Monday 14 December 2009

Track Google Phone

Yahoo! says that on an official Google blog, vice president of product management Mario Queroz said that Google employees are using "a device that combines innovative hardware from a partner with software that runs on Android," but that this phone is "exclusively for Google employees," not for consumers.
TechCrunch says that a new phone "will be called the Google Phone" and will be sold directly by Google, independently of any wireless carrier. The phone itself is being built by HTC, with a lot of input from Google. It seems to be a tailored version of the HTC Passion or the related HD2.
PC World says that an image on the Android Dveloper site is apparently the HTC-made successor to the Android Dev Phone 1, and is already in the hands of select Google employees.Back in November Michael Arrington of TechCrunch reported we would see a super-powered, Google-branded phone in early 2010. Arrington's reports appear to be getting some serious confirmation as Google employees are twee
The ADP 2 now appears on Google's Android Developer Site.ting they're testing new devices running Android 2.1.
The new phone on Google's site shows a Bravo-like HTC model labeled ADP 2 alongside the Android Dev Phone 1. Google offers no information about the ADP 2 on the site -- just the image -- but tweets indicate the phone Google staff is playing with is also a GSM-unlocked phone.
-----------------------
FACTS:
1. GOOGLE began in 1996 when US students Larry Page and Sergey Brin devised a plan to make a search engine that ranked websites according to the number of other websites linked to that site. In 2004, Google launched Google Earth – a detailed map of the earth based on satellite imagery.
2. Android is a mobile operating system running on the Linux kernel. It was initially developed by Android Inc., a firm later purchased by Google, and lately by the Open Handset Alliance.It allows developers to write managed code in the Java language, controlling the device via Google-developed Java libraries.

The unveiling of the Android distribution on 5 November 2007 was announced with the founding of the Open Handset Alliance, a consortium of 47 hardware, software, and telecom companies devoted to advancing open standards for mobile devices.Google released most of the Android code under the Apache License, a free software and open source license. (from WIKI)

Friday 15 May 2009

Google suffers major failure

This entry reference from "By Sharon Gaudin May 14, 2009 01:12 PM ET's Blog" as link below.
Let see the latest Google Fail case, then reference from the former cases that I collected here...

Various Google Apps start kicking back in after widespread outage this morning

The Internet was abuzz with reports of widespread trouble with Google Inc.'s Google Apps service this morning.

Google Search and Google News performance slowed to a crawl, while an outage seemed to spread from Gmail to Google Maps and Google Reader. Comments about the failure were flying on Twitter, and "googlefail" quickly became one of the most-searched terms on the popular microblogging site.

By around noon Eastern time, the outages had started clearing up.

"We're aware some users are having trouble accessing some Google services," said a Google spokesman in an e-mail to Computerworld. "We're looking into it, and we'll update everyone soon."

When the outage began, many users turned to Twitter to vent their frustrations and to look for information.

"Google isn't down, it's engaging in mortal combat with Wolfram Alpha," wrote one Twitterer this morning, referring to a highly anticipated new search engine. Another said, "So Google goes down and the Internet almost stops and Google becomes most talked about thing on the net today. Yahoo anyone???"

Twitter users also were quick to begin reporting that the trouble was clearing up. "Google is back and I've stopped twitching," said one Tweet.

Ezra Gottheil, an analyst at Technology Business Research, said this kind of outage is going to be tough on Google.

"As far as I can tell, all of Google, or at least the big pieces, went down," he said. "This is bad news for Google's efforts to build up Apps, and to a lesser extent, Gmail, as critical business tools. It also undermines the entire category of hosted applications. If the mighty Google can stumble, then who can be trusted?"

In February, Google's Gmail had a highly publicized two-and-a-half-hour outage.

That February outage came just a week after Google acknowledged that some users had experienced problems getting results from Google News searches over a span of more than 14 hours. Some users reported that they weren't getting any results when searching for keywords, such as Microsoft and even Google, in Google News. Other users reported that entire news sections, such as Science/Technology, were coming up empty of stories.

And last December, Google confirmed that there was a technical problem with Google Talk and the Web-based Gmail chat system. One day early in the month, messages created by a "subset" of users were left unsent because of glitches in the messaging system, according to Google spokesman Andrew Kovacs.

The scope of today's outage isn't immediately clear but it appears to be international.

Reference:

Computer World

See Other Google Fail

  1. After Googlefail, will you trust online apps? - Computerworld Blogs

    Google fouled up its own network, so would you trust them, or anyone else, with your applications.
    blogs.computerworld.com/after_googlefail_will_you_trust_online_apps - 1 hour ago

    Labeled Blogs
  2. Google suffers major failure

    14 May 2009 ... Comments about the failure were flying on Twitter, with "googlefail" quickly became one of the most searched terms on the popular micro-blogging site. ...
    www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9133089 - 7 hours ago

    Labeled Articles
  3. Google - Computerworld Blogs

    After Googlefail, will you trust online apps? By Steven J. Vaugh... Google fouled up its own network, so would you trust them, or anyone else, ...
    blogs.computerworld.com/tags/google

    Labeled Blogs
  4. Google blames outage on system error and online traffic jam

    14 May 2009 ... Comments about the failure were flying on Twitter, with "googlefail" quickly becoming one of the most searched terms on Twitter. ...
    www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9133109 - 4 hours ago

    Labeled Articles
  5. blogs - Computerworld Blogs

    After Googlefail, will you trust online apps? Steven J. Vaugh...'s Blog. Google fouled up its own network, so would you trust them, ...
    blogs.computerworld.com/blog

    Labeled Blogs

Related Stories:

  • Google Outage Caused by Asian “Traffic Jam”

    Google Outage Caused by Asian “Traffic Jam”If the Web has a single point of failure, you’d think it was Google, given the outcry over the the outages suffered by some of the company’s services Thursday ...

  • Google Adds Barcode Scanning to Product Search

    Google Product Search for Mobile now has barcode scanning ability. The obvious convenience factor is that, rather than typing in the name of the product you're looking at ...

  • Google Services Go Down For Many

    Currently, many people who use Google's services, including web search, Gmail, Google Reader and other products are either down or incredibly slow for some Google users ...

Friday 8 May 2009

'Human error' hits Google search

Google screen grab
Users were warned that all search results were dangerous

Google's search service has been hit by technical problems, with users unable to access search results.

For a period on Saturday, all search results were flagged as potentially harmful, with users warned that the site "may harm your computer".

Users who clicked on their preferred search result were advised to pick another one.

