sharing programs BitTorrent, eDonkey and DirectConnect in the United States, United Kingdom, France, Finland and the Netherlands, the MPAA said. 6 | 7 | BitTorrent users can download movies by following a link to files which are found on websites called trackers. Unlike most peer-to-peer programs BitTorrent works by sharing a file, which could be anything from a legitimate digital photo to a copied movie, among multiple users at the same time. The movie industry hopes that suing the people who run the trackers will cut BitTorrent users off from illegal movies at source. Last month major film studios started legal action against 200 individuals who were swapping films online. The growth in broadband has made it quicker for people to download movies and the industry fears that if it does not take action now, it could suffer the same downturn as the music industry. 8 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_242.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | PC ownership to 'double by 2010' 2 | 3 | The number of personal computers worldwide is expected to double by 2010 to 1.3 billion machines, according to a report by analysts Forrester Research. 4 | 5 | The growth will be driven by emerging markets such as China, Russia and India, the report predicted. More than a third of all new PCs will be in these markets, with China adding 178 million new PCs by 2010, it said. Low-priced computers made by local companies are expected to dominate in such territories, Forrester said. The report comes less than a week after IBM, a pioneer of the PC business, sold its PC hardware division to China's number one computer maker Lenovo. 6 | 7 | The $1.75bn (£900m) deal will make the combined operation the third biggest PC vendor in the world. "Today's products from Western PC vendors won't dominate in those markets in the long term," Simon Yates, a senior analyst for Forrester, said. "Instead local PC makers like Lenovo Group in China and Aquarius in Russia that can better tailor the PC form factor, price point and applications to their local markets will ultimately win the market share battle," he said. There are currently 575 million PCs in use globally. The United States, Europe and Asia-Pacific are expected to add 150 million new PCs by 2010, according to the study. The report forecast that there will be 80 million new PC users in India by 2010 and 40 million new users in Indonesia. 8 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_247.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Nintendo adds media playing to DS 2 | 3 | Nintendo is releasing an adapter for its DS handheld console so it can play music and video. 4 | 5 | The add-on for the DS means people can download TV programmes, film clips or MP3 files to the adaptor and then play them back while on the move. The release of the media add-on is an attempt by the Japanese games giant to protect its dominance of the handheld gaming market. Nintendo said the media adapter will be available from February in Japan. 6 | 7 | The Nintendo DS is the successor to the hugely successful GameBoy handheld game console and went on sale in Japan on 2 December. The DS has two screens, one of which is touch sensitive, and also has on-board a short-range wireless link that lets people play against each other. 8 | 9 | The launch of the media adapter, and the attempt to broaden the appeal of the device, is widely seen as a response to the unveiling of the Sony PSP which was built as a multi-purpose media player and game gadget from the start. Sony is thought to be preparing pre-packaged movies and music for the PSP. The add-on will also work with the GameBoy Advance SP. Nintendo dominates the handheld gaming console world thanks to successive versions of the GameBoy. More than 28 million GameBoy Advance handhelds have been sold around the world. The dual-screen DS is also thought to be selling well with more than 2.5 million expected to be sold by the end of 2004. Nintendo said it had no plans to sell the media adapter outside Japan. When it goes on sale the adapter is expected to cost about 5000 yen (£25), roughly the difference in price between the DS and the higher-priced Sony PSP. 10 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_248.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Apple sues to stop product leaks 2 | 3 | Computer firm Apple has issued a lawsuit to prevent online leaks of information about future products. 4 | 5 | The lawsuit, against an unidentified individual, comes just weeks before the MacWorld conference in San Francisco, used to showcase new products. The complaint said an "unidentified individual... has recently misappropriated and disseminated confidential information". The lawsuit was filed with the Santa Clara California Superior Court. Apple is famously secretive about its future product launches while Apple users are equally famous for speculating about new technology from the company. Fans have speculated in recent weeks about the possibility of a new type of iPod being announced at the MacWorld conference. 6 | 7 | Apple said in the seven-page complaint, filed on 13 December, that it did not know the "true names or capacities, whether individual, associate, corporate or otherwise," of the defendants. The company said it would amend the complaint once they had discovered the names of those who had allegedly leaked information. It is not the first time Apple has sued people who have posted information about future products on the internet. In December 2002, Apple sued a former contractor who allegedly posted online drawings, images and engineering details of the company's PowerMac G4 computer. In a statement, Apple said of the current lawsuit: "Apple has filed a civil complaint against unnamed individuals who we believe stole our trade secrets and posted detailed information about an unannounced Apple product on the internet." 8 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_249.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Gamer buys $26,500 virtual land 2 | 3 | A 22-year-old gamer has spent $26,500 (£13,700) on an island that exists only in a computer role-playing game (RPG). 4 | 5 | The Australian gamer, known only by his gaming moniker Deathifier, bought the island in an online auction. The land exists within the game Project Entropia, an RPG which allows thousands of players to interact with each other. Entropia allows gamers to buy and sell virtual items using real cash, while fans of other titles often use auction site eBay to sell their virtual wares. Earlier this year economists calculated that these massively multi-player online role-playing games (MMORPGs) have a gross economic impact equivalent to the GDP of the African nation of Namibia. 6 | 7 | "This is a historic moment in gaming history, and this sale only goes to prove that massive multi-player online gaming has reached a new plateau," said Marco Behrmann, director of community relations at Mindark, the game's developer. 8 | 9 | The virtual island includes a gigantic abandoned castle and beautiful beaches which are described as ripe for developing beachfront property. Deathifier will make money from his investment as he is able to tax other gamers who come to his virtual land to hunt or mine for gold. He has also begun to sell plots to people who wish to build virtual homes. "This type of investment will definitely become a trend in online gaming," said Deathifier. The Entopia economy lets gamers exchange real currency into PED (Project Entropia Dollars) and back again into real money. Ten PEDs are the equivalent to one US dollar and typical items sold include iron ingots ($5) and shogun armour ($1.70) Gamers can theoretically earn money by accumulating PEDs through the acquisition of goods, buildings, and land in the Entropia universe. MMORPGs have become enormously popular in the last 10 years with hundreds of thousands of gamers living out alternate lives in fantasy worlds. Almost 200,000 people are registered players on Project Entropia. 10 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_250.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Microsoft sets sights on spyware 2 | 3 | Windows users could soon be paying Microsoft to keep PCs free of spyware. 4 | 5 | Following the takeover of anti-spyware firm Giant, Microsoft said it would soon release a toolkit that strips machines of the irritating programs. Although initially free, Microsoft has not ruled out charging people who want to keep this toolkit up to date. Surveys show that almost every Windows PC is infested with spyware programs that do everything from bombard users with adverts to steal login data. Microsoft said that a beta version of the toolkit to clean up Windows machines should be available within 30 days. 6 | 7 | Designed for PCs running Windows 2000 and XP, the utility will clean out spyware programs, constantly monitor what happens on a PC and will be regularly updated to catch the latest variants. Before now many of Microsoft's other security boosting programs, such as the firewall in Windows XP, have been given away free. But Mike Nash, vice president in Microsoft's security business unit, said it was still working out pricing and licensing issues. Charging for future versions has not been discounted, he said. "We'll come up with a plan and roll that out," he said. The plan could turn out to be a lucrative one for Microsoft. A recent survey by Earthlink and Webroot found that 90% of PCs are infested with the surreptitious software and that, on average, each one is harbouring 28 separate spyware programs. Currently users wanting protection from spyware have turned to free programs such as Spybot and Ad-Aware. Spyware comes in many forms and at its most benign exploits lazy browsing habits to install itself and subject users to unwanted adverts. Other forms hijack net browser settings to force people to view pages they would otherwise never visit. At its most malign, spyware watches everything that people do with their PC and steals login information and other personal data. Microsoft's announcement about spyware comes after it bought small New York software firm Giant Company Software. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. 8 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_252.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Virus poses as Christmas e-mail 2 | 3 | Security firms are warning about a Windows virus disguising itself as an electronic Christmas card. 4 | 5 | The Zafi.D virus translates the Christmas greeting on its subject line into the language of the person receiving infected e-mail. Anti-virus firms speculate that this multilingual ability is helping the malicious program spread widely online. Anti-virus firm Sophos said that 10% of the e-mail currently on the net was infected with the Zafi virus. 6 | 7 | Like many other Windows viruses, Zafi-D plunders Microsoft Outlook for e-mail addresses and then uses mail-sending software to despatch itself across the web to new victims. To be infected users must open up the attachment travelling with the message which bears the code for the malicious bug. The attachment on the e-mail poses as an electronic Christmas card but anyone opening it will simply get a crude image of two smiley faces. 