Sky blocks access to The Pirate Bay file-sharing site

Sky Broadband has begun blocking access to file-sharing site The Pirate Bay. It follows Virgin Media and Everything Everywhere which have already taken similar action. The High Court had demanded the move after complaints by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) that TPB facilitated copyright infringement by providing magnetic links to movies, music and other media. O2 and Talktalk said they were still working to implement the ban. A sixth operator, BT, has been given extra time to make the necessary arrangements. It is expected to act within the next fortnight.

Deadlines

A statement from Sky said: "We have invested billions of pounds in high-quality entertainment for our customers because we know how much our customers value it. It's therefore important that companies like ours do what they can, alongside the government and the rest of the media and technology industries, to help protect their copyright." A spokesman noted that it had acted ahead of a 1 June deadline. This is the second court order of its kind that Sky has complied with following its block on Newzbin 2 in December. The High Court issued different time limits to the different ISPs. O2 has until 13 June to act, by which time it said it would block access to TPB's main site as well as other IP addresses that the BPI successfully claimed had been set up to enable access to the service. However, the Torrentfreak news site has reported that TPB has since set up a new IP address giving access to its contents. It added the site was willing to play "an extended game of whack-a-mole" in which it would publicise new locations every time the courts ordered one of its addresses to be blocked. A spokesman for the BPI said it was working with ISPs and the courts to ensure that existing orders were effective, but would not comment on whether it would seek to block further addresses.

Pornography

Meanwhile, O2 is set to return to the High Court on Thursday for a hearing into a separate copyright complaint. A judge will hear evidence in a dispute with Golden Eye International, a limited company which trades as Ben Dover Productions making pornographic films. In March the firm won an order demanding O2 release details of thousands of its customers whose IP addresses it said had been linked to illegal downloads of Ben Dover's films. At the time O2 said it had no option but to "co-operate fully". The hearing is for the court to "approve the form of a letter" that Golden Eye wishes to send to its customers. "In our first letter we seek to find out more information regarding evidence of an infringement of our copyright," Julian Becker, director of Golden Eye explained. "Depending on the response to our letters we will then decide our next action. "Fundamentally we are pursuing those that are uploading not downloading. In effect these violations are unauthorised distribution, we are not pursuing those who have simply downloaded one film." Mr Becker added that he was awaiting guidance from the court as to how much compensation his firm could seek. Golden Eye previously said it wanted £700 for each infringement - a sum watchdog Consumer Focus described as "unsupportable". 

Supervolcanoes 'can grow in just hundreds of years'

The largest volcanoes on our planet may take as little as a few hundred years to form and erupt. These "supervolcanoes" were thought to exist for as much as 200,000 years before releasing their vast underground pools of molten rock. Researchers reporting in Plos One have sampled the rock at the supervolcano site of Long Valley in California. Their findings suggest that the magma pool beneath it erupted within as little as hundreds of years of forming. That eruption is estimated to have happened about 760,000 years ago, and would have covered half of North America in its ash. Such super-eruptions can release thousands of cubic kilometres of debris - hundreds of times larger than any eruption seen in the history of humanity. Eruptions on this scale could release enough ash to influence the global weather for years, and one theory holds that the Lake Toba eruption in Indonesia about 70,000 years ago had long-term effects that nearly wiped out humans altogether. What little is known about the formation of these supervolcanoes is largely based on the study of crystals of a material called zircon, which contains small amounts of radioactive elements whose age can be estimated using the same techniques used to date archaeological artefacts and dinosaur bones. 

Zircon studies to date have suggested that the time between the formation of the enormous magma pools and the eventual super-eruptions can be measured in the hundreds of thousands of years. Now, Guilherme Gualda of Vanderbilt University and his colleagues present several lines of evidence from the Bishop Tuff deposit at Long Valley, suggesting that the pools are "ephemeral" - lasting as little as 500 years before eruption. Initially, the magma pools are nearly purely liquid rock, with few bubbles or re-crystallised minerals. Over time, crystals develop, but the process stops at the point of the eruption. As a result, the characteristic development time of these crystals can also give an estimate of how long a magma pool existed before erupting. Rather than zircon, the team's target was crystals of the common mineral quartz. Because the processes and timescales of quartz formation in the extraordinary underground conditions of a magma pool are well-known, the team was able to determine how long the crystals were forming within Long Valley's supervolcano before being spewed out in the eruption. Their estimates suggest the quartz formed over a range of time between 500 and 3,000 years. "Our study suggests that when these exceptionally large magma pools form they are ephemeral and cannot exist very long without erupting," said Dr Gualda. "The fact that the process of magma body formation occurs in historical time, instead of geological time, completely changes the nature of the problem." At present, geologists do not believe that any of Earth's known giant magma pools are in imminent danger of eruption, but the results suggest future work to better understand how the pools develop, and aim ultimately to predict devastating super-eruptions.