Google attributed the fault to human error and said most users were affected for about 40 minutes.

"What happened? Very simply, human error," wrote Marissa Mayer, vice president, search products and user experience, on the Official Google Blog.

The internet search engine works with stopbadware.org to ascertain which sites install malicious software on people's computers and merit a warning.

Stopbadware.org investigates consumer complaints to decide which sites are dangerous.

The list of malevolent sites is regularly updated and handed to Google.

When Google updated the list on Saturday, it mistakenly flagged all sites as potentially dangerous.

"We will carefully investigate this incident and put more robust file checks in place to prevent it from happening again," Ms Mayer wrote.


About Google's search service

Google Custom Search and Custom Search Business Edition

Google uses the index they've created for the web search engine, and limits by domain name, host, and/or URLs. When someone enters a query in the search form on your site, the Google server application receives the query, formats the results, and sends them back in either HTML or XML (for the business version) with links directly to the pages on your site.

Features

  • Finding Content
    • Can include multiple sites (unlimited pages in the non-business version)
    • Only those pages within the Google search index are available, no promises about additional indexing.
    • No access to pages secured by passwords or other access control.
    • Updates to new versions of pages when the Google search index updates (no daily or weekly updating).
    • Powerful robot crawler can handle most kinds of links
  • Indexing
    • Handles file formats: HTML, XML, text, PostScript, RTF, PDF, Lotus, MacWrite, MS Word, Excel, and PowerPoint
    • Excellent character set and language recognition for best tokenization
    • Does not store the contents of meta tags or page properties.
  • Querying
    • Defaults matching all words in the query, case-insensitively
    • Uses the Google query language, including Internet Query Operators - (minus) and "" (quotes) , along with OR and various field names and other parameters.
    • Optional Safe Search for eight languages (Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese (Brazilian), Spanish, Traditional Chinese)
    • Light pluralization using an internal wordlist rather than stemming
  • Retrieval
    • Retrieves all matching pages (though the CSE doesn't say how many that is)
    • Shows spellchecker "did you mean?" for misspelled and mistyped words, but they may not have any match on a particular site or set of sites, so it can be a dead end.
    • Search results can have "Refinements", zones based on URLs which appear as links along the top of the results
    • Search Suggestions appear using the "subscriptions" mechanism, which is quite poorly documented
  • Relevance
    • Relevance ranking uses all the Google algorithms, including PageRank
    • Adjusting relevance weight can only be done via an XML "background label" and "boost" process
  • Results UI
    • Default looks like the Google web search results.
    • Can display interface in English, French, Spanish, German, Bulgarian, Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Slovak, Swedish.
    • Hides duplicate pages based on snippet similarity
    • Page size and cache link seem to appear or not appear randomly
    • Basic results page customization: logo, text and link colors
    • Option to use JavaScript and show results in an iframe (not well documented)
    • Option to request XML results and use a scripting language or presentation program to show them.
  • Search Analytics and reports
    • Shows traffic by hour, day, week, month or "overall" (since installing the search service)
    • Shows most popular queries in the same time periods, with links to the queries and flags on no match (zero results) with details.
    • Note: report periods for low-traffic search installations may end the previous Saturday, even for daily and weekly reports.
  • Administration
    • All admin done via web
    • Option to allow "contributors" who can edit the URLs to be included or excluded, and annotate them with any refinement labels that you have created, but not otherwise change the search engine.

  • Business Edition (CSBE) features
    • No advertising
    • Google logo ("branding") not required
    • XML results option - allowing flexible display customization
    • Technical support by email, and for larger customers, an option for paid telephone support

Articles & Reviews

Reference :

BBC

SearchTools

Monday 4 May 2009

How satellites could 'sail' home


Aerobraking prototype (EADS Astrium)

By Jonathan Amos
Science reporter, BBC News

Satellites and spent rocket stages could soon deploy "sails" to guide them back to Earth much faster than they would otherwise fall out of the sky.

With space becoming ever more crowded, there is a need to remove redundant objects that could pose a collision threat to operational missions.

Extending a sail on an old spacecraft would increase drag and pull it into the Earth's atmosphere to burn up.

Major European space firm EADS Astrium says the scheme has great potential.

"It is an interesting solution, especially for the satellite that has no propulsion system at the end of its life," Brice Santerre told BBC News.

Santerre and colleague Max Cerf have been working on what they call the Innovative DEorbiting Aerobrake System (IDEAS).

The concept involves extending booms and sheeting from spacecraft to increase the amount of drag they experience from the residual air molecules still present at altitudes up to even 750km (470 miles)

"The principle of aerobraking is to increase the surface over mass ratio of an orbital object, to accelerate the fall-out by increasing the drag on the system," Mr Santerre said.

"To do that, we need to deploy a very light structure. That's why we chose to use 'gossamer structures'. These are composed of booms and very thin membranes."

Microscope (CNES)
Microscope will investigate the behaviour of free-falling objects

Santerre and Serf have been developing an aerobraking sail concept for the forthcoming French Microscope satellite.

Microscope is a science mission that will investigate the force of gravity and the behaviour of free-falling objects in a test of what has become known as the equivalence principle.

The satellite will take about a year to make its measurements and will then have no further purpose.

Ideally, such a spacecraft would be removed from orbit, especially since it will be circling at an altitude where many important Earth observation satellites also operate.

"Microscope has no propulsion system so it cannot de-orbit by itself. If we were to do nothing, the fall-out duration would be between 50 and 100 years," said Mr Santerre.

By erecting their boom and membrane mechanism, Santerre and Serf believe Microscope could be brought out of the sky in less than 25 years, which meets international orbital junk mitigation guidelines.

Astrium is now investigating how the IDEAS concept could be applied to spent rocket stages.

The company leads the production of Europe's premier launcher, the Ariane 5.

Microscope system (EADS Astrium)
The concept developed for Microscope would bring it back inside 25 years

Much of the Ariane's structure - its main core stage and solid boosters - fall rapidly out of the sky at the end of a flight; but the upper-stage is much longer lived in orbit.

Once it has ejected its satellite payload, the stage continues to circle the Earth in a large ellipse, running out to more than 35,000km from the Earth and coming as close as about 250km.

It may take 100 years before an upper-stage falls naturally from the sky.

"Our study shows that if we want to apply the aerobraking concept to an Ariane-class upper-stage then we need a system with booms, or masts, of about 12m and a deployed surface of about 250 sq m.

"This is possible with our current technologies. We need now to check that this is the best solution. We are also thinking whether this type of system can be applied to other launchers as well."