8 | 9 | The virus' subject line says "Merry Christmas" and translates this into one of 15 languages depending of the final suffix of the e-mail address the infected message has been sent to. The message in the body of the e-mail reads: "Happy Holidays" and this too is translated. On infected machines the virus tries to disable anti-virus and firewall software and opens up a backdoor on the PC to hand over control to the writer of the virus. The virus is thought to have spread most widely in South America, Italy, Spain, Bulgaria and Hungary. The original Zafi virus appeared in April this year. "We have seen these hoaxes for several Christmases already, and personally I prefer traditional pen and paper cards, and we recommend this to all our clients too," said Mikko Hypponen, who heads F-Secure's anti-virus team. 10 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_254.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Broadband in the UK gathers pace 2 | 3 | One person in the UK is joining the internet's fast lane every 10 seconds, according to BT. 4 | 5 | The telecoms giant said the number of people on broadband via the telephone line had now surpassed four million. Including those connected via cable, almost six million people have a fast, always-on connection. The boom has been fuelled by fierce competition and falling prices, as well as the greater availability of broadband over the phone line. "The take-up rate for broadband is accelerating at a terrific pace," said Ben Verwaayen, BT's chief executive. "We will be in a very strong position to hit our five million target by summer 2006 much earlier than we had previously expected." 6 | 7 | The last million connections were made over the past four months, with thousands of people being added to the total every day of the week. 8 | 9 | Those signing up to broadband include those that get their service direct from BT or via the many companies that re-sell BT lines under their own name. Part of the surge in people signing up was due to BT stretching the reach of ADSL - the UK's most widely used way of getting broadband - beyond six kilometres. Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line technology lets ordinary copper phone lines support high data speeds. The standard speed is 512kbps, though faster connections are available. According to BT, more than 95% of UK homes and businesses can receive broadband over the phone line. It aims to extend this figure to 99.4% by next summer. There are also an estimated 1.7 million cable broadband customers in the UK. 10 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_255.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Hollywood campaign hits websites 2 | 3 | Movie studio efforts to stop pirated films being shared on peer-to-peer networks have claimed a high-profile victim. 4 | 5 | The campaign of legal action is thought to be behind the closure of the widely used Suprnova.org website. The site was the most popular place for people swapping and sharing links for the BitTorrent network. A recent study showed that more than half of the peer-to-peer traffic during June was for the BitTorrent system. 6 | 7 | In a message posted on Suprnova.org on Sunday, the site's controllers said the site was "closing down for good in the way that we all know it". If the site did return, the message said, it would not be hosting any more torrent links. It continued: "We are very sorry for this, but there was no other way, we have tried everything. " The only parts that would keep going, said the operators of the Suprnova site, were the discussion forums and net chat channels. The site is thought to have closed following an announcement by the Motion Picture Association of America that it was launching legal action against those operating BitTorrent servers rather than end users. Because of the way that BitTorrent works, server sites do not host the actual file being shared, instead they host a link that points people to others that have it. By targeting servers, the MPAA hopes to cripple BitTorrent's ability to share files. In the opening days of the MPAA campaign, the organisation filed 100 lawsuits against operators of BitTorrent server site. The launching of the legal seems to be having an effect. Phoenix Torrents, another popular BitTorrent site, has also decided to shut down and, though it gave no reasons for the closure, it is thought to be motivated by the threat of legal action. Last week Finnish police raided a BitTorrent site based in the country that, according to reports, let 10,000 users shared pirated films, software, music and games. 8 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_257.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Santy worm makes unwelcome visit 2 | 3 | Thousands of website bulletin boards have been defaced by a virus that used Google to spread across the net. 4 | 5 | The Santy worm first appeared on 20 December and within 24 hours had successfully hit more than 40,000 websites. The malicious program exploits a vulnerability in the widely used phpBB software. Santy's spread has now been stopped after Google began blocking infected sites searching for new victims. 6 | 7 | The worm replaces chat forums with a webpage announcing that the site had been defaced by the malicious program. Soon after being infected, sites hit by the worm started randomly searching for other websites running the vulnerable phpBB software. Once Google started blocking these search queries the rate of infection tailed off sharply. A message sent to Finnish security firm F-Secure by Google's security team said: "While a seven hour response for something like this is not outrageous, we think we can and should do better." "We will be reviewing our procedures to improve our response time in the future to similar problems," the Google team said. Security firms estimate that about 1m websites run their discussion groups and forums with the open source phpBB program. The worst of the attack now seems to be over as a search conducted on the morning of the 22 December produced only 1,440 hits for sites showing the text used in the defacement message. People using the sites hit by Santy will not be affected by the worm. Santy is not the first malicious program to use Google to help it spread. In July a variant of the MyDoom virus slowed down searches on Google as the program flooded the search site with queries looking for new e-mail addresses to send itself to. 8 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_258.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | EU software patent law delayed 2 | 3 | Controversial new EU rules for the patenting of computer-based inventions have been put on hold due to a last minute intervention from Poland. 4 | 5 | Poland - a large and therefore crucial EU member - has requested more time to consider the issue, especially as it relates to the patenting of software. Critics say the law would favour large companies over small, innovative ones. They say it could have massive ramifications for developments such as open source software. 6 | 7 | Polish ministers want to see the phrasing of the text of the Directive on the Patentability of Computer-Implemented Inventions changed so that it excludes the patenting of software. The planned law has ignited angry debate about whether the EU should allow the patenting of computer programs and internet business methods as currently happens in the US. So, for instance, US-based Amazon.com holds a patent on 'one-click shopping'. Critics claim the law, which the EU says is needed to harmonise with the US, is little more than a law on ideas. "Patent rights, it is claimed, protect inventors but in this case it is exclusively the interests of the big companies that are protected," Eva Lichtenberg, a Austrian Green member of the European Parliament said in a statement. "Smaller, innovative firms cannot afford the patenting and legal costs that the directive would inflict on them," she added. The European Parliament has already clashed with the European Union on the issue and there have been accusations that the process to decide the issue has been undemocratic. The directive has been subject to several previous delays. 8 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_259.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Apple sues 'Tiger' file sharers 2 | 3 | Apple has taken more legal action to stop online leaks of its new products. 4 | 5 | The computer giant has sued three men for releasing preview versions of its latest Mac OSX software onto file-sharing sites prior to its release. It said two versions of the operating system, codenamed Tiger, were put onto the net in October and December. It is the second time in two weeks Apple has taken legal action to protect its future products. Tiger is due to be shipped in early 2005. Last week, it filed a lawsuit against "unnamed individuals" who leaked details about new products onto the web. 6 | 7 | The latest action was against members of the Apple Developer Connection, a group of programmers which gets to see test versions of upcoming software so they can develop or change their own programs to work with them. "Members of Apple Developer Connection receive advance copies of Apple software under strict confidentiality agreements, which we take very seriously to protect our intellectual property," Apple said in a statement. 8 | 9 | It added that its future financial results were very much dependent on developing and improving its operating systems and other software. It is thought the men used sites which employ BitTorrent technology. With BitTorrent technology, sites do not host actual files being shared, instead they host a link that points people to others that have the particular file. Last week, the Motion Picture Association of America launched a legal campaign targeting websites that operate using the BitTorrent system in an effort to clamp down on movie piracy. Apple is no stranger to taking legal action against those who leak product information. In December 2002, it sued a former contractor who allegedly put drawings, images and engineering details of its PowerMac G4 computer online. The latest action was filed on Monday in the US District Court in California. It comes just weeks before the MacWorld conference in San Francisco, used to showcase new products. 10 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_262.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Broadband steams ahead in the US 2 | 3 | More and more Americans are joining the internet's fast lane, according to official figures. 4 | 5 | The number of people and business connected to broadband jumped by 38% in a year, said the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC). In a report, it said there were more than 32 million broadband connections by the end of June 2004. But the US is still behind compared to other nations, ranked 13th in the world by a UN telecoms body. 6 | 7 | During his 2004 re-election campaign, President George W Bush pledge to ensure that affordable high-speed net access would be available to all Americans by 2007. 8 | 9 | According to the report by the FCC, broadband is becoming increasingly popular, with people using it for research and shopping, as well as downloading music and watching video. The total number of people and businesses on broadband rose by to 32.5 million in the year ending June 2004, compared to 23.5 million in June 2003. Whereas in the UK, most people hook up to broadband via Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL) technology which lets ordinary copper phone lines support high data speeds. But in the US, cable leads the way, accounting for 18.6 million lines. Broadband over the phone line makes up 11.4 million connections, according to the FCC figures. 10 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_265.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Half of UK's mobiles 'go online' 2 | 3 | Multimedia mobile phones are finally showing signs of taking off, with more Britons using them to go online. 