Andy Coulson charged in Tommy Sheridan trial perjury inquiry

Prime Minister David Cameron's former director of communications Andy Coulson has been arrested by police and charged with perjury. Mr Coulson, 44, has now been released, after being detained at his London home at 06:30 BST by Strathclyde Police. He arrived at a police station in Glasgow shortly before 15:30 BST. Mr Coulson was formally arrested on Wednesday evening as part of an investigation into evidence at the trial of former MSP Tommy Sheridan. He left the police station at 21.30 BST on Wednesday evening. A Crown Office spokesman said there was no legal obligation for Coulson to stay in Scotland, and he was free to return to his home in London. The spokesman said no date had been set for any court appearance. Earlier, a police spokeswoman said: "Officers from Strathclyde Police's Operation Rubicon team detained a 44-year-old man in London this morning under section 14 of the Criminal Procedure Scotland Act 1995 on suspicion of committing perjury before the High Court in Glasgow." Mr Coulson gave evidence at the perjury trial of former Scottish Socialist MSP Tommy Sheridan in 2010.

Sheridan was awarded £200,000 in damages from the News of the World in 2006 after it printed allegations that he had committed adultery and visited a swingers' club. After the court action, the former MSP and his wife Gail were charged with perjury. She was acquitted during the subsequent trial but Mr Sheridan was convicted in December 2010. He has since been freed after serving just over a year of a three-year sentence. Mr Coulson was called to give evidence at Sheridan's trial as he was editor of the News of the World between 2003 and 2007. During heated exchanges with Sheridan, who represented himself at the trial, Mr Coulson denied being involved in, or aware of, any illegal activities, including phone hacking. At the time of his two-day appearance, he was employed as Prime Minister David Cameron's director of communications. Mr Coulson resigned from that post in January 2011, saying coverage of the News of the World phone hacking scandal had "made it difficult to give the 110% needed in this role". In July 2011, he was arrested by Metropolitan Police investigating the News of the World hacking scandal and later released on bail.

Samsung's Music Hub Service Brings 19 Million Songs to the Galaxy S III

Samsung on Tuesday followed up the launch of the Galaxy S III in Europe with its own smartphone music service that allows users to store music in the cloud and stream it for a monthly fee. The music service is dubbed Music Hub and will initially only be available on the Galaxy S III in Germany, Spain, Italy, France and the U.K., but will "soon" be offered on a wider selection of devices, Samsung said in a press release. 

Users will be able to buy albums and songs in the Music Hub Store. The purchased music is stored in the cloud, can be accessed from different devices and could also be stored locally for offline listening, the company said. The store offers 19 million songs provided by 7digital, a digital media delivery company that has also provided music delivery services to Sony, Hewlett-Packard and Research in Motion among others. Samsung will offer a subscription service that allows users to stream all the available songs for $16 per month, Samsung said. Paying users are allowed to upload their entire music collection to the service and are also able to access a discovery feature that generates radio stations based on artist preferences, the company added. To reduce upload time Samsung uses a technology called Scan & Match that scans if a song is already available in the library. Only unmatched songs are uploaded, allowing users to listen to rare versions of the songs they have collected, Samsung said.

Music Hub users can also access their library on a PC through a Web player at musichub.com. The service has no advertising and offers unlimited plays, Samsung said, adding that people can search for music, create playlists, share songs and view lyrics and album information. The technology for the service is provided by the wholly-owned Samsung Electronics subsidiary mSpot, which was acquired by the company in 2012. MSpot also runs white-label streaming services for Sprint, AT&T and Verizon. Samsung is not the first smartphone manufacturer to offer a music service to its customers. Apple's iTunes predated the iPhone, and it introduced its iTunes Match service last September, allowing $25-a-year subscribers to match their own music collection with the 20 million songs available in the library. The music is stored in the cloud and users are allowed to download the songs to ten devices including Windows PCs, Macs and iOS devices. Microsoft also integrated its Zune music platform into Windows Phone in 2010, allowing users paid access to millions of songs and videos and making them available on PCs and the Xbox. The Zune syncing services are comparable to Apple's and Samsung's sharing of music via the cloud.

Other comparable music services that are not tied to a smartphone manufacturer are available in some countries. A service like Spotify offers to stream more than 15 million songs to computers and smartphones for $10 a month, and also syncs music libraries to the service. Apple has been able to successfully offer streaming media by integrating it across all of its devices, according to Giles Cottle, principal analyst at Informa Telecoms & Media. This is something Samsung cannot offer at the moment, he said. "The most glaring sign of this is that its Smart TVs and smartphones are still built on completely different operating systems, making true convergence almost impossible," he said in an email.Without a good cross-device experience, Music Hub will "simply be another paid-subscription and cloud music service in a market that is already starting to feel more than a little crowded," he added.