One alternative, of course, is to give the Ariane 5 upper-stage the capability to take a powered dive into the Earth's atmosphere.

Ariane 5 upper stage (EADS Astrium)
The Ariane 5 upper-stage continues to circle the Earth for decades

This was done for the first time last year at the end of the launch of the Jules Verne space station freighter. This was considered essential because of the number of manned missions that routinely follow station's orbit.

Once Jules Verne was released from the rocket, the upper-stage reignited its engine to make a controlled burn-up over the Pacific.

The advantages of de-orbiting in this way are clear, but the extra fuel requirements and complexity of re-ignitable engines adds cost to what is already a very expensive endeavour.

Aerobraking sails, on the other hand, are lightweight and extremely simple. Their operation could even be controlled by a pre-set timer, fixed to deploy a certain number of minutes after the end of a flight.

This means that even an upper-stage that is out of control can still be guaranteed to return to Earth in a timely fashion.

Santerre and Serf presented their latest research at the recent European Conference on Space Debris in Darmstadt, Germany.

The meeting closed with a statement from its organisers saying that effective measures to clean up space debris needed to be devised and implemented.

Artist's impression of ATV separation (CNES)
The upper-stage that launched Jules Verne took itself into a controlled dive

Wednesday 1 April 2009

Last-minute Conficker survival guide/Worm

April 1 -- is D-Day for Conficker, as whatever nasty payload it's packing is currently set to activate. What happens come midnight is a mystery: Will it turn the millions of infected computers into spam-sending zombie robots? Or will it start capturing everything you type -- passwords, credit card numbers, etc. -- and send that information back to its masters?

No one knows, but we'll probably find out soon.

Or not. As Slate notes, Conficker is scheduled to go "live" on April 1, but whoever's controlling it could choose not to wreak havoc but instead do absolutely nothing, waiting for a time when there's less heat. They can do this because the way Conficker is designed is extremely clever: Rather than containing a list of specific, static instructions, Conficker reaches out to the web to receive updated marching orders via a huge list of websites it creates. Conficker.C -- the latest bad boy -- will start checking 50,000 different semi-randomly-generated sites a day looking for instructions, so there's no way to shut down all of them. If just one of those sites goes live with legitimate instructions, Conficker keeps on trucking.

Conficker's a nasty little worm that takes serious efforts to bypass your security defenses, but you aren't without some tools in your arsenal to protect yourself.

Your first step should be the tools you already have: Windows Update, to make sure your computer is fully patched, and your current antivirus software, to make sure anything that slips through the cracks is caught.

But if Conficker's already on your machine, it may bypass certain subsystems and updating Windows and your antivirus at this point may not work. If you are worried about anything being amiss -- try booting into Safe Mode, which Conficker prevents, to check -- you should run a specialized tool to get rid of Conficker.

Microsoft offers a web-based scanner (note that some users have reported it crashed their machines; I had no trouble with it), so you might try one of these downloadable options instead: Symantec's Conficker (aka Downadup) tool, Trend Micro's Cleanup Engine, or Malwarebytes. Conficker may prevent your machine from accessing any of these websites, so you may have to download these tools from a known non-infected computer if you need them. Follow the instructions given on each site to run them successfully. (Also note: None of these tools should harm your computer if you don't have Conficker.)

As a final safety note, all users -- whether they're worried about an infection or know for sure they're clean -- are also wise to make a full data backup today.

What won't work? Turning your PC off tonight and back on on April 2 will not protect you from the worm (sorry to the dozens of people who wrote me asking if this would do the trick). Temporarily disconnecting your computer from the web won't help if the malware is already on your machine -- it will simply activate once you connect again. Changing the date on your PC will likely have no helpful effect, either. And yes, Macs are immune this time out. Follow the above instructions to detect and remove the worm.

----------------

A computer worm is a self-replicating computer program. It uses a network to send copies of itself to other nodes (computers on the network) and it may do so without any user intervention. Unlike a virus, it does not need to attach itself to an existing program. Worms almost always cause at least some harm to the network, if only by consuming bandwidth, whereas viruses almost always corrupt or modify files on a targeted computer.


Backdoors can be exploited by other malware, including worms. Examples include Doomjuice, which spreads better using the backdoor opened by Mydoom, and at least one instance of malware taking advantage of the rootkit and backdoor installed by the Sony/BMG DRM software utilized by millions of music CDs prior to late 2005.

------------

Reference :Yahoo!

Wikipedia

Wednesday 25 March 2009

Microwaves 'improve fog landings'

Tom Symonds explains how the system works

By Daniel Emery
Technology reporter, BBC News

Passengers flying into Heathrow in fog or poor visibility will be guided in using a new microwave-based system.

The existing Instrument Landing System (ILS) is susceptible to interference, meaning aircraft had to be spaced further apart on their final approach.

The new Microwave Landing System (MLS) is less prone to interference, meaning aircraft can now land at a faster rate.

Initially, the system will be used by British Airways' Airbus 320s, although other airlines are expected to follow.

On a clear day, about 44 planes an hour land at Heathrow.

However, if the visibility drops and aircraft have to use the ILS system to land on full autopilot, that figure falls to 24 aircraft an hour.

This is because the radio transmitter at the end of the runway needs good line of sight to the approaching aircraft, but because it is at the far end of the runway, planes have to land and taxi clear before a full signal is restored.

BA Airbus A321
BA's Airbus will be the first aircraft equipped with MIS

Not only does Heathrow's capacity fall significantly, but because long-haul international flights take priority, domestic and short haul passengers either find themselves circling London in a holding pattern, diverted to another airport, or find their flight has been cancelled altogether.

The new MLS allows an extra six aircraft an hour to land, meaning that while fog will still cause disruption, its effects will be less prominent.

In 2006, four days of heavy fog at Christmas stranded thousands of passengers and resulted in hundreds of cancelled flights to and from Heathrow.

It is thought the cumulative costs of the Christmas fog ran into the tens of millions.

Speaking to the BBC, British Airways' flight operations manager, Captain Tim Price, said that the financial argument in favour of MLS stacks up.

"If we had had this system in December 2006, then the system would have paid for itself within four days," he said.

'Great reputation'

Designed in the 1940s, the ILS system uses two radio signals - one transmitted at the far end of the runway and the other at the side on two separate frequencies - to guide the aircraft down on an approach making a horizontal angle of three degrees with the runway.

MLS, on the other hand, uses a single frequency in a band far removed from that of the ILS system to broadcast the azimuth and elevation (horizontal and vertical angle) data to the aircraft.