4 | 5 | Figures from industry monitor, the Mobile Data Association (MDA), show the number of phones with GPRS and MMS technology has doubled since last year. GPRS lets people browse the web, access news services, mobile music and other applications like mobile chat. By the end of 2005, the MDA predicts that 75% of all mobiles in the UK will be able to access the net via GPRS. The MDA say the figures for the three months up to 30 September are a "rapid increase" on the figure for the same time the previous year. About 53 million people own a mobile in the UK, so the figures mean that half of those phones use GPRS. GPRS is often described as 2.5G technology - 2.5 generation - sitting between 2G and 3G technology, which is like a fast, high-quality broadband internet for phones. 6 | 7 | With more services being offered by mobile operators, people are finding more reasons to go online via their mobile. Downloadable ringtones are still proving highly popular, but so is mobile chat. BandAid was the fastest ever-selling ringtone this year, according to the MDA, and chat was given some publicity when Prime Minister Tony Blair answered questions through mobile text chat. Multimedia messaging services also looked brighter with 32% of all mobiles in the UK able to send or receive picture messages. This is a 14% rise from last September's figures. But a recent report from Continental Research reflects the continuing battle mobile companies have to actually persuade people to go online and to use MMS. It said that 36% of UK camera phone users had never sent a multimedia message, or MMS. That was 7% more than in 2003. Mobile companies are keen for people to use multimedia functions their phones, like sending MMS and going online, as this generates more money for them. But critics say that MMS is confusing and some mobiles are too difficult to use. There have also been some issues over interoperability, and being able to send MMS form a mobile using one network to a different one. 8 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_266.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Blinx sequel purrs nicely 2 | 3 | The original Blinx was intended to convert many platform game lovers to Microsoft's then new Xbox console. 4 | 5 | Its sharp graphics and novel gameplay, with the main character able to pause, slow, rewind and fast-forward time, were meant to lure many fans to the new machine. But poor design meant the game became a very frustrating affair with players often stranded half-way through a level without the required tools to finish. Thankfully, the sequel has fixed many of the original faults. This time around you do not play as Blinx but instead you are given the chance to create two unique cat characters and two pig characters. 6 | 7 | The character generator is very detailed and a few minutes of tweaking and adjusting will create a unique personality to unleash on the game. 8 | 9 | As the game progresses you swap between the two rival factions, pig and feline, assuming the role of your created characters. The thrust of the game sees the two factions competing to recover pieces of a missing Time Crystal. As in the original, your feline persona can control time, but this time the pigs get to control space. There are a number of puzzles which require control over time to solve while the pigs can create things such as warps, space bubbles and void traps in order to progress. The control over space and time is achieved through a number of VCR-style icons and is quite intuitive. 10 | 11 | Annoyingly, the puzzles are a little too obviously flagged up and most gamers will find it more of a chore than a challenge to solve them. The game has also tried to emulate franchises such as Jak and Daxter and Ratchet and Clank on PS2 and so there are a number of combat elements. These are a little predictable and tend to drag the general polish of the game down to a more dulled affair. But the game's excellent graphics, easily the best-looking platform game around, sound and dollops of humour make it an attractive game for younger platform fans. 12 | 13 | Blinx 2 is out on Xbox now. 14 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_271.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | US hacker breaks into T-Mobile 2 | 3 | A man is facing charges of hacking into computers at the US arm of mobile phone firm T-Mobile. 4 | 5 | The Californian man, Nicholas Lee Jacobsen, was arrested in October. Mr Jacobsen tried at least twice to hack T-Mobile's network and took names and social security numbers of 400 customers, said a company spokesman. The arrest came a year after T-Mobile uncovered the unauthorised access. The US Secret Service has been investigating the case. "T-Mobile has stringent procedures in place where we monitor for suspicious activity so that limited his activities and we were able to take corrective action immediately," Peter Dobrow, a T-Mobile spokesperson said. It is thought that Mr Jacobsen's hacking campaign took place over at least seven months during which time he read e-mails and personal computer files, according to court records. 6 | 7 | Although Mr Jacobsen, 21, managed to get hold of some data, it is thought he failed to get customer credit card numbers which are stored on a separate computer system, said Mr Dobrow. T-Mobile confirmed that the US Secret Service was also looking into whether the hacker accessed photos that T-Mobile subscribers had taken with their camera phones. The Associated Press agency reported that Mr Jacobsen also read personal files on the Secret Service agent who was apparently investigating the case. A Los Angeles grand jury indicted Mr Jacobsen with intentionally accessing a computer system without authorisation and with the unauthorised impairment of a protected computer between March and October 2004. He is currently on bail. T-Mobile is a subsidiary company of Deutsche Telekom and has about 16.3 million subscribers in the US. 8 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_272.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Windows worm travels with Tetris 2 | 3 | Users are being warned about a Windows virus that poses as the hugely popular Tetris game. 4 | 5 | The Cellery worm installs a playable version of the classic falling blocks game on PCs that it has infected. While users play the game, the worm spends its time using the machine to search for new victims to infect on nearby networks. The risk of infection by Cellery is thought to be very low as few copies of the worm have been found in the wild. 6 | 7 | The Cellery worm does not spread via e-mail like many other viruses. Instead it browses computer networks for PCs that have not shut off all the insecure ways they connect to other machines. When it infects a machine, Cellery installs a version of Tetris that users can play. As the game starts up the worm also starts a music file to accompany it. At the same time the virus starts scouring networks for other vulnerable machines. The virus does no damage to machines but heavily infected networks could slow down as scanning traffic builds. Productivity may suffer too if users spend time playing Tetris. PCs running Windows 95, 98, ME, NT, 2000, and XP could be vulnerable to the worm. "If your company has a culture of allowing games to be played in the office, your staff may believe this is simply a new game that has been installed - rather than something that should cause concern," said Graham Cluley, spokesman for anti-virus firm Sophos. So far the number of people infected by Cellery is thought to be very small and the risks of further infection is very low. Sophos urged users and companies to update their anti-virus software to keep themselves protected. 8 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_284.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Hacker threat to Apple's iTunes 2 | 3 | Users of Apple's music jukebox iTunes need to update the software to avoid a potential security threat. 4 | 5 | Hackers can build malicious playlist files which could crash the program and let them seize control of the computer by inserting Trojan code. A new version of iTunes is now available from the Apple website which solves the problem. Security firm iDefence, which notified users of the problem, recommended that users upgrade to iTunes version 4.7.1. The problem affects all users of iTunes - Windows and Mac OS - running versions 4.7 and earlier. Users can automatically upgrade iTunes by opening the "look for updates" window in the program. The security firm says users should avoid clicking on or accessing playlist files - which have the file extension of .pls or .m3u - which have come from unknown sources. Itunes is the world's most popular online music store with more than 200 million songs downloaded since it launched in 2003. 6 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_287.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Text message record smashed 2 | 3 | UK mobile owners continue to break records with their text messaging, with latest figures showing that 26 billion texts were sent in total in 2004. 4 | 5 | The figures collected by the Mobile Data Association (MDA) showed that 2.4 billion were fired off in December alone, the highest monthly total ever. That was 26% more than in December 2003. The records even surpassed the MDA's own predictions, it said. Every day 78 million messages are sent and there are no signs of a slow down. Before December's bumper text record, the previous highest monthly total was in October 2004, when 2.3 billion were sent. Text messaging is set to smash more records in 2005 too, said the MDA, with forecasts suggesting a total of 30 billion for the year. 6 | 7 | Even though mobiles are becoming increasingly sophisticated with much more multimedia applications, texting is still one of the most useful functions of mobiles. People are using SMS to do much more too. Booking cinema tickets, text voting, and news or sports text alerts are growing popular. Mobile owners have also given the chance to donate to the Disasters Emergency Committee's (DEC) Asian Tsunami fund by texting "Donate" to a simple short code number. Looking further ahead in the year, the MDA's chairman Mike Short, has predicted that more people will go online through their mobiles, estimating 15 billion WAP page impressions. Handsets with GPRS capability - an "always on" net connection - will rise to 75%, while 3G mobile ownership growing to five million by the end of 2005. These third generation mobiles offer a high-speed connection which means more data like video can be received on the phone. Globally, mobile phone sales passed 167 million in the third quarter of 2004, according to a recent report from analysts Gartner. That was 26% more than the previous year. It is predicted that there would be two billion handsets in use worldwide by the end of 2005. 8 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_290.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Fast moving phone viruses appear 2 | 3 | Security firms are warning about several mobile phone viruses that can spread much faster than similar bugs. 4 | 5 | The new strains of the Cabir mobile phone virus use short-range radio technology to leap to any vulnerable phone as soon as it is in range. The Cabir virus only affects high-end handsets running the Symbian Series 60 phone operating system. Despite the warnings, there are so far no reports of any phones being infected by the new variants of Cabir. 