Solar Plane Lands in New York, Completing U.S. Journey

An airplane entirely powered by the sun touched down in New York City late on Saturday, completing the final leg of an epic journey across the United States that began over two months ago.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - An airplane entirely powered by the sun touched down in New York City late on Saturday, completing the final leg of an epic journey across the United States that began over two months ago.
The Solar Impulse, its four propellers driven by energy collected from 12,000 solar cells in its wings to charge batteries for night use, landed at John F. Kennedy Airport at 11:09 p.m. EDT, organizers said.
The experimental aircraft had left Dulles International Airport outside Washington for its last leg more than 18 hours earlier, on a route that took it north over Maryland, Delaware and New Jersey.
The spindly aircraft had been expected to land in the early hours of Sunday, but the project team decided to shorten the flight after an 8-foot (2.5 meter) tear appeared on the underside of the left wing.
The condition of the aircraft was declared sufficiently stable to continue, and pilot Andre Borschberg was not in danger, the organizers said.
The Solar Impulse is the first solar-powered plane capable of operating day and night to fly across the United States.
With the wingspan of a jumbo jet and the weight of a small car, the aircraft completed the first leg of the journey from San Francisco to Phoenix in early May and flew later that month from Phoenix to Dallas.
From there it flew to St. Louis, stopped briefly in Cincinnati, then flew on to Washington, where is has remained since June 16.
Intended to boost support for clean energy technologies, the project began in 2003 with a 10-year budget of $112 million (90 million euros).
It has involved engineers from Swiss escalator maker Schindler and research aid from Belgian chemicals group Solvay.

8 Recognition Apps Work Almost Like Magic

In my Scientific American column this month, I noted that in consumer electronics the promises of magic sells. And one of the most important areas for magic simulation these days is recognition. That's when your phone or computer recognizes human speech, motion, visual cues and audio.
You've probably heard of some speech-recognition efforts, like Apple's Siri and the dictation program Dragon NaturallySpeaking. But the world is teeming with apps that recognize other sights, sounds and stimuli. Here's a taste.
Evernote (free; Android, iOS, Mac, Windows): Evernote is the popular notepad-of-all-trades app that keeps your notes synchronized across all of your gadgets. If you snap a photo of something that includes writing (or paste in such an image), even handwriting, its behind-the-scenes optical character-recognition algorithms decipher the writing as text. The accuracy isn't quite good enough to convert the writing into typed text, but it's good enough to let you perform searches on handwritten notes. That is, you can pull up the image of your scanned or photographed handwriting by typing a keyword into the search box.
Shazam (free; all smartphones): This app recognizes recorded songs—popular or not. You're sitting in some restaurant, bar, office or elevator; you let the app listen to the music for a few seconds and marvel as it tells you the song title, singer, album and so on. With another couple of taps, you're buying the song on iTunes or watching the music video on YouTube.
SoundHound (free; iOS and Android): This one is just like Shazam, but with one delicious added feature: you can also hum or sing into it. This is the app to use when something's running through your head and you wish you could remember the name of the song. Uncanny.
Bird Song ID (£3, about $4.60; iOS): It's Shazam for birdsong. Record a bird's warble—the cleaner the recording, the better the luck you'll have—and let the app tell you what species you're hearing. No Internet connection required for this task.
Leafsnap (free; iOS): Take a photo of a leaf (against a white background) and let the app's visual-recognition feature identify the plant it came from. An ingenious field guide, although it requires an Internet connection to perform its magic.
LookTel ($10; Mac, iOS): This company makes a pair of apps ($10 each) for people with vision impairments. Hold your phone over a bill—dollar, pound, euro, doesn't matter—and the app speaks: "20 dollars," for example. There's also LookTel Recognizer, which can identify and speak the name of precisely the kinds of things a blind person might have trouble differentiating: cans of food or soda, packages of food, money, videos and so on. The catch is that you first have to train it. You have to take a picture of each item and speak its name in your own voice: "Sprite Zero," for example, presumably with the help of a sighted person. Thereafter, the app briskly and confidently speaks the name of each item it's learned when the phone's camera sees it.
Color Identifier ($2; iOS), Color Reader (free; Android): Apps like this one (there are several) perform one simple, obvious function: they identify by name any color. Color Identifier lets you switch between simple color names ("pale green") and more exotic ones ("lavender rose"). If you're color-blind, this sort of app is of great help when you're trying to pick matching clothes in your closet. Or you can aim the phone's camera at, say, a shirt, and find out by name its color before you make an embarrassing fashion faux pas.

Biggest Cyber Attack in History. Cybersecurity Pioneer Narus Asks: "Are You Safe?"

It's funny how things work. Earlier this week I was interviewing the team at Narus. The company, an independent subsidiary of Boeing and more about digital, less about massive bodies of steel,  is a pioneer in cybersecurity. Cybersecurity, the practices designed to protect networks, computers, programs and data from attack or damage.
I was asking the company's president, John Trobough, "As a consumer, why should I care?" I mean, these big companies have money to throw at this kind of stuff, so I'm sure they've figured it out. Besides, what do I care if some chicken nugget-producing enterprise gets hacked? Or if some big bucks mobile company has a security breech when a clever employee outsources his work and watches cat videos instead? Some of those videos are pretty good.
The very next day the world sustained what many touted as being the "biggest cyber attack in history."