The National Air Traffic Service (NATS) says that the new MLS system will guide planes down along the same flight path, so as to not interfere with ILS landings.

BA aircraft in fog
Heathrow can be prone to fog, especially early in the morning

As such, it will not be implementing so-called curved approaches. Rather than the three degree approach in line with the runway, aircraft could - in theory - approach the airport from up to 40-degrees off the end of the runway, lining up with it a mile or so before touchdown.

Even without this feature in the short term, the space between aircraft will be reduced, resulting in more planes landing per hour.

For pilots, the display for the MLS and the ILS is identical, meaning that there is very little training to get air crew up to speed.

Professor Graham Braithwaite, director of the Safety and Accident Investigation Centre at Cranfield University, said that anything that reduced delays at Heathrow had to be welcome.

"This is a precision-approach tool and is something that the International Air Aviation Organisation endorses.

"The challenge for air traffic controllers (ATC), now that distance between planes is reduced, is ensuring you get a good mix of aircraft. The last thing you want is a Fokker 50 flying into the turbulence generated by a 747 flying ahead of it.

"Some aircraft are worse for feeling the effects [of turbulence] than others, but Heathrow ATC would know this better than anyone else and they have a great reputation."

---

Note:

Microwaves are electromagnetic waves with wavelengths ranging from 1 mm to 1 m, or frequencies between 0.3 GHz and 300 GHz.

Apparatus and techniques may be described qualitatively as "microwave" when the wavelengths of signals are roughly the same as the dimensions of the equipment, so that lumped-element circuit theory is inaccurate. As a consequence, practical microwave technique tends to move away from the discrete resistors, capacitors, and inductors used with lower frequency radio waves. Instead, distributed circuit elements and transmission-line theory are more useful methods for design and analysis. Open-wire and coaxial transmission lines give way to waveguides, and lumped-element tuned circuits are replaced by cavity resonators or resonant lines. Effects of reflection, polarization, scattering, diffraction and atmospheric absorption usually associated with visible light are of practical significance in the study of microwave propagation. The same equations of electromagnetic theory apply at all frequencies.

While the name may suggest a micrometer wavelength, it is better understood as indicating wavelengths very much smaller than those used in radio broadcasting. The boundaries between far infrared light, terahertz radiation, microwaves, and ultra-high-frequency radio waves are fairly arbitrary and are used variously between different fields of study. The term microwave generally refers to "alternating current signals with frequencies between 0.3 GHz (3×108 Hz) and 300 GHz (3×1011 Hz)."[1] Both IEC standard 60050 and IEEE standard 100 define "microwave" frequencies starting at 1 GHz (30 cm wavelength).

Electromagnetic waves longer (lower frequency) than microwaves are called "radio waves". Electromagnetic radiation with shorter wavelengths may be called "millimeter waves", terahertz radiation or even T-rays. Definitions differ for millimeter wave band, which the IEEE defines as 110 GHz to 300 GHz.

Electromagnetic spectrum with visible light highlighted

Microwave frequency bands

Letter Designation Frequency range
L band 1 to 2 GHz
S band 2 to 4 GHz
C band 4 to 8 GHz
X band 8 to 12 GHz
Ku band 12 to 18 GHz
K band 18 to 26.5 GHz
Ka band 26.5 to 40 GHz
Q band 30 to 50 GHz
U band 40 to 60 GHz
V band 50 to 75 GHz
E band 60 to 90 GHz
W band 75 to 110 GHz
F band 90 to 140 GHz
D band 110 to 170 GHz

Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwave
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7961501.stm


Wednesday 11 March 2009

New Google's Ads Algorithm-Interest-based advertising

Today(3/11/2009) Google Teams are launching "interest-based" advertising as a beta test on their partner sites and on YouTube. These ads will associate categories of interest — say sports, gardening, cars, pets — with your browser, based on the types of sites you visit and the pages you view. They may then use those interest categories to show you more relevant text and display ads.

They believe there is real value to seeing ads about the things that interest you. If, for example, you love adventure travel and therefore visit adventure travel sites, Google could show you more ads for activities like hiking trips to Patagonia or African safaris. While interest-based advertising can infer your interest in adventure travel from the websites you visit, you can also choose your favorite categories, or tell us which categories you don't want to see ads for. Interest-based advertising also helps advertisers tailor ads for you based on your previous interactions with them, such as visits to their websites. So if you visit an online sports store, you may later be shown ads on other websites offering you a discount on running shoes during that store's upcoming sale.

Their advertisers and publisher partners have been asking us for a long time to offer interest-based advertising. Advertisers need an efficient way to reach those who are most interested in their products and services. And publishers can generate more revenue when they connect advertisers to interested audiences.

This kind of tailored advertising does raise questions about user choice and privacy — questions the whole online ad industry has a responsibility to answer. Many companies already provide interest-based advertising and they address these issues in different ways. For their part, they're launching interest-based advertising with three important features that demonstrate their commitment to transparency and user choice.
  • Transparency - they already clearly label most of the ads provided by Google on the AdSense partner network and on YouTube. You can click on the labels to get more information about how they serve ads, and the information they use to show you ads. This year they will expand the range of ad formats and publishers that display labels that provide a way to learn more and make choices about Google's ad serving.
  • Choice - they have built a tool called Ads Preferences Manager, which lets you view, delete, or add interest categories associated with your browser so that you can receive ads that are more interesting to you.
  • Control - You can always opt out of the advertising cookie for the AdSense partner network here. To make sure that your opt-out decision is respected (and isn't deleted if you clear the cookies from your browser), they have designed a plug-in for your browser that maintains your opt-out choice.
To find out more about what Google is doing in this important area, please visit:Public Policy blog and Privacy Center.

Keyword advertising has been so successful because it's useful to users, advertisers and publishers — everyone's interests are aligned. They believe that interest-based ads will create the same virtuous cycle, by giving users more relevant ads, while generating higher returns for advertisers and publishers.

Making ads more interesting"

Reference Site : Google

Friday 20 February 2009

Judge dismisses Google lawsuit

By Maggie Shiels
Technology reporter, BBC News, Silicon Valley

Street View car, PA
Google's Street View has been criticised on several occasions

A legal claim by a Pittsburgh couple that Google's Street View feature violated their privacy has been thrown out by a federal judge.

Christine and Aaron Boring sued the search giant after photos of their home appeared on the free mapping program.

The couple accused Google of privacy violation, negligence, trespassing and unjust enrichment.