6 | 7 | The original Cabir worm came to light in mid-June 2004 when it was sent to anti-virus firms as a proof-of-concept program. A mistake in the way the original Cabir was written meant that even if it escaped from the laboratory, the bug would only have been able to infect one phone at a time. 8 | 9 | However, the new Cabir strains have this mistake corrected and will spread via short range Bluetooth technology to any vulnerable phone in range. Bluetooth has an effective range of a few tens of metres. The risk of being infected by Cabir is low because users must give the malicious program permission to download on to their handset and then must manually install it. Users can protect themselves by altering a setting on Symbian phones that conceals the handset from other Bluetooth using devices. Finnish security firm F-Secure issued a warning about the new strains of Cabir but said that the viruses do not do any damage to a phone. All they do is block normal Bluetooth activity and drain the phone's battery. Anti-virus firm Sophos said the source code for Cabir had been posted on the net by a Brazilian programmer which might lead to even more variants of the program being created. So far seven versions of Cabir are know to exist, one of which was inside the malicious Skulls program that was found in late November. Symbian's Series 60 software is licenced by Nokia, LG Electronics, Lenovo, Panasonic, Samsung, Sendo and Siemens. 10 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_303.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | US peer-to-peer pirates convicted 2 | 3 | The first convictions for piracy over peer-to-peer networks have been handed down in the US. 4 | 5 | New Yorker William Trowbridge and Texan Michael Chicoine have pleaded guilty to charges that they infringed copyright by illegally sharing music, movies and software. The two men faced charges following raids in August on suspected pirates by the FBI. The pair face jail terms of up to five years and a $250,000 (£130,000) fine. 6 | 7 | In a statement the US Department of Justice said the two men operated the central hubs in a piracy community organised across the Direct Connect peer-to-peer network. The piracy group called itself the Underground Network and membership of it demanded that users share between one and 100 gigabytes of files. Direct Connect allows users to set themselves up as central servers that act as co-ordinating spots for sharers. Users would swap files, such as films and music, by exchanging data over the network. During its investigation FBI agents reportedly downloaded 84 movies, 40 software programs, 13 games and 178 "sound recordings" from the five hubs that made up the larger piracy group. The raids were organised under the umbrella of Operation Digital Gridlock which was aimed at fighting "criminal copyright theft on peer-to-peer networks". In total, six raids were carried out in August. Five were on the homes of suspected copyright thieves and one on a net service firm. The Department of Justice said that both men pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit felony copyright infringement. They also pleaded guilty to acting for commercial advantage. The two men are due to be sentenced on 29 April. 8 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_314.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Junk e-mails on relentless rise 2 | 3 | Spam traffic is up by 40%, putting the total amount of e-mail that is junk up to an astonishing 90%. 4 | 5 | The figures, from e-mail management firm Email Systems, will alarm firms attempting to cope with the amount of spam in their in-boxes. While virus traffic has slowed down, denial of service attacks are on the increase according to the firm. Virus mail accounts for just over 15% of all e-mail traffic analysis by the firm has found. 6 | 7 | It is no longer just multi-nationals that are in danger of so-called denial of service attacks, in which websites are bombarded by requests for information and rendered inaccessible. Email Systems refers to a small UK-based engineering firm, which received a staggering 12 million e-mails in January. The type of spam currently being sent has subtlety altered in the last few months, according to Email Systems analysis. Half of spam received since Christmas has been health-related with gambling and porn also on the increase. Scam mails, offering ways to make a quick buck, have declined by 40%. "January is clearly a month when consumers are less motivated to purchase financial products or put money into dubious financial opportunities," said Neil Hammerton, managing director of Email Systems. "Spammers seem to have adapted their output to reflect this, focussing instead on medically motivated and pornographic offers, presumably intentionally intended to coincide with what is traditionally considered to be the bleakest month in the calendar," he said. 8 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_317.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Sony PSP console hits US in March 2 | 3 | US gamers will be able to buy Sony's PlayStation Portable from 24 March, but there is no news of a Europe debut. 4 | 5 | The handheld console will go on sale for $250 (£132) and the first million sold will come with Spider-Man 2 on UMD, the disc format for the machine. Sony has billed the machine as the Walkman of the 21st Century and has sold more than 800,000 units in Japan. The console (12cm by 7.4cm) will play games, movies and music and also offers support for wireless gaming. Sony is entering a market which has been dominated by Nintendo for many years. 6 | 7 | It launched its DS handheld in Japan and the US last year and has sold 2.8 million units. Sony has said it wanted to launch the PSP in Europe at roughly the same time as the US, but gamers will now fear that the launch has been put back. Nintendo has said it will release the DS in Europe from 11 March. "It has gaming at its core, but it's not a gaming device. It's an entertainment device," said Kaz Hirai, president of Sony Computer Entertainment America. 8 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_324.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Apple attacked over sources row 2 | 3 | Civil liberties group the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has joined a legal fight between three US online journalists and Apple. 4 | 5 | Apple wants the reporters to reveal 20 sources used for stories which leaked information about forthcoming products, including the Mac Mini. The EFF, representing the reporters, has asked California's Superior court to stop Apple pursuing the sources. It argues that the journalists are protected by the American constitution. The EFF says the case threatens the basic freedoms of the press. 6 | 7 | Apple is particularly keen to find the source for information about an unreleased product code-named Asteroid and has asked the journalists' e-mail providers to hand over communications relevant to that. "Rather than confronting the issue of reporter's privilege head-on, Apple is going to the journalist's ISPs for his e-mails," said EFF lawyer Kurt Opsahl. "This undermines a fundamental First Amendment right that protects all reporters. "If the court lets Apple get away with this, and exposes the confidences gained by these reporters, potential confidential sources will be deterred from providing information to the media and the public will lose a vital outlet for independent news, analysis and commentary," he said. The case began in December 2004 when Apple asked a local Californian court to get the journalists to reveal their sources for articles published on websites AppleInsider.com and PowerPage.org. 8 | 9 | Apple also sent requested information from the Nfox.com, the internet service provider of PowerPage's publisher Jason O-Grady. As well as looking at how far corporations can go in preventing information from being published, the case will also examine whether online journalists have the same privileges and protections as those writing for newspapers and magazines. The EFF has gained some powerful allies in its legal battle with Apple, including Professor Tom Goldstein, former dean of the Journalism School at the University of California and Dan Gillmor, a well-known Silicon Valley journalist. Apple was not immediately available for comment. 10 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_326.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | DVD copy protection strengthened 2 | 3 | DVDs will be harder to copy thanks to new anti-piracy measures devised by copy protection firm Macrovision. 4 | 5 | The pirated DVD market is enormous because current copy protection was hacked more than five years ago. Macrovision says its new RipGuard technology will thwart most, but not all, of the current DVD ripping (copying) programs used to pirate DVDs. "RipGuard is designed to... reduce DVD ripping and the resulting supply of illegal peer to peer," said the firm. Macrovision said the new technology will work in "nearly all" current DVD players when applied to the discs, but it did not specify how many machines could have a problem with RipGuard. Some BBC News website users have expressed concerns that the new technology will mean that DVDs will not work on PCs running the operating system Linux. The new technology will be welcomed by Hollywood film studios which are increasingly relying on revenue from DVD sales. 6 | 7 | The film industry has stepped up efforts to fight DVD piracy in the last 12 months, taking legal action against websites which offer pirated copies of DVD movies for download. 8 | 9 | "Ultimately, we see RipGuard DVD... evolving beyond anti-piracy, and towards enablement of legitimate online transactions, interoperability in tomorrow's digital home, and the upcoming high-definition formats," said Steve Weinstein, executive vice president and general manager of Macrovision's Entertainment Technologies Group. Macrovision said RipGuard would also prevent against "rent, rip and return" - where people would rent a DVD, copy it and then return the original. RipGuard is expected to be rolled out on DVDs from the middle of 2005, the company said. The new system works specifically to block most ripping programs - if used, those programs will now most likely crash, the company said. Macrovision has said that Rip Guard can be updated if hackers find a way around the new anti-copying measures. 10 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_327.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Millions buy MP3 players in US 2 | 3 | One in 10 adult Americans - equivalent to 22 million people - owns an MP3 player, according to a survey. 4 | 5 | A study by the Pew Internet and American Life Project found that MP3 players are the gadget of choice among affluent young Americans. The survey did not interview teenagers but it is likely that millions of under-18s also have MP3 players. The American love affair with digital music players has been made possible as more and more homes get broadband. 