Chrome OS Update Adds Traditional Desktop Feel

Google's Chrome OS may be all about the Web, but the latest version of the search giant's operating system adds a traditional desktop look to Chromebooks including features familiar to any PC user. Instead of having one monolithic browser window with an endless number of tabs, Chrome OS has a new window manager that lets you open multiple windows at once. You can also snap a window to each side of the screen to view two separate windows at once similar to the Aero Snap feature in Windows 7. At the bottom of the screen, the new Chrome OS features a Windows-style taskbar for pinning favorite apps, accessing a list of all your apps, and a system status area off to the right. You can also change the background image and customize the app launcher with the new Chrome OS look. Users and developers got their first taste of Chrome OS' new desktop feel, codenamed Aura, in April through Google's developer update channel. Aura is now rolling out on new Chromebooks such as the recently launched Chromebook Series 5 550 (starting at $450) and Mac Mini-like Chromebox ($330), both from Samsung. Chromebooks are apparently finding at least a small user base with schools looking to distribute cheap PCs to students, but Google's Web-centric laptops have not caught on with regular users in any significant way. At first glance, Chrome OS makes a lot of sense for almost anyone looking for a secondary PC. 

The average person uses their computer largely to get online and check e-mail, update Facebook, watch videos, and create the odd document. Chrome OS can handle all of these tasks and Google is promising more enhancements such as offline Google Docs editing in the coming weeks. But dig a little deeper and you'll find that you can't access full-powered photo and video editing tools, or store more than 16GB worth of data on the device's puny SSD. 

Yes, there are online alternatives, but many are still not good enough to match up with their desktop equivalents. As Chromebook Series 5 review, finding Chrome OS alternatives to powerful desktop apps can often feel like a hunt for workarounds. Until Chrome OS can solve that fundamental problem, Google may have a hard time winning over users. Even with its new desktop feel.

Apple to Double Down on Secrecy as Alleged New iPhone Design Leaked

Apple CEO Tim Cook said the company would increase secrecy of the products in its pipeline, a speech that occurred on the same day alleged designs of the iPhone 5 were leaked online. Speaking at the D10: All Things Digital conference, Cook said: “We’re going to double down on secrecy on products.” Meanwhile, online photos of what appear to be parts of the next-generation iPhone were published by 9To5Mac. Could it be a coincidence that Cook gave his speech on the same day the photos were leaked? Absolutely. After all, it wouldn’t be the first time we have seen alleged parts of a future iPhone that turn out to be wildly off-base when the real product arrives. It’s just that the photos of the purported iPhone 5 casings obtained by 9To5Mac match many of the tipped changes for the next-generation Apple smartphone, expected later this year. They show a greatly reduced dock connector at the bottom, redesigned speaker grills and the headphone jack relocated to the bottom left of the phone -- a first for Apple’s phones. An additional opening between the camera lens and the LED flash can be observed, which 9To5Mac speculates could be where the secondary microphone (used for noise reduction since the iPhone 4) was moved in order to allow for better audio capture during voice recordings. More strikingly, the back of the pictured phone has a large metal plate that could be made of Liquid metal, a material Apple purchased exclusive rights to and is already using for the SIM ejector tool. The antenna band seems to be molded into the metal backplates and the top and bottom of the device still appear covered in glass, probably to allow for better signal reception. The original iPhone had a metal back, but subsequent iterations used plastic and then glass. What about that bigger screen? Well, the photos don’t reveal much about that, if they actually depict an iPhone 5 prototype casing. It appears the parts have the same width as the current iPhone 4S, but it’s taller, which is in keeping with recent reports that Apple is looking to increase the phone’s height in order to accommodate a 4-inch screen and 4G LTE connectivity (along with a bigger battery).

How to Edit Office Documents on Your Tablet

Can a tablet replace your business laptop? Probably, if you're willing to load it up with the right apps. If you’re considering carrying an iPad or Android device around instead of your laptop, you're most likely concerned about sacrificing the functionality of a full PC--especially the office software that allows you to view and edit documents. Choosing the right tablet for your business needs can be tough; fortunately, no matter what tablet you buy, you can find excellent apps for both iPad and Android that duplicate the functionality of popular document-editing software packages such as Microsoft Office. This guide will help you select an editing app and get started in editing documents on your tablet.

Try the Rest, Then Buy the Best: Quickoffice Pro HD

Although iPad or Android tablet users can try any of the apps created for phones (check out our guide to editing documents on your smartphone for recommendations), one application is designed with tablets in mind: Quickoffice Pro HD ($20, for Android and iPad). Quickoffice provides a plethora of tools for working with documents, spreadsheets, and presentations, as well as the extraordinarily convenient option to sync documents with cloud hosting services such as Dropbox automatically. Getting started with these syncing services in Quickoffice is as simple as tapping the '+' icon in the bottom-left corner of the iPad or the '+cloud' icon in the top-right corner of the Android interface, and entering the credentials for the service of your choice. You’ll need to log in only once. After setting up Dropbox or another service, you can browse it from the left-hand menu to find a document to edit, or just create a new document using the '+document' icon in the toolbar. 