In her ruling, Judge Amy Reynolds Hay said the Borings "failed to state a claim under any count".

"We are pleased the judge agreed the suit was without merit," said Google in a statement to the BBC.

Street View displays street level, 360-degree photographs of areas taken by specially equipped Google vehicles.

Failure

The photographs at the centre of the lawsuit, launched last year, were taken at the foot of Mr and Mrs Boring's driveway and shows their house, a pool area and detached garage. Signs marked the road as private.

The suit alleged that Google's Street View had caused Mr and Mrs Boring "mental suffering" and diluted the value of their home.

Google conference
Google removed the offending pictures after the lawsuit was filed

"While it is easy to imagine that many whose property appears on Google's virtual maps resent the privacy implications, it is hard to believe that any - other than the most exquisitely sensitive - would suffer shame or humiliation," Judge Amy Reynolds Hay of US District Court for Western Pennsylvania wrote in her 12-page decision.

The judge also suggested that the Borings' lawsuit made it possible for more people than ever to view the picture of their home.

"The Borings do not dispute that they have allowed the relevant images to remain on Google Street View, despite the availability of a procedure for having them removed from view," wrote Judge Reynolds Hay.

"Furthermore, they have failed to bar others' access to the images by eliminating their address from the pleadings, or by filing this action under seal," she said.

The publicity has actually perpetuated dissemination of the Borings' name and location, and resulted in frequent re-publication of the Street View images, the judge concluded.

"The plaintiffs' failure to take readily available steps to protect their own privacy and mitigate their alleged pain suggests to the Court that the intrusion and that their suffering were less severe than they contend," wrote Judge Reynolds Hay.

The Borings had sought $25,000 (£17,700) in damages.

'Removal tools'

Google said the company respects individual privacy and provides ways for that privacy to be maintained.

"We blur identifiable faces and licence plates in Street View and we offer easy-to-use removal tools so users can decided for themselves whether or not they want a given image to appear.

Street View
Photos of real world locations are tied to maps

"It is unfortunate the parties involved decided to pursue litigation instead of making use of these tools," said Google in its statement.

Privacy concerns following the launch of Street View in 2007 prompted Google to start blurring faces of people caught in the photographs.

The company had argued earlier in response to the lawsuit that "today's satellite-image technology means that even in today's desert complete privacy does not exist."

"Privacy claims are not easy to prove," said Marc Rotenberg of the Electronic Privacy Information Centre.

"One of the challenges is showing what's the damage, what's the harm. But Google is more at risk here because there is always the possibility someone might prevail in one of these cases, so I don't think the issue is resolved in terms of Google."

Privacy law call in Facebook row

By Maggie Shiels
Technology Reporter, BBC News, Silicon Valley
Facebook logo, AP
Mark Zuckerberg said the new policy will be a "substantial revision"

The row over Facebook's change in its terms of service governing users personal data highlights the need for a privacy law, claims a leading watchdog.

The Electronic Privacy Information Centre was on the brink of filing a legal complaint when Facebook announced it would revert to its old policy.

The new terms seemingly gave Facebook vast control over users' content.

"This row underlines the need for comprehensive privacy laws," said Epic's president Marc Rotenberg.

"It is great that Facebook has responded by going back to its old terms of service. That is a step in the right direction, but these issues don't go away.

"It's going to be an ongoing concern for users until we get privacy laws in place," Mr Rotenberg told the BBC.

"Feedback"

Epic, along with 12 other consumer and civil liberty groups, were intending to file a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission about the policy changes when it was stopped in its tracks.

"We got a call late last night from Facebook and they said that they were thinking of going back to their original terms of service," said Mr Rotenberg.

Facebook
Countless Facebook users cancelled their accounts following the changes

"We said that if they would agree to do that, we wouldn't see the need to file the complaint."

In a blog post, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg wrote: "Over the past few days, we have received a lot of feedback about the new terms we posted two weeks ago.

"Because of this response, we have decided to return to our previous Terms of Use while we resolve the issues people have raised."

Mr Zuckerberg said Facebook would draw up a new document in conjunction with its users. The company has set up a special group called "Facebook Bill of Rights and Responsibilities" to let users have their say.

The group had more than 55,000 members just a few hours after its creation.

"Overarching and scary"

Originally Facebook's founder Mark Zuckerberg defended the changes, unveiled on 4 February noting they were to "better reflect how users used the site."

He had said they were made to ensure that if a user deleted his or her account, any comments he or she had left on a friend's Facebook page would not also disappear.

Teenage boy using the internet, SPL
Tens of thousands of users voiced their anger at the changes

That was not how they were interpreted.

Over the weekend, a popular consumer advocacy blog, The Consumerist , raised alarm bells over the issue.

It defined the changes as meaning "anything you upload to Facebook can be used by Facebook in any way they deem fit, forever, no matter what you do later".

Users took notice and created Facebook groups to oppose the changes. One of the biggest, "People Against the New Terms of Service" grew to over 90,000 in a matter of days.

Group founder Julius Harper Jr of Los Angeles hypothesised that if Facebook wanted to it could take his photographs and "I could see my face on the side of a bus and there would be no recourse to complain".

Such situations were never intended said Facebook spokesman Barry Schnitt.

"Facebook does not, nor have we ever, claimed ownership over people's content. Your content belongs to you," he stressed.

"Wake up"

The issue has raised concerns over who does own personal material, from photos to videos to comments stored on a social networking site.

Facebook is the world's biggest with 175 million users.

Computer keyboard, Eyewire
The Electronic Privacy Information Centre had planned to file a complaint

"This just reflects the ongoing process of people trying to figure out the internet," John Byrne, a senior analyst at Technology Business Research Inc. told Computerworld.com.

"The lesson that should be learned is that these content sites are not your own personal diaries. Consider it more as publishing and less about your personal circle of friends. People need to wake up," suggested Mr Byrne.

Simon Davies of Privacy International criticised Facebook for allowing commercial and legal concerns to override its commitment to users.

"It appears to be going down the same road as Google. Its halo is beginning to slip," Mr Davies told the BBC.

He advised users to "ratchet their privacy settings up to the maximum" to restrict advertisers' access to their data and ensure that their details are fully protected.

Back in 2007, Facebook faced a firestorm of criticism when it introduced a service called Beacon. Users were concerned Facebook would provide advertisers with too much of their information.

Mr Rotenberg said Facebook is not alone in trying to juggle the needs of users with the need to make money.

"There is always a tug of war over users' data."