6 | 7 | Of the 22 million Americans who own MP3 players, 59% are men compared to 41% of women. Those on high income - judged to be $75,000 (£39,000) or above - are four times more likely to have players than those earning less than $30, 000 ( £15,000). Broadband access plays a big part in ownership too. Almost a quarter of those with broadband at home have players, compared to 9% of those who have dial-up access. MP3 players are still the gadget of choice for younger adults. Almost one in five US citizens aged under 30 have one. This compares to 14% of those aged 30-39 and 14% of those aged 40-48. The influence of children also plays a part. Sixteen percent of parents living with children under 18 have digital players compared to 9% of those who don't. The ease of use and growth of music available on the net are the main factors for the upsurge in ownership, the survey found. People are beginning to use them as instruments of social activity - sharing songs and taking part in podcasting - the survey found. "IPods and MP3 players are becoming a mainstream technology for consumers" said Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Internet and American Life Project. "More growth in the market is inevitable as new devices become available, as new players enter the market, and as new social uses for iPods/MP3 players become popular," he added. 8 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_328.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Britons fed up with net service 2 | 3 | A survey conducted by PC Pro Magazine has revealed that many Britons are unhappy with their internet service. 4 | 5 | They are fed up with slow speeds, high prices and the level of customer service they receive. 17% of readers have switched suppliers and a further 16% are considering changing in the near future. It is particularly bad news for BT, the UK's biggest internet supplier, with almost three times as many people trying to leave as joining. 6 | 7 | A third of the 2,000 broadband users interviewed were fed up with their current providers but this could be just the tip of the iceberg thinks Tim Danton, editor of PC Pro Magazine. "We expect these figures to leap in 2005. Every month the prices drop, and more and more people are trying to switch," he said. The survey found that BT and Tiscali have been actively dissuading customers from leaving by offering them a lower price when they phone up to cancel their subscription. Some readers were offered a price drop just 25p more expensive than that offered by an alternative operator, making it hardly worth while swapping. 8 | 9 | Other found themselves tied into 12-month contracts. Broadband has become hugely competitive and providers are desperate to hold on to customers. 12% of those surveyed found themselves unable to swap at all. "We discovered a huge variety of problems, but one of the biggest issues is the current supplier withholding the information that people need to give to their new supplier," said Tim Danton, editor of PC Pro. "This breaks the code of practice, but because that code is voluntary there's nothing we or Ofcom can do to help," he said. There is a vast choice of internet service providers in the UK now and an often bewildering array of broadband packages. With prices set to drop even further in coming months Mr Danton advises everyone to shop around carefully. "If you just stick with your current connection then there's every chance you're being ripped off," he warned. 10 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_330.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | EU software patent law faces axe 2 | 3 | The European Parliament has thrown out a bill that would have allowed software to be patented. 4 | 5 | Politicians unanimously rejected the bill and now it must go through another round of consultation if it is to have a chance of becoming law. During consultation the software patents bill could be substantially re-drafted or even scrapped. The bill was backed by some hi-tech firms, saying they needed protections it offered to make research worthwhile. 6 | 7 | Hugo Lueders, European director for public policy at CompTIA, an umbrella organization for technology companies, said only when intellectual property was adequately protected would European inventors prosper. He said the benefits of the bill had been obscured by special interest groups which muddied debate over the rights and wrongs of software patents. Other proponents of the bill said it was a good compromise that avoided the excesses of the American system which allows the patenting of business practices as well as software. But opponents of the bill said that it could stifle innovation, be abused by firms keen to protect existing monopolies and could hamper the growth of the open source movement. The proposed law had a troubled passage through the European parliament. Its progress was delayed twice when Polish MEPs rejected plans to adopt it. Also earlier this month the influential European Legal Affairs Committee (JURI) said the law should be re-drafted after it failed to win the support of MEPs. To become law both the European Parliament and a qualified majority of EU states have to approve of the draft wording of the bill. The latest rejection means that now the bill on computer inventions must go back to the EU for re-consideration. 8 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_331.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | IBM puts cash behind Linux push 2 | 3 | IBM is spending $100m (£52m) over the next three years beefing up its commitment to Linux software. 4 | 5 | The cash injection will be used to help its customers use Linux on every type of device from handheld computers and phones right up to powerful servers. IBM said the money will fund a variety of technical, research and marketing initiatives to boost Linux use. IBM said it had taken the step in response to greater customer demand for the open source software. 6 | 7 | In 2004 IBM said it had seen double digit growth in the number of customers using Linux to help staff work together more closely. The money will be used to help this push towards greater collaboration and will add Linux-based elements to IBM's Workplace software. Workplace is a suite of programs and tools that allow workers to get at core business applications no matter what device they use to connect to corporate networks. One of the main focuses of the initiative will be to make it easier to use Linux-based desktop computers and mobile devices with Workplace. Even before IBM announced this latest spending boost it was one of the biggest advocates of the open source way of working. In 2001 it put $300m into a three-year Linux program and has produced Linux versions of many of its programs. Linux and the open source software movement are based on the premise that developers should be free to tinker with the core components of software programs. They reason that more open scrutiny of software produces better programs and fuels innovation. 8 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_333.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | US woman sues over ink cartridges 2 | 3 | A US woman is suing Hewlett Packard (HP), saying its printer ink cartridges are secretly programmed to expire on a certain date. 4 | 5 | The unnamed woman from Georgia says that a chip inside the cartridge tells the printer that it needs re-filling even when it does not. The lawsuit seeks to represent anyone in the US who has purchased an HP inkjet printer since February 2001. HP, the world's biggest printer firm, declined to comment on the lawsuit. HP ink cartridges use a chip technology to sense when they are low on ink and advise the user to make a change. 6 | 7 | But the suit claims the chips also shut down the cartridges at a predetermined date regardless of whether they are empty. "The smart chip is dually engineered to prematurely register ink depletion and to render a cartridge unusable through the use of a built-in expiration date that is not revealed to the consumer," the suit said. The lawsuit is asking for restitution, damages and other compensation. The cost of printer cartridges has been a contentious issue in Europe for the last 18 months. The price of inkjet printers has come down to as little as £34 but it could cost up to £1,700 in running costs over an 18-month period due to cartridge, a study by Computeractive Magazine revealed last year. The inkjet printer market has been the subject of an investigation by the UK's Office of Fair Trading (OFT), which concluded in a 2002 report that retailers and manufacturers needed to make pricing more transparent for consumers. 8 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_334.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Security warning over 'FBI virus' 2 | 3 | The US Federal Bureau of Investigation is warning that a computer virus is being spread via e-mails that purport to be from the FBI. 4 | 5 | The e-mails show that they have come from an fbi.gov address and tell recipients that they have accessed illegal websites. The messages warn that their internet use has been monitored by the FBI's Internet Fraud Complaint Center. An attachment in the e-mail contains the virus, the FBI said. The message asks recipients to click on the attachment and answer some questions about their internet use. But rather than being a questionnaire, the attachment contains a virus that infects the recipient's computer, according to the agency. It is not clear what the virus does once it has infected a computer. Users are warned never to open attachment from unsolicited e-mails or from people they do not know. 6 | 7 | "Recipients of this or similar solicitations should know that the FBI does not engage in the practice of sending unsolicited e-mails to the public in this manner," the FBI said in a statement. The bureau is investigating the phoney e-mails. The agency earlier this month shut down fbi.gov accounts, used to communicate with the public, because of a security breach. A spokeswoman said the two incidents appear to be unrelated. 8 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_339.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Hotspot users gain free net calls 2 | 3 | People using wireless net hotspots will soon be able to make free phone calls as well as surf the net. 4 | 5 | Wireless provider Broadreach and net telephony firm Skype are rolling out a service at 350 hotspots around the UK this week. Users will need a Skype account - downloadable for free - and they will then be able to make net calls via wi-fi without paying for net access. Skype allows people to make free PC-based calls to other Skype users. 6 | 7 | Users of the system can also make calls to landlines and mobiles for a fee. The system is gaining in popularity and now has 28 million users around the world. Its paid service - dubbed Skype Out - has so far attracted 940,000 users. It plans to add more paid services with forthcoming launches of video conferencing, voice mail and Skype In, a service which would allow users to receive phone calls from landlines and mobiles. London-based software developer Connectotel has unveiled software that will expand the SMS functions of Skype, allowing users to send text messages to mobile phones from the service. Broadreach Networks has around two million users and hotspots in places such as Virgin Megastores, the Travelodge chain of hotels and all London's major rail terminals. The company is due to launch wi-fi on Virgin Trains later in the year. "Skype's success at spreading the world about internet telephony is well-known and we are delighted to be offering free access to Skype users in our hotspots," commented Broadreach chief executive Magnus McEwen-King. 8 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_341.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Sony PSP tipped as a 'must-have' 2 | 3 | Sony's Playstation Portable is the top UK gadget for 2005, according to a round-up of ultimate gizmos compiled by Stuff Magazine. 