Though the app gives you a choice between Office 97-2003 and Office 2007-10 formats, you should stick to the newer versions (namely, the 2007-10 .docx, .xlsx, and .pptx formats) unless you have some reason not to. Once you’ve finished editing documents and you're ready to share them, this same interface allows you to send them via email (using the dedicated email button on the toolbar) or upload them to any of several popular social hosts (using the button directly adjacent). This is a great way to work on documents with colleagues who use different platforms (PC/Mac/Linux): You can share documents on a service such as Evernote, collect the edits, and then republish the edited documents in a Microsoft Office-friendly format. Edits are easy to make, too, because Quick office’s text editor is straightforward and uncluttered, with Bold/Italic/Underline, Undo/Redo, Search, Print (using something like Cloud Print for Android), and Formatting options available along the toolbar. You can input, cut, and paste text by tapping or dragging anywhere inside the main interface. If that's too troublesome for you, and you own an Android tablet, consider investing in a good Bluetooth keyboard. 

Usually you can find a good one for under $50, but be sure to see our guide toAndroid Bluetooth tablet keyboards for more information and buying advice. The spreadsheet editor is much the same, with an extra option added to the toolbar to insert new rows. You can resize or copy cells by tapping or dragging anywhere within the main interface, just as in the document editor. Clicking within the function bar brings up an elegant function-search wizard that allows you to input Excel-style functions manually, or to choose any of several common functions from a menu. The presentation editor also has few surprises; the usual text formatting and undo options are right where they always are. In addition, the butterfly menu in the top-right corner allows you to insert text, shapes, or photos into a presentation, and the play icon lets you see your presentation in action. As always, you can drag images around a slide, and you can long-press to cut and paste.

Other Editing Options

A free alternative to Quickoffice on Android is the official Google Docs app. Even though it’s simple enough to use--virtually all of the menu items get you to a list of your online documents, and from there it’s just one more click to Google’s famously bare-bones editor--it doesn’t permit you to work on any documents that you haven’t already uploaded to Google. Neither, unfortunately, does it let you export or email any documents in Word or Excel format, the way that the full desktop interface does; you may only invite other Google users to edit them (via the Invite pop-up menu). For this reason, the Google Docs app is a bit of a niche choice, though if your colleagues are amenable to the Docs interface, it helps that this app is free. iPad users might wish to use Apple’s own iWork suite of office software, consisting of Pages, Numbers, and Keynote. At $10 each, these apps aren’t cheap (particularly since they lack the Dropbox support of Documents To Go or Quickoffice), but on the roomy screen of the iPad, they’re a great option for working with image-heavy documents, or in other cases where layout is especially important. No matter what app you choose to use, it's easier than ever to leave your heavy laptop at home and get work done on your tablet anywhere you can access the Internet. Enjoy!

Royal wedding difficult without Diana, Prince William says

The Duke of Cambridge has said it was "very difficult" not to have his late mother at his wedding. Interviewed by US TV network ABC, Prince William agreed he had "missed" Princess Diana at Westminster Abbey. "It's the one time since she's died, where I've… thought to myself it would be fantastic if she was here," he said. Meanwhile, Buckingham Palace has announced the prince has been made a Royal Knight of the Order of the Thistle, Scotland's highest honour. William and his brother Prince Harry were both interviewed by ABC's Katie Couric for a documentary to coincide with the Queen's Diamond Jubilee. William was 15 and Harry 12 when their mother died in a car crash in Paris in August 1997. Asked about his April 2011 wedding, Prince William said he thought it was "just how sad really for her, more than anything, not being able to see it... I think she would have loved the day". He added: "I sort of prepared myself beforehand so that... I was sort of mentally prepared so I didn't want any wobbly lips or anything going on," he said. He said he hoped Diana would have been "very proud" of both Harry and himself on the day he married Kate Middleton. He added: "I'm just very sad that she's never going to get a chance to meet Kate." Interviewed separately for the Jubilee Queen documentary, Prince Harry agreed it was "hard" that Diana was not at the wedding. "I think she had the best seat in the house probably," he said. "She would have loved to be there."

'Very honoured'

On the subject of the Queen, Harry said his grandmother was someone who is "really very very normal, very relaxed. "She obviously takes a huge interest in what we all do... she wants to know which charities we are supporting, how life is going in our jobs as such." A St James's Palace spokesman said the Duke of Cambridge, who has the Scottish title the Earl of Strathearn and is already a Knight of the Garter, was "very honoured" to be made a Royal Knight of the Thistle. The accolade is second only in precedence in the UK to the Order of the Garter and is given after a personal decision by the Queen. The spokesman added: "It's his 30th birthday this year and also the Diamond Jubilee and the Queen felt it was an appropriate time to bestow the honour." William will be formally installed as a Royal Knight of the Thistle in July during the Queen's official week-long residence at the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh. The Duke of Edinburgh, Prince of Wales and Princess Royal have all received the same honour in the past. In London, the Duke of Cambridge's wife, Kate, attended her first Buckingham Palace garden party alongside the Queen, the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall. She wore a soft pink dress by designer Emilia Wickstead, with matching Jane Corbett hat. It was the second garden party to be held at the palace so far this year and was attended by 8,000 guests. 