However Mr Rotenberg said he was impressed with the speed in which Facebook acted and hoped such willingness to listen will continue.

"Mark Zuckerberg said users should be able to own and control their information. If everyone starts with that principle we can end up in a very good place. On a lot of these issues where there is confusion on that point, I see a lot of debate."


Friday 6 February 2009

Wireless infrastructure providers have been at the heart of all major industry evolutions.

Regarding to the source : WirelessWeek
The WIP Race
By Keith Radousky
WirelessWeek - October 01, 2008

Ameritech launched the first commercial cellular network on Oct. 13, 1983, with much fanfare at Soldier Field in Chicago. New customers began signing up by the 25 Years of Wirelessthousands despite the near $3,000 price tag and subscription fee of $50 per month and 50 cents per minute of airtime.

Leading up to the launch, wireless infrastructure providers (WIPs) had been working feverishly behind the scenes to make the magic happen. Since that time, WIPs have adapted to tremendous industry consolidation, experienced competitive power shifts and accelerated technology migrations. Much has transpired in the last 25 years, and much remains to evolve in the coming years as those early radio networks transform into spectrally efficient all-IP networks.

The first major WIPs were Motorola and AT&T Networks (previously Western Electric). In the early 1980s, the networks consisted of a mobile telephone switching office (MTSO), cell sites, and a connection to the public switched telephone network (PSTN). That’s it. No voice mail, caller Blackberryidentification, messaging or data services of any kind.

The WIPs were eager to earn business in this new and exciting market. Motorola had marked success with cellular “A” block licensees (primarily radio common carriers known as RCCs) while AT&T focused on “B” block licensees (primarily regional Bell operating companies known as RBOCs). This made sense: Motorola was the dominant supplier of land-mobile equipment to the Radio Common Carrier (RCC) industry while AT&T supplied the majority of wireline equipment to the RBOCs.

THE SWEDISH CONNECTION
In April 1984, a new entrant, Ericsson, launched a small network serving Buffalo, N.Y., called Buffalo Telephone Company. Even though Buffalo didn’t need that many cell sites to provide coverage, (remember these were the days of 3 watt mobiles and a 3 dB gain outside antenna), it was huge success for Ericsson.

Motorola and AT&T didn’t appear threatened by Ericsson at the time. Motorola had won business in most of the “A” block markets while AT&T was experiencing similar success in “B” block markets.

However, Ericsson was clever; it focused on winning the “A” side business on Motorola’s turf in Chicago. The “A” block licensee was Rogers Aircall, which already operated paging and 2-way radio networks there and was a customer of Motorola. Roger’s key decision maker, Bernard (Bud) Kahn, did his due-diligence and chose Ericsson. He did so because he and his team concluded Ericsson’s equipment was more advanced than both AT&T and Motorola. Ericsson leveraged lessons it learned from the Nordic cellular system (the world’s first commercial cellular network) in the equipment designed for America. Essentially, Ericsson was providing second-generation equipment.

The Rogers Chicago network was launched in January 1985 under the brand name Cellular One. The debut TV commercial during Superbowl XIX on Jan. 20, 1985, promised to “Drive Ameritech Crazy.”

Cell TowerCellular One did succeed in convincing many Ameritech customers to switch (the first churned subscribers) by offering 90 days of free service and attracted new customers with aggressive pricing of only $15 per month plus 34 cents per minute primetime and 20 cents non-primetime.

Other major cities such as Detroit, Los Angeles and San Francisco chose Ericsson as well. As the years went by, Ericsson also was successful in changing out many networks from Motorola and AT&T Networks. Two of the most notable events involved Craig McCaw swapping out many AT&T markets and New York’s Metro One replacing Motorola equipment with Ericsson.

NORTHERN EXPOSURE
Northern Telecom was successful in Minneapolis, Minn., and other smaller markets. It’s worth pointing out that the Canadian company managed to win both the A and B licenses in Minneapolis.

CellphoneOverall, Northern Telecom didn’t do as well as the others primarily because it outsourced cell site supply to Novatel at first and then GE. To its credit though, it offered a world-class switch, but a cellular system is half radio technology and operators recognized the challenge of integrating and operating multiple providers within one network.

In 1992, Northern Telecom (by then renamed Nortel Networks) and Motorola joined forces to form Motorola-Nortel, thinking that the venture could leverage each company’s forte. But the partnership quickly fell apart. As a result, Motorola lost much market share. Motorola discontinued its internal switch program and returned to its old switch partner DSC. Nortel soon introduced a dual-mode (AMPS-TDMA) cell site. However, neither company was able to keep pace with Ericsson or AT&T Networks (by this time renamed Lucent Technologies).

In the mid-1990s, Ericsson, Motorola, Northern Telecom and Lucent enjoyed much success with the introduction of six new frequency bands at 1900 MHz that were auctioned by the FCC.

iPhone 3GNortel was the only company to offer and succeed in selling all three air-interfaces; TDMA, CDMA and GSM. Lucent sold TDMA and CDMA and offered GSM in Europe but not in America. Ericsson successfully sold TDMA and GSM. Motorola was successful but only sold CDMA. It’s interesting to note that Ericsson was initially opposed to CDMA but later bought Qualcomm’s CDMA infrastructure business. That business unit has faded into history.

The 1900 MHz spectrum auction enabled European GSM WIPs Nokia and Siemens to enter the American market. They both enjoyed some success but not to the degree that Ericsson did. Then in 2004, another opportunity arose with Cingular’s launch of UMTS. Ericsson and Lucent captured all of Cingular’s UMTS business. Verizon and Sprint have continued their relationship with Lucent, Motorola and Nortel for CDMA upgrades 1X RTT and EV-DO.

Ericsson and Nokia recently earned T-Mobile’s UMTS business. Now that Nokia and Siemens have joined forces, it’s unclear if the new Nokia-Siemens can recapture market share as operators begin the process of choosing their suppliers for the fourth generation (4G) of technology, which is referred to as Long Term Evolution (LTE). Finally, Alcatel and Lucent (known today as Alcatel-Lucent) joined forces in order to lower costs and better compete in the market for LTE.

Cell TowerTHE HUAWEI FACTOR
Today, the WIPs selling in the United States include Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, Motorola, Nokia-Siemens, Nortel, and a new entrant, Huawei.