4 | 5 | It beats the iPod into second place in the Top Ten Essentials list which predicts what gadget-lovers are likely to covet this year. Owning all 10 gadgets will set the gadget lover back £7,455. That is £1,000 cheaper than last year's list due to falling manufacturing costs making gadgets more affordable. 6 | 7 | Portable gadgets dominate the list, including Sharp's 902 3G mobile phone, the Pentax Optio SV digital camera and Samsung's Yepp YH-999 video jukebox. 8 | 9 | "What this year's Essentials shows is that gadgets are now cheaper, sexier and more indispensable than ever. We've got to the point where we can't live our lives without certain technology," said Adam Vaughan, editor of Stuff Essentials. The proliferation of gadgets in our homes is inexorably altering the role of the high street in our lives thinks Mr Vaughan. "Take digital cameras, who would now pay to develop an entire film of photos? Or legitimate downloads, who would travel miles to a record shop when they could download the song in minutes for 70p?" he asks. Next year will see a new set of technologies capturing the imaginations of gadget lovers, Stuff predicts. The Xbox 2, high-definition TV and MP3 mobiles will be among the list of must-haves that will dominate 2006, it says. The spring launch of the PSP in the UK is eagerly awaited by gaming fans. 10 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_343.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Ultra fast wi-fi nears completion 2 | 3 | Ultra high speed wi-fi connections moved closer to reality on Thursday when Intel said it would list standards for the technology later this year. 4 | 5 | Intel is developing ultra-wideband technology (UWB) which would allow fast data transfer but with low power needs. UWB is tipped to be used for wireless transfer of video in the home or office and for use in wireless USB devices which need low power consumption. A rival UWB standard is being developed by Motorola and chip firm Freescale. At the mobile phone conference 3GSM in Cannes last month Samsung demonstrated a phone using UWB technology from Freescale. 6 | 7 | At a press conference on Thursday Intel announced that two UWB groups, WiMedia Alliance and Multi-band OFDM alliance had merged to support the technology. UWB makes it possible to stream huge amounts of data through the air over short distances. One of the more likely uses of UWB is to make it possible to send DVD quality video images wirelessly to TV screens or to let people beam music to media players around their home. 8 | 9 | The technology has the potential to transmit hundreds of megabits of data per second. "Consumer electronics companies want UWB to replace cables and simplify set-up," Jeff Ravencraft, technology strategist at Intel and chairman of the Wireless USB Promoter Group, told technology site ZDNet. "Thirty percent of consumer electronics returns are because the consumer couldn't set up the equipment." The first products using UWB technology from Intel are due to hit the market later this year. Initially they will be products using wireless USB 2.0 connections. UWB could also be used to create so-called Personal Area Networks that let a person's gadgets quickly and easily swap data amongst themselves. The technology works over a range up to 10 metres and uses billions of short radio pulses every second to carry data. Intel says the benefit of UWB is that it does not interfere with other wi-fi technologies already in use such as wi-fi, wimax and mobile phone networks. 10 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_344.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Virgin Radio offers 3G broadcast 2 | 3 | UK broadcaster Virgin Radio says it will become the first station in the world to offer radio via 3G mobiles. 4 | 5 | The radio station, in partnership with technology firm Sydus, will broadcast on selected 2G and high-speed 3G networks. Later this year listeners will be able to download software from the Virgin website which enables the service. James Cridland, head of new media at Virgin Radio, said: "It places radio at the heart of the 3G revolution." Virgin Radio will be the first station made available followed by two digital stations, Virgin Radio Classic Rock and Virgin Radio Groove. 6 | 7 | Mr Cridland said: "This application will enable anyone, anywhere to listen to Virgin Radio simply with the phone in their pocket. "This allows us to tap into a huge new audience and keep radio relevant for a new generation of listeners." Saumil Nanavati, president of Sydus, said, "This radio player is what the 3G network was built for, giving consumers high-quality and high-data products through a handset in their pocket." Virgin says an hour's listening to the station via mobile would involve about 7.2MB of data, which could prove expensive for people using pay as you download GPRS or 3G services. Some networks, such as Orange, charge up to £1 for every one megabyte of data downloaded. Virgin says radio via 2G or 3G mobiles is therefore going to appeal to people with unlimited download deals. There are 30 compatible handsets available from major manufacturers including Nokia and Samsung while Virgin said more than 14.9 million consumers across the globe can use the service currently. 8 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_345.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | More movies head to Sony's PSP 2 | 3 | Movies Open Water and Saw are among those to be made available for Sony's PSP games console. 4 | 5 | Film studio Lions Gate entertainment has announced an initial list of 12 movies that will be on the UMD format used by the handheld. "The typical buyer of the machine [is] the core demographic to whom our films generally appeal," said Steve Beeks, president of Lions Gate. Already available in Japan, the PSP is released in the US on 24 March. Spider-Man 2 on UMD will be given to the first million customers in the US. 6 | 7 | The Punisher and House of the Dead along with older titles such as Total Recall and Rambo: First Blood, will be in the UMD format, with disks costing between $20 (£10.40) to $30 (£15.60) for new titles and $10 (£5.20) to $20 for older films. 8 | 9 | "When we first saw the machine and started talking to Sony, we immediately decided it was going to be a winner, both from the gaming perspective and from the perspective of people watching movies on the go," Mr Beeks said. The disks, which are smaller than DVDs, only work in Sony's PSP and can hold up to 1.8GB of data. "We actually believe people who buy the UMD would not have bought it on DVD," he said. "There are people who will want UMD because of the portability. Maybe they're already taking the games with them out of the house, and they're bigger gamers than they are movie watchers." Four movies have already been announced for PSP. They are: XXX, Hellboy, Resident Evil: Apocalypse and Once Upon a Time in Mexico. 10 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_352.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Slow start to speedy net services 2 | 3 | Faster broadband in the UK is becoming a reality as more internet providers offer super-fast services. 4 | 5 | Some lucky Britons can already take advantage of UK Online's 8 megabits per second service, which was launched in November 2004. BT Retail has announced that it will trial the same speed service, with a national rollout by year end. Other service providers are expected to follow suit and a glut of new voice and video services will follow. 6 | 7 | "If the bandwidth is there then ISPs will buy it," said Jill Finger, a research director at analyst firm IDC. Others will be watching BT Retail's trials, which is initially for employees and later in the summer for customers, with interest. For BT Retail, she said, the super-fast service could be a way of differentiating it from other players. "It has been losing market share and this could be one way of gaining some of that back," said Ms Finger. Wanadoo is set to trial an 8Mbps service in the summer and also plans to roll out unbundled services - which means it takes over the network from BT - which will provide speeds of up to 15Mbps. There is no timetable for this at the moment. Cable firms ntl and Telewest are also bound to increase bandwidth at some time in the future and, according to an ntl spokesman, are in a better position than BT in the long term. "BT's network is limited compared to that of cable. With all the other services coming on stream such as video on demand, the question is will 8Mbps be enough?" he asked. 8 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_372.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Text message record smashed again 2 | 3 | UK mobile owners continue to break records with their text messaging, with latest figures showing that 26 billion texts were sent in total in 2004. 4 | 5 | The figures collected by the Mobile Data Association (MDA) showed that 2.4 billion were fired off in December alone, the highest monthly total ever. That was 26% more than in December 2003. The records even surpassed the MDA's own predictions, it said. Every day 78 million messages are sent and there are no signs of a slow down. Before December's bumper text record, the previous highest monthly total was in October 2004, when 2.3 billion were sent. Text messaging is set to smash more records in 2005 too, said the MDA, with forecasts suggesting a total of 30 billion for the year. 6 | 7 | Even though mobiles are becoming increasingly sophisticated with much more multimedia applications, texting is still one of the most useful functions of mobiles. People are using SMS to do much more too. Booking cinema tickets, text voting, and news or sports text alerts are growing popular. Mobile owners have also given the chance to donate to the Disasters Emergency Committee's (DEC) Asian Tsunami fund by texting "Donate" to a simple short code number. Looking further ahead in the year, the MDA's chairman Mike Short, has predicted that more people will go online through their mobiles, estimating 15 billion WAP page impressions. Handsets with GPRS capability - an "always on" net connection - will rise to 75%, while 3G mobile ownership growing to five million by the end of 2005. These third generation mobiles offer a high-speed connection which means more data like video can be received on the phone. Globally, mobile phone sales passed 167 million in the third quarter of 2004, according to a recent report from analysts Gartner. That was 26% more than the previous year. It is predicted that there would be two billion handsets in use worldwide by the end of 2005. 8 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_374.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Commodore finds new lease of life 2 | 3 | The once-famous Commodore computer brand could be resurrected after being bought by a US-based digital music distributor. 4 | 5 | New owner Yeahronimo Media Ventures has not ruled out the possibility of a new breed of Commodore computers. It also plans to develop a "worldwide entertainment concept" with the brand, although details are not yet known. The groundbreaking Commodore 64 computer elicits fond memories for those who owned one back in the 1980s. 6 | 7 | In the chronology of home computing, Commodore was one of the pioneers. 8 | 9 | The Commodore 64, launched in 1982, was one of the first affordable home PCs. It was followed a few years later by the Amiga. The Commodore 64 sold more than any other single computer system, even to this day. The brand languished somewhat in the 1990s. Commodore International filed for bankruptcy in 1994 and was sold to Dutch firm Tulip Computers. In the late 1980s the firm was a great rival to Atari, which produced its own range of home computers and is now a brand of video games, formerly known as Infogrames. 