The Draft Communications Data Bill - why it's posiibly evil

The Government is proposing a new Act of Parliament, currently known as the Draft Communications Data Bill or DCDB, which will effectively give them access to all your Internet activity. The premise behind this is that they want to be able to fight the war against terrorism and other "crimes enabled by Email and the Internet" as Theresa May put it. There are already measures in place allowing the Goverment to get hold of data from ISPs. The most recent piece of legislation follows on from a European directive known as the Data Retention Directive 2002/24/EC which ensures Internet Service Providers (ISPs) or telecommunication providers (telcos) maintain logs for 12 months (of data they already collect). This generally relates to such things as billing records or call records (i.e. who made a call to whom and for how long), but the important but is that ISPs/Telcos only need to retain what they already store and aren't required to log anything new. The Regulation of Investigatory Powers (RIPA) allows the authorities (and this is where it gets nasty) to ask an ISP to store specific data about a customer (without letting the customer know or anyone else know as that's an offence under RIPA too). The 'authorities' covers a wide range of organisations and can be the normal suspects such as the Police or Government angencies and also your local council and other angencies (for example may be investigation benefit fraud). There are other oddities in the Act so if your sending encrypted Emails, you can be asked to surrender the encryption keys and it's an offence not to hand them over and you can languish in jail until you do. The DCDB extends these powers so that ISPs will have to monitor more services and store more information about users. This includes things like emails (who sent an email to who and at what time) and what websites are being visited, it may also extend to VoIP calls (which might originate from say a VoIP phone used by the customer but the service used it not run by the ISP). Most ISPs don't monitor these things and don't actually have the equipment to do so and the Government is proposing to put 'black boxes' into the ISPs' network and they will do the snooping. Currently the Government will pay for the boxes. This sounds reasonably fair but as with everything there are potential issues. There are very companies that have the technology to do this, but there are a few so it's likely that the Government will just use them. This means that they are known systems and they'll be the target of every hacker as they'll be storing a wealth of useful information that will be valuable to someone. Most ISPs are using fast internal networks running at 1 Gigabit per second (Gb/s), some are using 10 Gb/s networks and some even 40 Gb/s networks (and in future networking technologies will increase to 100 Gb/s). The black boxes will work at a specified speed (say currently at 1 GB/s) so if an ISP increases the network speeds, more black boxes will have to be installed in order to keep up with the increased network traffic. Who then pays for more boxes? The Government may try and restrict the ISPs from increasing the network speeds so they don't have to install faster or more boxes. This already happens in countries where their Governments have resticted policies on what customers can view etc. The Government may also want to snoop on web traffic, that's pretty easy when it's normal HTTP traffic as you'd use to visit say The Next Web as the ISP can just put a web proxy and force all web traffic through the proxy and log whatever's been requested and send the request on the the actual site that's been requested by the customer. It may be slightly slower, but the customer wouldn't know that the traffic has been intercepted. However sites also use HTTPS or encrypted HTTP. This is where it gets very nasty as putting a proxy in the middle doesn't work. The web traffic is forced to the proxy and it establishes the encryption protocols to the proxy and the proxy then starts it's own encryption to the desired site. Except that the browser 'knows' that it's not really the remote site as the encryption certificate wont match what the browser's expecting and thus the little padlock that shows that the connection is secure wont be locked and the customer knows the connection has been intercepted. It is possible to fake the secure connection (by installing a Government security certificate) on all the UK browsers, which is difficult but not impossible. This then would match all certificates issued by anyone and thus the proxy could pretend to be whatever site it wanted to and all UK browsers would believe it. However that's a HUGE security risk and anyone managing to break into the proxy could steal huge amounts of valuable data including secure connections to on-line banking and other services. Anyone stealing the Government certificate would also also be able to emulate any secure site they wanted to too. So if the DCDB does become the Communications Data Act, then ISPs may be forced to stiffle technology advances to ensure the Government can keep up with the snooping as well as making the UK a massive target for terrorists attacking the snooping systems themselves.

Candy Labs the new acquisition from Mindy Candy

Mind Candy the parent company of Moshi Monsters has acquired Origami Blue which will become Candy Labs their new R&D division. Origami Blue are a games studio based in Brighton formed by ex-Disney Blackrock studios creatives Edd Smith, Mark Knowles-Lee and James Ovnik to create world-class character animation and innovative experiences. Candy Labs will develop new intellectual property (IP) to allow Mindy Candy to bring out new entertainment in the digital and non-digital arenas. Though Moshi Monsters is huge (and still growing), there are more and more competitors emerging and this will allow Mindy Candy to expand its portfolio and keep themselves in the forefront of entertainment.