Now to the “Huawei Factor.” Both AT&T Mobility and Verizon Wireless have chosen LTE as their 4G technology. Sprint also will likely choose LTE now that it has essentially spun off its WiMAX business to Clearwire. Sprint does own 51% of Clearwire but it still needs a 4G path for its CDMA business. T-Mobile has yet to deploy 3G nationally so it probably won’t focus on LTE for some time. Ultimately, AT&T Mobility and Verizon Wireless are racing to be the first American operator to deploy LTE.

Huawei, which recently closed $200 million of CDMA business with Cricket Communications, can be compared to Ericsson in 1985. The Chinese company is taking on the large incumbent WIPs. One difference this time around is the incumbent WIPs are quite aware of the threat. They recognize Huawei’s ability to offer very attractive deals. Huawei is hungry for business and appears to have quality products. One thing is certain; Huawei is eager to earn market share in America primarily though aggressive pricing.

Ericsson may be in the best position to hold off Huawei because of its growing services business. Several years ago, Ericsson leadership recognized that wireless equipment margins would shrink dramatically and made a strategic decision to nurture and grow its services business. Today, services account for more than 20% of Ericsson’s revenue.

Keith Radousky
The author on his serial number 6 brick phone.

Huawei has to rely on outsourcing for much of its services work. Nevertheless, Huawei is likely to earn LTE business with AT&T and/or Verizon Wireless. Furthermore, Huawei’s ability to offer low pricing will enable AT&T and/or Verizon Wireless to deploy LTE sooner rather than later. As in the past, there will be spectrum challenges and mobile device issues, but they will be solved.

History has proven time and time again that the wireless industry tends to understate demand. Case in point: in 1980, AT&T forecast that the total U.S. wireless subscriber market was 1 million. Today, there are more than 264 million subscribers.

Wireless subscribers are rapidly adopting data services, and thereby are triggering a capacity challenge that is driving the need for 4G. Huawei will force the incumbent WIPs to lower their prices to capture market share. Operators will enjoy lower cost per bit for their networks. Wireless subscribers will enjoy even higher data rates.

Make no mistake, Huawei is disrupting business as usual for the incumbent WIPs and there’s a new horse in the race for LTE business in the good ole’ USA.

Radousky is president of Wireless Industry Systems Expertise (WISE), LLC, which provides “Keep it Simple” technical expertise to the wireless industry and financial institutions. He can be reached at 404-520-8206 or keith@wise-llc.com.

Privacy fears over Google tracker

Google has announced a new feature that allows users to share their locations among a chosen network of friends.

The "opt-in" Latitude service uses data from mobile phone masts, GPS, or wi-fi hardware to update a user's location automatically.

Users can also manually set their advertised location anywhere they like, or turn the broadcast off altogether.

The service has raised a number of security concerns, as many users may not be aware that it is enabled.

Latitude is based on Google's My Location feature that has been in place since last year.

The new interface and social networking element makes Latitude similar to a number of websites such as Loopt and Brightkite that make use of the location data of a network of friends.

Users can set the service to update automatically using the best location data it can obtain from the phone's hardware, set the location to display at city level only, or to not send any location data at all.

Locations are shared only between people who mutually agree to share them, and users can also see their Latitude friends' locations on a computer.

Privacy concerns

Google Latitude screenshot

Google says it has built the service from the ground up with security and privacy issues in mind, and that the service only stores the last known location of a given user.

However, privacy watchdog Privacy International argues that there are opportunities for abuse of the system for those who may not know that their phone is broadcasting its location.

Privacy International director Simon Davies gives the example of employers who might give phones to employees with Latitude enabled.

"With Latitude, Google has taken steps toward privacy that it has hitherto not taken," Mr Davies told BBC News.

"The problem is that they launched the services without allowing all phones to be notified."

Google admits that the notification service is currently only available for BlackBerry users.

"We have implemented a feature on the BlackBerry version of the software to display several notifications (i.e. pop-up messages) to a device which informs the user that his or her phone's location is being shared," said a Google spokesperson.

"We hope to extend this to other versions of the software soon," the spokesperson added, noting that all platforms should be supported within a week's time.

For Mr Davies, the issue is principally a philosophical one about the nature of privacy.

"I have absolutely no doubt, as a tech-lover, about the utility of this as extremely beneficial," he said.

"But it will be destroyed by privacy if the companies don't get it right."
----

From BBC

Saturday 31 January 2009

Firms back data protection pledge

USB drive, PA
Many firms and government bodies have admitted to losing personal data

Firms are being encouraged to back a pledge to safeguard the data they hold about citizens and customers.

Drafted by the Information Commissioner, the Personal Information Promise tries to improve respect for the data companies have gathered.

Firms and organisations who use data that people surrender do not always take enough care with it, said Richard Thomas, Information Commissioner.

"Protecting people's personal details should not be left to chance," he said.

"Organisations are waking up to the fact that privacy is now so significant that lapses risk reputations and bottom lines."

Safe store

2008 saw a series of data breaches and losses that left the personal details of millions of people at risk from ID thieves.

By signing up to the promise firms say they will go beyond the strictures laid down by law which govern what they can do with the personal data they hold on their customers or clients.

Data protection laws say organisations should hold the minimum possible amount of data about people and ensure that what they do hold is accurate and up to date.

"They have to make sure that safeguarding the personal information of the customers and staff is embedded in their organisational culture," said Mr Thomas in a statement.

Those backing the promise will be exhorted to consider privacy risks when they start work on new information systems that draw on databases of personal data.

They must also put in place safeguards to ensure data is securely stored and does not fall into the hands of ID thieves.

"It would be really good to see signatories agree to having spot checks made by the ICO," said Jim Killock, executive director of the Open Rights Group. "That's what happens other European countries, where their data protection watchdogs have real teeth.

"Given recent government data leaks, it would give us all a lot more confidence if the ICO could walk in and check that our personal information is being kept safely," he said.

On the day the promise was launched 20 organisations pledged to back it. Those signing up included BT, Vodafone, Royal Mail, British Gas, Experian, Equifax, AstraZeneca and T-Mobile.
---
From BBC news

Wednesday 21 January 2009

What's with Google's new mini icon?

Google favicon

What's the most recognised logo in the world? It would probably be Google's if only they could stick to one. Yet as the world's most popular search engine tries out a new favicon, Craig Smith says the old branding rulebook is being rewritten.

It's not the size that matters, it's how often you use it. So the thinking goes at Google, which has just revealed the design of its latest favicon - the tiny logo that shows any web user, on any web browser, anywhere in the world, precisely whose internet "real estate" they are currently residing upon.

An example of a favicon can be seen at the top of this page (so long as you are using an up-to-date enough web browser). Just in front of the URL http://news.bbc.co.uk/... there is a small BBC logo. That 16x16 pixel square is the size of the favicon in question, if not the scope.