10 | 11 | Tulip Computers sold several products under the Commodore name, including portable USB storage devices and digital music players. It had planned to relaunch the brand, following an upsurge of nostalgia for 1980s-era games. Commodore 64 enthusiasts have written emulators for Windows PC, Apple Mac and even PDAs so that the original Commodore games can be still run. The sale of Commodore is expected to be complete in three weeks in a deal worth over £17m. 12 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_377.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | California sets fines for spyware 2 | 3 | The makers of computer programs that secretly spy on what people do with their home PCs could face hefty fines in California. 4 | 5 | From 1 January, a new law is being introduced to protect computer users from software known as spyware. The legislation, which was approved by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, is designed to safeguard people from hackers and help protect their personal information. Spyware is considered by computer experts to be one of the biggest nuisance and security threats facing PC users in the coming year. The software buries itself in computers and can collect a wide range of information. At its worst, it has the ability to hijack personal data, like passwords, login details and credit card numbers. The programs are so sophisticated they change frequently and become impossible to eradicate. 6 | 7 | One form of spyware called adware has the ability to collect information on a computer user's web-surfing. It can result in people being bombarded with pop-up ads that are hard to close. In Washington, Congress has been debating four anti-spyware bills, but California is a step ahead. The state's Consumer Protection Against Spyware Act bans the installation of software that takes control of another computer. It also requires companies and websites to disclose whether their systems will install spyware. Consumers are able to seek up to $1,000 in damages if they think they have fallen victim to the intrusive software. The new law marks a continuing trend in California towards tougher privacy rights. A recent survey by Earthlink and Webroot found that 90% of PCs are infested with the surreptitious software and that, on average, each one is harbouring 28 separate spyware programs. Currently users wanting protection from spyware have turned to free programs such as Spybot and Ad-Aware. 8 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_380.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Sun offers processing by the hour 2 | 3 | Sun Microsystems has launched a pay-as-you-go service which will allow customers requiring huge computing power to rent it by the hour. 4 | 5 | Sun Grid costs users $1 (53p) for an hour's worth of processing and storage power on systems maintained by Sun. So-called grid computing is the latest buzz phrase in a company which believes that computing capacity is as important a commodity as hardware and software. Sun likened grid computing to the development of electricity. 6 | 7 | The system could mature in the same way utilities such as electricity and water have developed, said Sun's chief operating officer Jonathan Schwartz. "Why build your own grid when you can use ours for a buck an hour?" he asked in a webcast launching Sun's quarterly Network Computing event in California. The company will have to persuade data centre managers to adopt a new model but it said it already had interest from customers in the oil, gas and financial services industries. 8 | 9 | Some of them want to book computing capacity of more than 5,000 processors each, Sun said. Mr Schwartz ran a demonstration of the service, showing how data could be processed in a protein folding experiment. Hundreds of servers were used simultaneously, working on the problem for a few seconds each. 10 | 11 | Although it only took a few seconds, the experiment cost $12 (£6.30) because it had used up 12 hours' worth of computing power. The Sun Grid relies on Solaris, the operating system owned by Sun. Initially it will house the grid in existing premises and will use idle servers to test software before shipping it to customers. It has not said how much the system will cost to develop but it already has a rival in IBM, which argues that its capacity on-demand service is cheaper than that offered by Sun. 12 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_385.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Beckham virus spotted on the net 2 | 3 | Virus writers are trading on interest in David Beckham to distribute their malicious wares. 4 | 5 | Messages are circulating widely that purport to have evidence of the England captain in a compromising position. But anyone visiting the website mentioned in the message will not see pictures of Mr Beckham but will have their computer infected by a virus. The pernicious program opens a backdoor on a computer so it can be controlled remotely by malicious hackers. 6 | 7 | The appearance of the Beckham Windows trojan is just another example in a long line of viruses that trade on interest in celebrities in an attempt to fuel their spread. Tennis player Anna Kournikova, popstars Britney Spears and Avril Lavigne as well as Arnold Schwarzenegger have all been used in the past to try to con people into opening infected files. The huge amount of interest in Mr Beckham and his private life and the large number of messages posted to discussion groups on the net might mean that the malicious program catches a lot of people out. "The public's appetite for salacious gossip about the private life of the Beckhams might lead some into an unpleasant computer infection," said Graham Cluley from anti-virus firm Sophos. Simply opening the message will not infect a user's PC. But anyone visiting the website it mentions who then downloads and opens the fake image file stored on that site will be infected. The program that installs itself is called the Hackarmy trojan and it tries to recruit PCs into so-called 'bot networks that are often used to distribute spam mail messages or to launch attacks across the web. Computers running Microsoft Windows 95, 98, 2000, NT and XP are vulnerable to this trojan. Many anti-virus programs have been able to detect this trojan since it first appeared early this year and have regularly been updated to catch new variants. 8 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_387.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Progress on new internet domains 2 | 3 | By early 2005 the net could have two new domain names. 4 | 5 | The .post and .travel net domains have been given preliminary approval by the net's administrative body. The names are just two of a total of 10 proposed domains that are being considered by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, Icann. The other proposed names include a domain for pornography, Asia, mobile phones, an anti-spam domain and one for the Catalan language and culture. 6 | 7 | The .post domain is backed by the Universal Postal Union that wants to use it as the online marker for every type of postal service and to help co-ordinate the e-commerce efforts of national post offices. 8 | 9 | The .travel domain would be used by hotels, travel firms, airlines, tourism offices and would help such organisations distinguish themselves online. It is backed by a New York-based trade group called The Travel Partnership. Icann said its early decision on the two domains was in response to the detailed technical and commercial information the organisations behind the names had submitted. Despite this initial approval, Icann cautioned that there was no guarantee that the domains would actually go into service. At the same time Icann is considering proposals for another eight domains. One that may not win approval is a proposal to set up a .xxx domain for pornographic websites. A similar proposal has been made many times in the past. But Icann has been reluctant to approve it because of the difficulty of making pornographers sign up and use it. In 2000 Icann approved seven other new domains that have had varying degrees of success. Three of the new so-called top level domains were for specific industries or organisations such as .museum and .aero. Others such as .info and .biz were intended to be more generic. In total there are in excess of 200 domain names and the majority of these are for nations. But domains that end in the .com suffix are by far the most numerous. 10 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_390.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Anti-spam laws bite spammer hard 2 | 3 | The net's self-declared spam king is seeking bankruptcy protection. 4 | 5 | Scott Richter, the man behind OptInRealBig.com and billions of junk mail messages, said lawsuits had forced the company into Chapter 11. OptInRealBig was fighting several legal battles, most notably against Microsoft, which is pushing for millions of dollars in damages. The company said filing for Chapter 11 would help it try to resolve its legal problems but still keep trading. 6 | 7 | Listed as the third biggest spammer in the world by junk mail watchdog Spamhaus, OptInRealBig was sued in December 2003 for sending mail messages that violated anti-spam laws. The lawsuit was brought by Microsoft and New York attorney general Eliot Spitzer who alleged that Mr Richter and his accomplices sent billions of spam messages through 514 compromised net addresses in 35 countries. According to Microsoft the messages were sent via net addresses owned by the Kuwait Ministries of Communication and Finance, several Korean schools, the Seoul Municipal Boramae Hospital, and the Virginia Community College System. Mr Richter settled the attorney general case in July 2004 but the legal fight with Microsoft is continuing. Microsoft is seeking millions in dollars in damages from OptInRealBig under anti-spam laws that impose penalties for every violation. In a statement announcing the desire to seek bankruptcy protection the company said it: "could not continue to contend with legal maneuvers (sic) by a number of companies across the country, including Microsoft, and still run a viable business." In its Chapter 11 filing OptInRealBig claimed it had assets of less than $10m (£5.29m) but debts of more than $50m which included the $46m that Microsoft is seeking via its lawsuit. "The litigation has been a relentless distraction with which to contend," said Steven Richter, legal counsel for OptInRealBig. "But, make no mistake, we do expect to prevail." For its part OptInRealBig describes itself as a premier internet marketing company and said the move to seek Chapter 11 was necessary to let it keep trading while sorting out its legal battles. 8 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /data/bbc/tech/tech_392.txt: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Broadband fuels online expression 2 | 3 | Fast web access is encouraging more people to express themselves online, research suggests. 