MediaTek wants the smartphone market

MediaTek has released a new chip the MT6577 which combines an ARM Cortex-A9 dual CPU with their 3G/HSPA modem and a graphics subsystem based on Imagination Technologies' PowerVR Series5 SGX. This will allow 1080p encoding and playback at 15 or 30 frames per second (using a 1080 by 720 display) and supports an 8MP camera and can support a stereo camera too. The 40nm process silicon is being produced by TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited) and MediaTek are already in talks with vendors and devices should be available by Q3 this year. MediaTek are already the largest supply of baseband units, but it's a high volume low margin business. This should add value, however this will enable smart phones to be produced in the $150 - $200 range while existing smart phones with similar specifications cost around the $500 mark. This puts MediaTek directly against Qualcomm and their Snapdragon cores.

Everything Everywhere 4G LTE trial in Cumbria

Everything Everywhere (the combined Orange and T-Mobile mobile network operators) has been running a trial in Cumbria using LTE in it's existing 1800MHz spectrum. The trialists were made up of users from local businesses and they either used dongles or mobile routers. Speeds of up to 20Mb/s (download) were achieved, though this depended on the number of users per mast and distance from the mast. The area isn't well serviced by fixed line broadband which meant high speed mobile via mobile was a boon to users. EE have applied to Ofcom for a license variation to allow them to utilise LTE on their existing 1800MHz spectrum nationally and Ofcom have opened a consultation on whether to allow this. The other MNOs are objecting, though EE have to return some of that spectrum as part of their merger conditions.

Ofcom Telecom Complaints Q1 2012

Ofcom the Super regulator that covers telecoms, broadcasting, spectrum, media and the postal system has released details about Telecoms complaints in the period January through March 2012. This covers fixed line telephone, fixed broadband, mobile telephony and Pay TV services. Ofcom itself receives around 300 complaints per day, usually when a consumer can not resolve an issue with the relevant supplier. These reports are logged, while there are many more issues reported to the suppliers themselves that Ofcom never gets to hear of. Fixed line telephony: BT Retail, Sky, TalkTalk Group and Virgin Media of which TalkTalk had the highest number of complaints with Virgin Media receiving the least number of complaints. Most complaints related to billing and customer service issues. Fixed broadband: BT Retail, Sky, TalkTalk Group, Virgin Media and Orange Home. Again TalkTalk had the most complaints and Sky the least mainly about line faults and other service issues. Mobile telephony: 3UK, O2, Orange, T-Mobile, Vodafone and Virgin Mobile with Three getting most complaints and O2 least relating mainly to disputed charges and customer service issues. Pay TV services: Sky, BT Vision, and Virgin Media with Sky getting the least complaints and BT Vision the most mainly relating to their sales processes and problems with billing. The Ofcom summary can be found here.

Llustre becomes uk.fab.com

Fab launched in June 2011 and to celebrate it's first birthday it is now launching uk.fab.com with the acquisition of Llustre. Fab has grown to over 5m people in 20 countries and has relationships with over 5,000 designers. Sales of items ranged from $1 to $20,000 and it has sold over 1.8m products. Llustre started life in October 2011 and launched in April 2012 and has grown rapidly to become a destination site for interior design flash sales in the UK and has already gained more than 500 design partners. Maria Molland (ex Thomson Reuters) will take on the role of Chief European Officer, while Tracy Doree (CoFounder of Llustre) will work for Maria as Managing Director of Fab UK and head of UK Merchandising and Vivianne Bearman (C-Founder Llustre) will lead the UK Product & Operations. Fab and Llustre have both grown phenomenally and the combined company can only do better.

Motorola buys Psion

Motorola Solutions (the bit of Motorola that wasn't acquired by Google that was the remnant after selling the other bits to Nokia Siemens Networks in 2011) has purchased Psion the UK handheld terminal manufacturer. Psion originally made organisers and designed Symbian (which was sold to Nokia) and have recently moved into the ruggedised terminal market. Motorola Solutions specialises in industrial-grade devices and business verticals, as well as public-safety networks in the United States and other markets so purchase should complement their existing services.

New great day of talks for founders raising cash

There's a great new conference being put on by General Assembly called A Founder's guide to fund-raising which should be good for any start-ups out there. You can see more on the event http://assembledcapitallondon.eventbrite.com/ and sign-up below.

Event management for ASSEMBLED CAPITAL: A Founder's Guide to Fundraising powered by Eventbrite

Do sign-up, it costs £200 but it's a great day of talks.