Google masthead
Google's changing masthead 1998 (top) and now

Now consider that, at the website owner's discretion, the logo appears on every single one of its pages that the world's web population loads. For Google that amounts to upward of 1, 200 million individual searches. Every day.

Add to that its Google News, Google Images, mobile search and multitude of other online services. Suddenly the favicon takes on an importance that belies its fingernail-sized dimensions, and the motivation for Google to roll out its third design in less than a year, as it attempts to get its favicon right, becomes clear.

Google's journey to this latest multi-coloured graphic identity charts a course through some of the unique challenges of favicon design, and through those of logo design in general. The world's leading search engine, whose very name has been adopted as the generic term for finding pages on the web, has achieved web domination without ever having had an actual logo.

Magic Eye style

Think of Google visually and you will probably picture the letters that make up the word Google, picked out in bright primary colours. In the designer's lexicon, rather than being a logo, Google has a logotype - albeit a very successful one around which it is famed for creating ever-changing topical "doodle" themes.

DESIGN A FAVICON
What makes a good favicon? Here, BBC designer Mick Ruddy suggests four key points
1. Keep it simple ­- use basic shapes
2. Use a limited colour palette
3. Avoid fine detail or lots of gradients
4. Keep it sharp ­- keep an eye on blurring

What Google has so far lacked is the sort of universally recognised icon that identifies a Mercedes-Benz car at distance or, in technology terms, the Apple computer or Yahoo web page - all logos that these brands use as their own favicon, not least because they fit the diminutive dimensions. The word Google, by contrast, would not reduce and still be legible.

Cue the new Google favicon - a rainbow of differently shaped blocks. A bit like one of those "hidden" Magic Eye pictures popular in the 1990s, not everyone will immediately see that the Google favicon blocks interlock to form a "g" shape.

That hardly matters. The design makes best use of favicon limitations and is a marked evolution of Google's previous iterations - a small blue "g" on a white background since June of last year, and a capital "G" before that.

While the old branding rulebook would discourage such regular, radical overhauls, reeking as it does of indecisiveness and inconsistency, in the digital world such rules are temporary, at best.

Steve Plimsoll, of brand consultancy FutureBrand, says the traditional rules on corporate identity are starting to look a little tired.

Mighty morphin logos

"Logos are set to become fluid, ever-changing, customisable, even personalised entities and Google is the first global brand that understands this," says Mr Plimsoll, who is head of digital.

"We are going to have to get used to the idea of our brands changing frequently, and when we do, every three months will seem like the dark ages."

Simon memory game
Remind you of anything?

If you don't like the new look, then, you can wait or, more proactively, send the company your own design. When Google unveiled the small 'g' last year, the company's head of search products & user experience, Marissa Mayer, hinted at a transitory solution, saying "by no means is the one you're seeing our favicon final; it was a first step to a more unified set of icons" and inviting users to contribute ideas.

The new favicon is based on a design sent in by André Resende, a computer science undergraduate student at the University of Campinas in Brazil.

It may sound indecisive, even amateurish, but the fast-changing nature of Google's digital world dictates it. While the billions of pages of Google's branded "real estate" is the headline figure, its real focus is to keep pace with users' mobile phones, computer task bars and web bookmarks in such a way as to keep directing them effortlessly back to Google - using the favicon as their guide.

For the world's biggest search engine, the world's smallest signpost is one of its most valuable assets.

Craig Smith is a marketing author and editorial director at publishing agency Velo


You've read about Google's new favicon - now design one yourself - either a personal favicon or one to represent the Magazine, and send it to us.

It's easy to do. You can either use one of the many online favicon generators such as favicon.cc, DynamicDrive, Favicon Generator and Galleryor Antifavicon, or just shrink an image down to 16x16 pixels.

Don't forget to think about what makes a good icon at such a small size - see Mick Ruddy's tips in the factbox near the top of this story

Once you've got your favicon - e-mail it to us at yourpics@bbc.co.uk with the subject line "favicon"

Include some personal details - your name, where you are from etc. And a brief sentence about your favicon. We'll publish some of them on this page later.

Some of your Magazine favicon designs, so far:

Favicon
Tried to incorporate the BBC reddish news colour. It's supposed to show a "magazine" with the covers forming the letters N (for news!) and M (for...oh you can figure it out!). The background is transparent, so would show white on a browser bar.
Michael Fordyce, Sheffield

Favicon
Keeping in line with the existing BBC favicon design this version will keep users content that they are looking at the same site. It also uses a simple design for easy recognition.
James Battersby, West Moslesey, Surrey

Favicon
You said "keep it simple" so here's the standard BBC favicon with 'MAG' written underneath on the Magazine's masthead colour.
Karl Johnson, Thetford, Norfolk

Favicon - Thomas Kennedy
I've opted for a colourful reworking of the BBC initials against a black background - vaguely inspired by the BBC test card.
Tom Kennedy

Favicon - Carl Dersley
Tried to incorporate your masthead colours and used the same font as the BBC logo. I think it's rather fetching!
Carl Dersley, Ipswich

Favicon - Steve Brown
Grabbed the banner colours and replicated their structure from the page. Added an 'M'.
Steve, Woking

Favicon - leo
This uses the design of the site and the site's main colours (black, dark red, teal, white).
Leo, Milton Keynes

Stephen Daniels
Although it chops off some of the BBC logo, it is much clearer I think, and has your corporate news colours. It also makes better use of the footprint. I use it to replace the BBC one in my Firefox browser.
Stephen Daniels, Edinburgh

Favicon
Just a few minutes "doodling" after reading the article - does it fit the bill?
Gill Jennings, London

Favicon
Quite simple but effective, I guess...
Guilherme Silva, Porto, Portugal

Favicon - Stephen Eaborn
Wow, there's not much room to work with. I tried to incorporate a folded corner (to represent a magazine leaf), but it didn't work.
Steve, Birmingham

Favicon - Diane Bay
I used the page graphics and layout to design this simple icon, and added the BBC favicon to the black space.
Diane Bay, Wheaton, IL

Favicon - Mark Sellings
Here is my take on a favicon for the Magazine section. It seemed pretty obvious to me as to what elements you have in your brand - white text on blue, rotated M in another blue - so used these to make something very simple but hopefully encapsulating all your branding.
Mark, Exeter

Favicon - Steven
I wanted to show someone using their hands to open the BBC and see inside.
Steven, Coventry