4 | 5 | A quarter of broadband users in Britain regularly upload content and have personal sites, according to a report by UK think-tank Demos. It said that having an always-on, fast connection is changing the way people use the internet. More than five million households in the UK have broadband and that number is growing fast. 6 | 7 | The Demos report looked at the impact of broadband on people's net habits. It found that more than half of those with broadband logged on to the web before breakfast. One in five even admitted to getting up in the middle of the night to browse the web. 8 | 9 | More significantly, argues the report, broadband is encouraging people to take a more active role online. It found that one in five post something on the net everyday, ranging from comments or opinions on sites to uploading photographs. "Broadband is putting the 'me' in media as it shifts power from institutions and into the hands of the individual," said John Craig, co-author of the Demos report. "From self-diagnosis to online education, broadband creates social innovation that moves the debate beyond simple questions of access and speed." The Demos report, entitled Broadband Britain: The End Of Asymmetry?, was commissioned by net provider AOL. "Broadband is moving the perception of the internet as a piece of technology to an integral part of home life in the UK," said Karen Thomson, Chief Executive of AOL UK, "with many people spending time on their computers as automatically as they might switch on the television or radio." According to analysts Nielsen//NetRatings, more than 50% of the 22.8 million UK net users regularly accessing the web from home each month are logging on at high speed They spend twice as long online than people on dial-up connections, viewing an average of 1,444 pages per month. The popularity of fast net access is growing, partly fuelled by fierce competition over prices and services. 10 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /examples/bbc_demo.py: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | #!/usr/bin/env python3 2 | """Run hierarchical LDA on the included BBC tech dataset.""" 3 | 4 | import argparse 5 | import os 6 | 7 | from scripts.run_hlda import run_hlda 8 | 9 | 10 | def main(): 11 | parser = argparse.ArgumentParser( 12 | description=("Run hierarchical LDA on the BBC tech dataset"), 13 | ) 14 | parser.add_argument( 15 | "--data-dir", 16 | default=os.path.join( 17 | os.path.dirname(__file__), 18 | "..", 19 | "data", 20 | "bbc", 21 | "tech", 22 | ), 23 | help="Directory containing BBC .txt files", 24 | ) 25 | parser.add_argument( 26 | "--iterations", 27 | type=int, 28 | default=100, 29 | help="Number of Gibbs samples", 30 | ) 31 | parser.add_argument( 32 | "--display-topics", 33 | type=int, 34 | default=50, 35 | help="Report topics every N iterations", 36 | ) 37 | parser.add_argument( 38 | "--n-words", 39 | type=int, 40 | default=5, 41 | help="Number of words to display per topic", 42 | ) 43 | parser.add_argument( 44 | "--num-levels", 45 | type=int, 46 | default=3, 47 | help="Depth of the topic hierarchy", 48 | ) 49 | parser.add_argument( 50 | "--alpha", 51 | type=float, 52 | default=10.0, 53 | help="Alpha hyperparameter", 54 | ) 55 | parser.add_argument( 56 | "--gamma", 57 | type=float, 58 | default=1.0, 59 | help="Gamma hyperparameter", 60 | ) 61 | parser.add_argument( 62 | "--eta", 63 | type=float, 64 | default=0.1, 65 | help="Eta hyperparameter", 66 | ) 67 | parser.add_argument( 68 | "--seed", 69 | type=int, 70 | default=0, 71 | help="Random seed", 72 | ) 73 | 74 | args = parser.parse_args() 75 | run_hlda(args) 76 | 77 | 78 | if __name__ == "__main__": 79 | main() 80 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /pyproject.toml: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | [tool.poetry] 2 | name = "hlda" 3 | version = "0.4" 4 | description = "Gibbs sampler for the Hierarchical Latent Dirichlet Allocation topic model." 5 | authors = ["Joe Wandy "] 6 | license = "MIT" 7 | readme = "README.md" 8 | homepage = "https://github.com/joewandy/hlda" 9 | keywords = ["topic modelling", "hierarchical lda"] 10 | classifiers = [ 11 | "License :: OSI Approved :: MIT License", 12 | "Operating System :: OS Independent" 13 | ] 14 | packages = [{include = "hlda", from = "src"}] 15 | 16 | [tool.poetry.scripts] 17 | hlda-run = "scripts.run_hlda:main" 18 | 19 | [tool.poetry.dependencies] 20 | python = ">=3.11,<3.13" 21 | numpy = "^2.2.6" 22 | pandas = "^2.2.3" 23 | matplotlib = "^3.10.3" 24 | seaborn = "^0.13.2" 25 | tqdm = "^4.67.1" 26 | scikit-learn = "^1.5.0" 27 | 28 | [tool.poetry.group.dev.dependencies] 29 | jupyterlab = "^4.4.3" 30 | ipywidgets = "^8.1.7" 31 | flake8 = "^7.2.0" 32 | autopep8 = "^2.3.2" 33 | pytest = "^8.4.0" 34 | pytest-cov = "^6.1.1" 35 | mkdocs = "^1.6.1" 36 | mkdocstrings = "^0.29.1" 37 | black = "^25.1.0" 38 | pre-commit = "^3.7.0" 39 | 40 | [tool.setuptools_scm] 41 | 42 | [build-system] 43 | requires = ["poetry-core>=1.0.0"] 44 | build-backend = "poetry.core.masonry.api" 45 | 46 | [tool.black] 47 | line-length = 99 48 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /scripts/__init__.py: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/joewandy/hlda/886c590c5e6f94eb59ba6b0b96fcbb56f45e18df/scripts/__init__.py -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /src/hlda/__init__.py: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | __version__ = "0.4" 2 | 3 | from .sampler import HierarchicalLDA 4 | from .sklearn_wrapper import HierarchicalLDAEstimator 5 | 6 | __all__ = ["HierarchicalLDA", "HierarchicalLDAEstimator"] 7 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /tests/test_bbc_demo.py: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | import argparse 2 | import os 3 | import sys 4 | from importlib import import_module 5 | 6 | ROOT = os.path.abspath(os.path.join(os.path.dirname(__file__), "..")) 7 | sys.path.insert(0, ROOT) 8 | sys.path.insert(0, os.path.join(ROOT, "src")) 9 | 10 | run_hlda = import_module("scripts.run_hlda") 11 | 12 | BBC_DIR = os.path.join(ROOT, "data", "bbc", "tech") 13 | 14 | 15 | def test_bbc_demo_deterministic(): 16 | args = argparse.Namespace( 17 | data_dir=BBC_DIR, 18 | iterations=2, 19 | display_topics=2, 20 | n_words=3, 21 | num_levels=3, 22 | alpha=10.0, 23 | gamma=1.0, 24 | eta=0.1, 25 | seed=0, 26 | ) 27 | hlda = run_hlda.run_hlda(args) 28 | assert hlda.root_node.total_nodes == 17 29 | assert hlda.root_node.customers == 401 30 | assert hlda.num_documents == 401 31 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /tests/test_export_tree_json.py: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | import argparse 2 | import json 3 | import os 4 | import sys 5 | from importlib import import_module 6 | 7 | ROOT = os.path.abspath(os.path.join(os.path.dirname(__file__), "..")) 8 | sys.path.insert(0, ROOT) 9 | sys.path.insert(0, os.path.join(ROOT, "src")) 10 | 11 | run_hlda = import_module("scripts.run_hlda") 12 | 13 | 14 | def test_export_tree(tmp_path): 15 | (tmp_path / "doc1.txt").write_text("First document about cats.") 16 | (tmp_path / "doc2.txt").write_text("Second document about dogs.") 17 | 18 | output_file = tmp_path / "tree.json" 19 | args = argparse.Namespace( 20 | data_dir=str(tmp_path), 21 | iterations=1, 22 | display_topics=1, 23 | n_words=2, 24 | num_levels=3, 25 | alpha=1.0, 26 | gamma=1.0, 27 | eta=0.1, 28 | seed=0, 29 | export_tree=str(output_file), 30 | ) 31 | 32 | run_hlda.run_hlda(args) 33 | data = json.loads(output_file.read_text()) 34 | 35 | assert data["level"] == 0 36 | assert isinstance(data["children"], list) 37 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /tests/test_run_hlda_utils.py: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | import os 2 | import sys 3 | from importlib import import_module 4 | 5 | ROOT = os.path.abspath(os.path.join(os.path.dirname(__file__), "..")) 6 | sys.path.insert(0, ROOT) 7 | sys.path.insert(0, os.path.join(ROOT, "src")) 8 | 9 | run_hlda = import_module("scripts.run_hlda") 10 | 11 | 12 | def test_load_documents(tmp_path): 13 | (tmp_path / "doc1.txt").write_text( 14 | "This is the first document. Hello world!" 15 | ) 16 | (tmp_path / "doc2.txt").write_text( 17 | "Second document: world is big and bright." 18 | ) 19 | 20 | corpus = run_hlda.load_documents(str(tmp_path)) 21 | assert corpus == [ 22 | ["first", "document", "hello", "world"], 23 | ["second", "document", "world", "big", "bright"], 24 | ] 25 | 26 | 27 | def test_build_vocab(): 28 | corpus = [ 29 | ["first", "document", "hello", "world"], 30 | ["second", "document", "world", "big", "bright"], 31 | ] 32 | 33 | vocab, index = run_hlda.build_vocab(corpus) 34 | expected_vocab = [ 35 | "big", 36 | "bright", 37 | "document", 38 | "first", 39 | "hello", 40 | "second", 41 | "world", 42 | ] 43 | expected_index = {w: i for i, w in enumerate(expected_vocab)} 44 | assert vocab == expected_vocab 45 | assert index == expected_index 46 | 47 | 48 | def test_convert_corpus(): 49 | corpus = [ 50 | ["first", "document", "hello", "world"], 51 | ["second", "document", "world", "big", "bright"], 52 | ] 53 | 54 | vocab, index = run_hlda.build_vocab(corpus) 55 | int_corpus = run_hlda.convert_corpus(corpus, index) 56 | expected = [ 57 | [index[w] for w in corpus[0]], 58 | [index[w] for w in corpus[1]], 59 | ] 60 | assert int_corpus == expected 61 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /tests/test_sampler_io.py: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | import os 2 | import sys 3 | import csv 4 | from importlib import import_module 5 | 6 | ROOT = os.path.abspath(os.path.join(os.path.dirname(__file__), "..")) 7 | sys.path.insert(0, ROOT) 8 | sys.path.insert(0, os.path.join(ROOT, "src")) 9 | 10 | sampler = import_module("hlda.sampler") 11 | 12 | 13 | def test_load_vocab(tmp_path): 14 | vocab_file = tmp_path / "vocab.csv" 15 | with open(vocab_file, "w", encoding="utf-8", newline="") as f: 16 | writer = csv.writer(f) 17 | writer.writerow([0, " hello"]) 18 | writer.writerow([1, " world "]) 19 | 20 | vocab = sampler.load_vocab(str(vocab_file)) 21 | 22 | assert vocab == ["hello", "world"] 23 | 24 | 25 | def test_load_corpus(tmp_path): 26 | corpus_file = tmp_path / "corpus.csv" 27 | with open(corpus_file, "w", encoding="utf-8", newline="") as f: 28 | writer = csv.writer(f) 29 | writer.writerow(["0 hello", "1 world"]) 30 | writer.writerow(["1 world", "0 hello "]) 31 | 32 | corpus = sampler.load_corpus(str(corpus_file)) 33 | 34 | assert corpus == [[0, 1], [1, 0]] 35 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /tests/test_sklearn_wrapper.py: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | import numpy as np 2 | from importlib import import_module 3 | from sklearn.feature_extraction.text import CountVectorizer 4 | from sklearn.preprocessing import FunctionTransformer 5 | from sklearn.pipeline import Pipeline 6 | 7 | 8 | HierarchicalLDAEstimator = import_module( 9 | "hlda.sklearn_wrapper" 10 | ).HierarchicalLDAEstimator # noqa: E501 11 | 12 | 13 | def _prepare_input(vectorizer): 14 | def _transform(X): 15 | if hasattr(X, "toarray"): 16 | arr = X.toarray() 17 | else: 18 | arr = np.asarray(X) 19 | corpus = [] 20 | for row in arr: 21 | doc = [] 22 | for idx, count in enumerate(row): 23 | doc.extend([idx] * int(count)) 24 | corpus.append(doc) 25 | vocab = list(vectorizer.get_feature_names_out()) 26 | return corpus, vocab 27 | 28 | return _transform 29 | 30 | 31 | def test_pipeline_fit_transform(): 32 | docs = [ 33 | "apple orange banana", 34 | "apple orange", 35 | "banana banana orange", 36 | ] 37 | 38 | vectorizer = CountVectorizer() 39 | hlda = HierarchicalLDAEstimator( 40 | num_levels=2, 41 | iterations=1, 42 | seed=0, 43 | verbose=False, 44 | ) 45 | 46 | pipeline = Pipeline( 47 | [ 48 | ("vect", vectorizer), 49 | ( 50 | "prep", 51 | FunctionTransformer( 52 | _prepare_input(vectorizer), 53 | validate=False, 54 | ), 55 | ), 56 | ("hlda", hlda), 57 | ] 58 | ) 59 | 60 | pipeline.fit(docs) 61 | result = pipeline.transform(docs) 62 | 63 | assert result.shape[0] == len(docs) 64 | assert isinstance(result[0], (int, np.integer)) 65 | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------