Julian Assange loses extradition appeal at Supreme Court

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has lost his UK Supreme Court fight against extradition to Sweden to face accusations of sex offences. The judgement was reached by a majority of five to two, the court's president, Lord Phillips, told the hearing. The court ruled the extradition request had been "lawfully made". However, Mr Assange's lawyers have 14 days to consider the ruling before a final decision is made, leaving the possibility the case could be reheard. Dinah Rose QC, for Mr Assange, said an application would be made to reopen the case at the Supreme Court on the basis that its majority decision was made on legal points not argued during the appeal. Mr Assange, who has been on conditional bail in the UK, did not attend the hearing in central London. His lawyer later told reporters he was "stuck in traffic". The 40-year-old Australian is accused of raping one woman and "sexually molesting and coercing" another in Stockholm in August 2010, but he claims the allegations against him are politically motivated. Mr Assange's lawyers had asked the court to block his removal, arguing that a European arrest warrant issued against him was "invalid and unenforceable".

'Judicial authority'

The key legal question for the seven judges was whether the prosecutor who issued the arrest warrant had the judicial authority to do so under provisions of the 2003 Extradition Act. Lord Phillips, announcing the decision during a televised hearing at the UK's highest court, said the warrant had been issued in a way that was lawful. He said that five of the seven justices disagreed with Mr Assange when he had argued that the Swedish prosecutor behind the warrant could not, in legal terms, be considered a proper "judicial authority". This point of law had not been simple to resolve, said Lord Phillips. Ms Rose argued the ruling was unfair, telling the court that it appeared the case had been decided on a specific issue that had not been argued in court. She said the justices' decision to reject the appeal relied on a 1969 convention relating to how treaties should be implemented. But, she said, this convention had not been raised during the appeal - and therefore Mr Assange had been denied the right to respond to it. The application to reopen the case could be dismissed on paper, or another hearing could be held, legal expert Joshua Rozenberg told the BBC. Mr Assange's Wikileaks website published material from leaked diplomatic cables embarrassing several governments. 

Apple App Store Downloads Sink in April

Downloads from Apple's App Store declined in April as the cost of landing loyal users increased, according to Fisku, an app ranking firm located in Boston. Daily downloads of the top 200 free apps in Apple's App Store dropped by 4.9 percent to 4.23 million, down from 4.45 million in March, Fiscus reported Tuesday. 

The decline comes a month after Apple celebrated breaking the 25 billion mark in app downloads at the store. At the same time, the cost to app developers to corral loyal users climbed 12.3 percent in April to $1.46, from $1.30 in March. According to Fiscus CEO Micah Alder, the April decline wasn't surprising. "April’s continued downward trajectory of app downloads was expected, as no major events sparked discovery during the month," he said in a statement. “Additionally," he added, "app marketers continued to scale back their use of robotic install tactics in response to Apple’s policy on third-party marketing services."

In February, Apple cautioned developers they could get kicked off the iOS gravy train if they used third-party marketers to manipulate their app's ranking at the App Store. Apple's action was aimed at the deployment of "bot farms" and "water armies" to propel an app into the Top 25 rankings by using paid mobs of users to download the software and give it positive reviews. As downloads declined in April, spending on marketing began to rise, Alder noted. "[W]e observed more aggressive advertising spending as marketers moved out of the first quarter lull and began to seek new opportunities to compete for rank especially in the dynamic social networking and games categories, which experienced volatility during the month," he said. Heating up developers' interest in social networking apps was Facebook's eye-popping purchase of Instagram for a billion dollars, the Fiscus report noted. "Additionally, a number of new gaming apps hit the market in April, driving fiercer competition in the popular games category and increased interest from the developer community at large," it added.