Blackberry 10 Jam

Yesterday 14th June 2012 Research in Motion held their UK Blackberry 10 Jam event in Vinapolis near London Bridge. The day was full of information about how to build native or HTML5 applications on the new Blackberry 10 operating system. RIM also gave away an Alpha dev 10 phone, which looks pretty similar to an iPhone, but without any buttons (apart form the power button). The unit also has a micro USB connector, an HDMI connector and a tray and slot for a micro SIM. After setting up the device (using your Blackberry ID), you get to the home screen, which gives you 2 apps, the camera and a browser (and of course settings which is part of the OS). Anything else you have to write yourself. In the US, the devices were given out with SIM cards and they are meant to be fully operational as phones (and allegedly there's even a dialler within RIM somewhere). It is possible to pair the device with a Bluetooth headset and then receive calls by answering through the headset. Also in the US developers were promised free upgrades to official Blackberry 10 devices when they are released. This may be the dying spasms of an organisation trying to attract developers with gifts, but Blackberry's OS 10 is actually rather good.

ICANN release applicants for new top level domains

ICANN or as it's properly known The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers has released the list of applicants and the top level domains (TLDs) they've applied for [1]. Many of the names are expected, with big brands applying for their names such as car manufacturers and such like. Other large companies have also applied to register names of their services (such as Microsoft LIVE, but there's multiple applicants for that TLD). Amazon have also applied for a variety of TLDs (77 in fact) including AMAZON, APP, AUDIBLE, AUTHOR, AWS, BOOK, BOT, BOX (many of these will have multiple applicants). If there are multiple applicants for the same domain, ICANN will hold an auction and the highest bidder will get it. There are 40 applications from the UK (though there's a slight weirdness there as the ISO country code is actually GB so they're actually listed under that, why the UK chose UK over GB is a historical peculiarity) including LONDON which London and Partners applied for (the PR agency for London etc) and WALES applied for by Nominet who run the gTLD .uk Nicely ICANN have also published the corresponding applicants emails, which are (it can be assumed) now nicely being harvested by SPAM bots.

Spotify nows Plays on Android

Spotify has now released their app on to Google Play (formerly Android Marketplace). The app has been available from Spotify's site in beta for a while. The new features are

• Totally new app with full support for Android 4.0
• All-new slide-out navigation
• Crossfade/gapless playback settings
• Widget - control Spotify from the home screen
• Playlist folder support
• Even more social - check out friends’ profile pages and playlists on the go
• Artist imagery in high resolution
• Related artist view - available for the first time on mobile
• ‘Extreme’ sound quality setting for 320kbps listening
• Play queue
• Last.fm scrobbling
• Speed increases

In order to use the mobile version users need a Spotify Premium subscription. Spotify now gives access to over 18 million songs and is available in 15 countries including USA, UK, Sweden, Finland, Norway, Denmark, France, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Belgium, The Netherlands, Spain, Australia and New Zealand. there are now over 10 million active users with over 3 million paying subscribers.

GoCardless release PayLinks

GoCardless the company that is revolutionising on-line payments has just released its Paylinks system. This allows anyone with a UK bank account to receive payments through a website. It is a very simple sign-up process that asks for an email/password and then a driving license or passport number and address/date of birth etc. Then back account details. You get a confirmation email and that it everything is done. The PayLinks site then prompts for an amount, whether it's a single payment or recurring (weekly, monthly, annually) and then it generates a unique URL that can be added to a site. Anyone clicking on the link will be prompted for their details and that's it a payment is made to the GoCardless user's account. GoCardless will hold payments for 7 days to ensure that nothing dubious is going on (probably earning interest for them too). GoCardless only charge 1% of the transaction or £2.00 whichever is less. GoCardless already offer what amounts to direct debit payments for merchants (i.e. no credit cards requited, just bank details) and this will just add to their disruptiveness and other payment providers must be quaking in their boots.

Plessey release consumer EPIC chip

Plessey Semiconductor have announced the release of an ultra low-cost version of their EPIC sensor for consumer applications (the PS25451). The chip is being aimed at consumer devices such as interactive toys, computer games, TVs, monitors and such like. The chips detect variance in the electronic potential in vicinity of the sensor and can detect the presence (or disappearance) of people. Thus can be used to automatically switch on lights or even detect multiple people for computer games. The original EPIC sensor used titanium dioxide electrodes which are expensive, but can be used in medical applications. These have been replaced by a novel cheaper electrode for the consumer device. It will cost under $1 in 50,000 units.

Apple isn't flattered by Flattr

Apple forces all iOS developers to use Apple's payment systems inside any iOS app and disallow the use any other method for in-app purchases. If Apple finds apps using 3rd party payment systems they will reject the app or remove it from the app store if it's already there. This has recently happened to app developer Vemedio who's Instacast app (an iOS podcasting aggregator) added Flattr support in Feb 2012 and auto-Flattr later allowing users to automatically donate to podcasts after they were playing and the update was rejected. On May 24th Apple forced Vemedio to remove Flattr support completely. The only way for apps to use 3rd party payment systems is to direct them to a website via Safari where payments can be made. Apple acknowledge that this may not provide the easiest flow for the user (as they have to leave the app, do whatever they need to do on a website, then return to the app), but it's the only way to ensure compliance. Flattr are in discussion with Apple to see if there is a solution that will satisfy Apple.