Samsung's Blue Galaxy S III Delayed in White iPhone Moment

Samsung delayed its "Pebble Blue" version of the Galaxy S III smartphone for at least two to three weeks, citing issues with meeting its own quality standards. The Galaxy S III is scheduled to ship in 28 countries across Europe and the Middle East this week, but as AndroidCentral noted, many retailers list the blue version as out of stock or on backorder with no release date given. These retailers are selling the white Galaxy S III as planned. In a statement, Samsung alluded to problems with the Galaxy S III's “newly invented blue” color and “special hyperglaze material” on the back of the handset. “In order to meet the highest internal quality standards and to provide the best quality Galaxy S III to customers, a short supply of Pebble Blue version is expected in some regions in the next 2-3 weeks,” the company said. Although Samsung didn't get into specifics, VentureBeat points to a Galaxy S III review by Mobile Bulgaria that shows discolored blotches on the phone's back panel. An unconfirmed report from Tweakers.net claimed that Samsung has already destroyed hundreds of thousands of rear casings as it adjusts its production process. The delay is reminiscent of Apple's troubles with the white iPhone 4, which shipped 10 months after the black model. Hopefully Samsung's issues with the Pebble Blue Galaxy S III won't take so long to correct. Not that it matters for U.S. consumers. Wireless carriers here still haven't announced their plans for the Galaxy S III, though TmoNews has claimed that T-Mobile will offer the blue version on June 20, and the white model on July 11. Given the problems Samsung is facing with its Pebble Blue back panels, U.S. consumers might have to wait even longer.

Dell Introduces Three New All-in-One PCs

Dell has rolled out a new set of all-in-one PCs including a new addition to the XPS lineup for those who want an Apple iMac without actually buying an iMac. The new Windows PCs boast all the features you would expect of a new desktop all-in-one including Ivy Bridge third-generation Intel Core processors, loads of RAM and hard drive space and big, beautiful screens. But if you're looking forward to touch-friendly Windows 8 later this year, you might want to stay away from these PCs as Dell didn't say one word about touch with its new crop of all-in-ones.

XPS One 27

Leading the way in Dell's new lineup is the XPS One 27 featuring a 27-inch WLED display with Quad HD 2560-by-1440 resolution. The desktop computer also features a Core i5 or i7 Ivy Bridge processor, 4GB DDR3 RAM, 1TB hard drive, DVD drive (optional Blu-ray upgrade), HD Webcam, Bluetooth 4.0, Wi-Fi, 4 x USB 3.0, 2 x USB 2.0, HDMI in and out, 8-in-1 media card reader, and Windows 7 Home Premium. The XPS One 27 will be priced at $1,400 at launch.

Inspiron One 23 and 20

Two new Inspiron all-in-ones are also headed to Dell. The Inspiron 23 features a second-generation Sandy Bridge Core i3, i5 or i7 processor, a 23-inch WLED display with 1080p HD resolution, 2GB DDR3 RAM, and a 500 GB hard drive. Similar to the XPS One 27, the Inspiron One 23 also features a DVD drive (optional Blu-ray upgrade), 4 x USB 3.0, 2 x USB 2.0, Bluetooth 4.0, Wi-Fi, HDMI in, an 8-in-1 media card reader, HD Webcam and Windows 7 Home Premium. The Inspiron One 20 is rocking an Intel Pentium dual-core or Sandy Bridge Core i3 processor, 20-inch WLED display with 1600-by-900 resolution, 2GB DDR3 RAM, a 500GB hard drive, DVD drive (optional Blu-ray upgrade), HD Webcam, 5 x USB 2.0, Bluetooth 4.0, Wi-Fi, an 8-in-1 media card reader and Windows 7 Home Premium. The Inspiron One 23 and Inspiron One 20 are priced at $750 and $530, respectively.

Facebook Phone: Why Facebook May Join the Effort to Own Your Digital Soul

This is the year of owning it all in the tech industry. After years of speculation, major tech companies including Apple, Google, and Microsoft are finishing up their ecosystems that tie your music, photos, videos and documents to digital devices deeply integrated with online storage and sync. Not wanting to be left out of the party, Facebook may soon be vying for a piece of that end-to-end dream with a Facebook-branded smartphone. Mobile computing is becoming increasingly important as users turn toward tablets and smartphones for everyday computing. Facebook said that as of late April an average of 500 million people access the social network through mobile devices every month. With so many mobile users, Facebook needs a strong mobile presence. Facebook is worried that if it doesn’t make its own smartphone the social network will be just another app forced to exist on third-party mobile platforms, according to The New York Times.

The problem with depending on third-party mobile platforms such as Android, iOS, or Windows Phone is you have to play by the rules set out by Google, Apple, and Microsoft. Facebook can’t, for example, offer purchases using Facebook credits on its iOS apps. To get around this issue Facebook was rumored to be working on an HTML 5-based application platform for mobile devices codenamed Project Spartan, and the social network’s newly announced App Center may be the beginning of that plan. But owning your own smartphone solution, if you can convince people to buy into it, is even better than relying on the Web. If you own the hardware, you can shape the consumer experience the way you want it to be -- and shut the other guys out.

So Facebook may be getting down to work on a potential smartphone. We’ve already seen some signs of this such as Facebook breaking down its mobile presence into three apps: core social networking with Facebook, photo sharing with Facebook Camera, and messaging with Facebook Messenger. And who knows? Perhaps the future will also see more apps such as Facebook Contacts, Facebook Events, or Facebook Video. The company is also busy hiring people with experience building smartphone hardware, according to the Times. There are also rumors that Facebook is looking to purchase the Opera Web browser, giving the company another important piece for a future smartphone. While Facebook purportedly scrambles to make a device, other companies are almost finished rolling out their solutions. Google embeds its numerous online services into the Android mobile OS, and is making a play for PCs with Chrome OS. Apple is using its new online sync and storage solution, iCloud, to complete its end-to-end offering that includes mega popular mobile devices including the iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch. 