LG introduces HD 5 inch display

On Monday 28th May 2012 LG announced its new 5 inch display that will handle full HD at 1080p (1920 x 1080) at 440 pixels per inch (ppi). This improves on the iPhone's display which is 326ppi. The panel uses a technology known as Advanced Hi Performance In-Plane SwitchinG (AH-IPS) that is meant to support a wide viewing angle, lower power consumption and brighter light transmission which means it can be used outside. This just means that Apple's competitors can now provide great display s on their devices, though other technologies are sure to come out further increasing ppi, further decreasing power consumption and increasing brightness.

Mind Candy release iOS app

Mind Candy have developed its first in-house iOS app called Moshi Monsters: Moshlings. It's available on iTunes and costs £0.69 and works on both iPhone and iPad devices. It features; -

• Over 60 Moshlings
• Essential Moshling info – read about their personalities, habitats and much more
• Moshling secret codes – so you can catch ‘em at MoshiMonsters.com
• 100 stickers to customise your Moshlings
• Bring out your inner artist by scaling and rotating stickers
• Save your artwork at the touch of a button
• Create fangtastic wallpapers for your mobile gizmo
• More Moshlings on the way

Mindy Candy are on a roll

Moshi Monsters goes Mobile

Mind Candy, the parent company behind Moshi Monsters, has partnered with GREE to bring Moshi Monsters to the world of mobile phones. The partnership gives Moshi Monster's 60m registered users visibility and access to GREE mobile gaming platform, while GREE's 230m users are given access to Moshi Monsters. The mobile game is expected to be available by Q4 2012 and will be available in multiple languages including English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin and more. As well as having a range of best selling toys, the No1 selling children's magazine and the best selling Nintendo DS game, now Moshi Monsters is set to dominate the mobile gaming space too. Mind Candy is building an in-house team to continue mobile partnerships and development of mobile games. Moshi Monsters returned over $100m in 2011 and can only be expected to grow, they're on-track to be a £1bn company.

Plessey release new EPIC sensor for cars

Plessey Semiconductor have released a version of their EPIC sensor (PS25203) for automotive applications. This has a higher input impedance and lower gain which means it can be used for health monitoring in close proximity to to the driver by mounting electrodes in the rear of the seat. EPIC measures changes in the electric potential in the air which is distorted by other electric fields or objects and can detect the heart rate of a human without actually making direct contact with them. The sensor can also detect respiration and/or just presence (to check for occupancy of seats). The EPIC sensor is already in production for measuring ECG for ambulance use and also for remote detection of people. The new chip has had the digital signal processor addicted to work within the automotive environment. The detection of ECG and respiration in cars can be used to detect driver consciousness (i.e. to see if they are getting drowsy). The sensor will be launched at Chicago Sensor Expo 2012 will cost around $1-2 in volume and comes in a 4 pin PCB hybrid package measuring 10.5mm x 10.5mm x 3.45mm.

USPS won't ship devices with Lithium batteries

The United States Postal Service (USPS) has banned the mailing of any devices containing a lithium or lithium ion battery, whether in the device, in the same package or just the battery itself outside of the United States including to American Forces offices and Diplomatic offices. This is in-line with compliance with International Civil Aviation Organization and Universal Postal Union standards. Within the US, batteries can be posted but limits based on the watt-hour rating of the battery instead of the lithium content will be used. This means that devices such as mobile phones, tablets etc can no longer be shipped using USPS and other international carriers will have to be used such as UPS or Fedex as they have fire suppression systems on their planes which can cope with lithium fires but this may increase the shipping costs. Companies who have employees outside the US will now have to issue phones directly and have them carried as hand-luggage. It may also affect sites such as Ebay where electronics devices are regularly sold.

EU limits data and roaming charges

The EU is putting into effect changes to limit the amount operators can charge for datum calls sent and received and text messages (SMS). The new caps come into force on 1st July 2012 and replace any existing regulations that expire on 30th June 2012.

	Current	1 July 2012	1 July 2013	1 July 2014
Data (per MB)	Uncapped	70 cents	45 cents	20 cents
Phone calls made (per minute)	35 cents	29 cents	24 cents	19 cents
Phone calls received (per minute)	11 cents	8 cents	7 cents	5 cents
Text Message (per SMS)	11 cents	9 cents	8 cents	6 cents

Operator wholesale charges will be

	Current	1 July 2012	1 July 2013	1 July 2014
Data (per megabyte)	50 cents	25 cents	15 cents	5 cents
Phone calls (per minute)	18 cents	14 cents	10 cents	5 cents
Text Message (per SMS)	4 cents	3 cents	2 cents	2 cents

So operators will still make large profits as data and message volumes are still on the increase, they just get less per unit.