Microsoft’s Windows 8 for PCs and tablets, expected later in 2012, will include the Metro-style, touch-friendly interface and feature Hotmail, SkyDrive and Bing baked right in. The rumored Windows Phone 8, codenamed Apollo, is also expected to feature deep integration with Windows 8. Then, there are the dark horse candidates also hoping to convert users to their ecosystems such as Lenovo and Acer. Lenovo wants to provide personal cloud storage and sync tied into smartphones, tablets, PCs and televisions. Acer launched AcerCloud, an iCloud-style sync service that shares music, photos, videos and documents between devices. Both companies announced their plans during the Consumer Electronics Show in January, but have yet to prove they are viable candidates.

With so many end-to-end platforms out there already is there even room for a Facebook phone?

Who was Peter Carl Faberge?

The doodle on the Google home page on Wednesday honours Peter Carl Faberge on his 166th birthday. Faberge was a renowned Russian jeweller best known for his ornate Easter eggs that he created for the last two generationns of the Russian imperial family - he Romanovs. Born on May 30, 1846 in St. Petersburg, Peter Carl Fabergé honed his jewellery skills in Germany, France and England and later joined his father's business in 1870. He won the gold medal at the 1882 Pan-Russian Exhibition in Moscow and this feat got his achievement noticed in Russia. In 1885 he was appointed as the court jeweller of the Romanov Dynasty, and the work that he did for the last two Czars that earned him worldwide fame. Peter Carl Faberge was a renowned Russian jeweller best known for his ornate Imperial Easter eggs.

The Russian royals presented exquisite Easter gifts as part of a long running tradiution. Fabergé was asked to make his first Easter egg by Czar Alexander III in 1885 which the Czar gifted to his Danish wife Empress Maria Feodorovna. The first egg contained a jewelled hen. Quite like today's much awaited electronic gadgets, the design of each of Peter Carl Fabergé's Easter eggs was a closely guarded secret before it was officially handed over to the royal family. During the reign of Alexander III, Fabergé made one Easter egg every year. Following the death of his father when Nicolas II ascended to the Russian throne in 1894, Fabergé made two eggs - one for the current Czar's mother Maria Feodorovna and another for the Czarina Alexandra Feodorovna. 

The Easter egg tradition continued (with a brief pause during the Russo-Japanese War 1904-1905) till the October Revolution of 1917 that overthrew monarchy in Russia and established a communist government that soon seized Fabergé's assets, including his company. Fabergé fled to Switzerland where he died in exile on September 24, 1920. About three-and-a-half years ago nine of these world famous eggs were in India and were on display at New Delhi's National Museum from late December 2008 to mid-January 2009. The nine Imperial Easter Eggs were valued at $26 million and included the much-celebrated Coronation Easter Egg from 1897. June 1935: Richly decorated and highly-ornate Faberge eggs, embellished with gold and precious stones, pictured as part of a Russian Art exhibition. 

Flame: Massive cyber-attack discovered, researchers say

A complex targeted cyber-attack that collected private data from countries such as Israel and Iran has been uncovered, researchers have said. Russian security firm Kaspersky Labs told the BBC they believed the malware, known as Flame, had been operating since August 2010. The company said it believed the attack was state-sponsored, but could not be sure of its exact origins. They described Flame as "one of the most complex threats ever discovered". Research into the attack was carried out in conjunction with the UN's International Telecommunication Union. They had been investigating another malware threat, known as Wiper, which was reportedly deleting data on machines in western Asia. In the past, targeted malware - such as Stuxnet - has targeted nuclear infrastructure in Iran. Others like Duqu have sought to infiltrate networks in order to steal data. This new threat appears not to cause physical damage, but to collect huge amounts of sensitive information, said Kaspersky's chief malware expert Vitaly Kamluk. "Once a system is infected, Flame begins a complex set of operations, including sniffing the network traffic, taking screenshots, recording audio conversations, intercepting the keyboard, and so on," he said. More than 600 specific targets were hit, Mr Kamluk said, ranging from individuals, businesses, academic institutions and government systems. Iran's National Computer Emergency Response Team posted a security alert stating that it believed Flame was responsible for "recent incidents of mass data loss" in the country. The malware code itself is 20MB in size - making it some 20 times larger than the Stuxnet virus. The researchers said it could take several years to analyse.

EU fishing reforms face weakening

European governments are backsliding on commitments to make fishing sustainable, campaigners are warning. Talks on Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) reform are seeing important changes in moves to eliminate discards, reduce fishing fleets and rebuild fish stocks. The original aim of repopulating stocks by 2015 is facing a five-year delay. About three-quarters of European stocks are overfished, and studies show fishermen would have a more prosperous future by curbing catches now. The main battle line pits more conservation-minded northern countries such as Germany and Sweden against southern states keener to protect fishermen's' short-term interests, including Spain, Portugal and France. "The question is very basic - do EU fisheries ministers have the courage to end overfishing or not?" said Markus Knigge, advisor to the Pew Environment Group. The original CFP reform proposal put forward by European Fisheries Commissioner Maria Damanaki last year contained three key elements:

• ·         restore all fish stocks to maximum sustainable yield (MSY) by 2015
• ·    reduce and regulate the size of the EU's fishing fleet through an internal trading mechanism
• ·         eliminate the wasteful practice of discarding fish that are outside a boat's quota.

Governments have been negotiating on Ms Damanaki's proposal ever since, with the aim of finalising a package by next year.

Trading schemes

The trading mechanism, known as Individual Transferable Quotas, saw considerable opposition and will almost certainly not happen. Instead, each member state will take responsibility for managing the size of its own fleet. The final agreement is likely to include a mechanism for sanctioning countries that do not make adequate arrangements. This is raising alarm bells with some environment groups, who point out that many EU nations have proven unwilling to manage their fleets in the past. Agreeing decentralised, regional management was a priority for the UK, which has successfully reduced capacity in its own fleets. Campaigners were alarmed by rumours of a backroom deal under which France would support the UK on decentralisation if the UK backed French moves to water down the discard ban. But Richard Benyon, the UK Fisheries Minister, said that was not the case. "We have asked France to join with us in our proposal on regionalisation - it's been adopted by Scandinavian and other northern European states and we want France to be part of it too," he told BBC News. "They did canvas opinion about a proposal that would have watered down the discards policy, and we said we wouldn't be part of that." However, Mr Benyon said there were complexities with achieving a complete discard ban that were not always appreciated by campaigners. This is especially true in areas such as the North Sea, where a number of fish species live together and boats cannot altogether avoid catching ones they are not targeting. "There are certain pelagic stocks where we can have a discard ban tomorrow, and there are mixed fisheries where more detailed work is needed," he said. This "detailed work" is a combination of selective fishing equipment, smart regulations on issues such as fishing areas and times at sea, and a financial package that allows caught fish to be utilised without giving skippers an incentive to catch outside their quota. But Mr Benyon said a complete discard ban would be achieved in UK waters in "a very short period of time". He also said the UK supported the inclusion of an aim to ban discards in the CFP's basic rules. Some countries have been arguing that discard regulations should be delegated to long-term "recovery plans" covering individual species or locations. Environment groups argue this would entail a major watering down of the headline commitment.

Taking stock

The issue arousing most concern is slippage in the commitment to rebuild stocks to maximum sustainable yield (MSY) by 2015. Maximum sustainable yield is a target for the size of a stock. It is the level that gives fishermen the biggest annual catch they can have without depleting the stock. Under the latest draft negotiating text, governments would "aim to ensure that exploitation of living marine biological resources" rebuilds stocks to MSY "by 2015, for all stocks where possible, and by 2020 at the latest". In 2002, all governments of the world pledged to restore stocks to MSY "with the aim of achieving these goals for depleted stocks on an urgent basis and where possible not later than 2015". European ministers are arguing that the words "where possible" mean they are entitled to water down the 2015 commitment. However, environment groups argue that the words were included only to allow poorer developing nations time to gather the data needed to set an MSY target. In addition, some EU governments are arguing that they should target a different measure, known as FMSY. This is the amount of catch that could be taken sustainably if stocks were at MSY levels. But some ministers argue their fishermen should be allowed to catch at FMSY rates even on stocks that have not been replenished, and that this constitutes sustainable management. Next month the Danish government hosts a key session of environment ministers at which it plans to secure a show-of-hands agreement on major elements of the package. The European Commission says ministers must preserve pillars of the original proposal if they want to bring meaningful change. "We need firm dates for MSY, and we need a firm and effective discard ban as part of the basic rules," said Ms Damanaki.

Rare Martian Pink diamond at auction in Hong Kong

A rare pink diamond is expected to fetch at least $8m (£5m) when it goes under the hammer in Hong Kong.

The Martian Pink diamond is about 12 carats in size. Pink diamonds as large as this are extremely rare.

The gem was named by famed American jeweller Ronald Winston in 1976, the same year the US sent a satellite to Mars.

The most famous pink diamond in the world belongs to Queen Elizabeth II.

The Williamson Pink was given to the British queen for her wedding in 1947 - the cut, 23.6-carat round stone was later set in a brooch.

The Martian Pink is estimated to be worth $8-12m, says Christie's auction house.

It is the largest round fancy intense pink diamond to ever go under the hammer, says Christie's.