It was, if fact, big. Mashable writes, "Kaspersky Labs, a leading security research group, called it 'one of the largest DDoS operations to date.'" It's origins were a conflict between Spamhaus, a European organization that keeps tabs on spammers and Cyberbunker, a Dutch hosting company accused of housing them. In the end, the attack severely affected the websites it was targeted at, and many Internet users in Europe and North America found the Internet suddenly slowed or ground to a halt.
On the whole, though, the global Internet as a whole was not impacted to the expected extent. You see, it's not necessarily a "massive," global cyber attack that we, as individuals should be concerned about. It's the potential smaller, personal ones. As a 2012 Norton Cybercrime report outlines, these consumer attacks are costing us.
"We are living in an interconnected world where lines are being blurred, from the personal to the digital," Narus' Trobough explains. "As consumers, we expect the same level of security in our digital world we've always had in our physical world."
In fact, the guarantees aren't the same.
A recent Financial Times article points to a new study that suggests automobiles could one day become the victim of cyber attacks that compromise electronic systems and endanger passenger safety. Cars already contain a huge amount of electronics controlled by thousands of lines of code, and mobile phones, internet access, Bluetooth connections all open doors for hackers. The risk to consumers is more than compromised performance or someone stealing your Twitter account; a cyber attack on a car could result in the loss of life.

BBC 3D programming 'on hold' indefinitely

The BBC is to suspend 3D programming for an indefinite period due to a "lack of public appetite" for the technology.

Kim Shillinglaw, the BBC's head of 3D, said it has "not taken off" with audiences who find it "quite hassly".
The BBC began a two-year 3D trial in 2011, broadcasting several shows and events in 3D, including the Olympic Games and Strictly Come Dancing.
A Doctor Who anniversary special in November will be among the final shows televised in 3D as part of the trial.
Half of the estimated 1.5 million households in the UK with a 3D-enabled television watched last summer's Olympics opening ceremony in 3D.
The BBC said 3D viewing figures for the Queen's Christmas Message and the children's drama Mr Stink were "even more disappointing", with just 5% of potential viewers tuning in over the Christmas period.
'Wait-and-see'
In an interview with the Radio Times, Shillinglaw said: "I have never seen a very big appetite for 3D television in the UK.
"I think when people watch TV they concentrate in a different way. When people go to the cinema they go and are used to doing one thing - I think that's one of the reasons that take up of 3D TV has been disappointing."
Shillinglaw will return to her main job at the BBC, as head of science and natural history, when the project ends at the close of the year.
"After that we will see what happens when the recession ends and there may be more take up of sets, but I think the BBC will be having a wait-and-see. It's the right time for a good old pause," she said.
"I am not sure our job is to call the whole 3D race," she said.
Last year's Wimbledon finals were the first programmes to be shown in 3D by the BBC. This year, the broadcaster will show both the men's and ladies Wimbledon semi-finals and finals in 3D.
The free-to-air 3D Wimbledon coverage is only available to viewers with access to a 3D TV set and to the BBC's HD Red Button channel on certain platforms, but not Sky.
Last month, US sports network ESPN announced it was to close its 3D channel in the US due to a lack of uptake.
Recent figures from the US suggest no more than 120,000 people are watching 3D channels at any one time

Broadband speeds at mercy of postcode lottery

Choice of internet provider, price and download speeds vary hugely for users living just yards apart.

Britain's broadband users are still suffering from a postcode lottery that sees some households paying twice as much for a slower service than others living less than 100 yards away.
According to a study of more than 1.7m UK postcodes by Broadbandchoices.co.uk , millions of homeowners could be paying as much as £60-£70 more a year for their service than their near neighbours.
The comparison website found that in Calverton, Nottinghamshire, users are paying £5-plus a month more than their neighbours who are just 65 yards away – and they can only download from the internet at a third of the speed.
It says the postcode lottery means 13% of internet users are being penalised as they don't have the choice of cheaper deals simply due to their address. They are also suffering from limited broadband speeds and download limits.
Geographical location plays a big part in the number of suppliers on offer. In some areas customers can choose from around 10 providers; others have just five options. It means that while some are paying as little as £2 a month for their broadband (on top of landline fees), others are being forced to spend £8 or more.
The service and price available is largely dependent on whether the local telephone exchange has been – to use the jargon – "unbundled".
The big broadband suppliers, such as Sky or TalkTalk, have, in recent years, been busy unbundling, putting their own equipment into local telephone exchanges that used to be the sole preserve of BT. Users linked to unbundled exchanges get cheaper deals and faster download speeds, and fewer caps on data usage.
As the big suppliers target the most affluent and residential areas, where they think they will get the most customers, a two-tier broadband service has developed with those whose exchanges have not been touched.
Those living in Scarrow Hill near Brampton, Cumbria, for example, find themselves forced to pay an extra £5 a month as well as receiving inferior download speeds and having too fewer providers to choose from when compared to people who live just down the road.
Herefordshire was revealed as the county with the worst overall service, where users have the narrowest choice of providers – an average of eight – and the slowest download speeds – just 12.3Mbps.
Users in the county also pay the second highest minimum costs in the country of £5.47 a month, second only to Rutland whose residents have to pay on average a minimum of £5.99.
Greater Manchester topped the study as having the best results in those categories: the lowest broadband costs were just £2.99, average download speeds were 28Mbps, and there is typically a choice of 12 providers.
The survey also revealed a north-south divide in the number of available providers.
Those in the south have an average of 10 to choose from, while those in the north have a pool of 11. Southern residents can take some solace in the fact they just nudge the north when it comes to average download speeds: 22Mbps compared to 21Mbps.
Dominic Baliszewski, a telecoms expert at Broadbandchoices, says: "It is amazing just how much the nation's broadband services vary from county to county, and especially street to street.
"Broadband has become a utility in the UK, not a luxury, and it is unacceptable that people are being penalised simply due to where they live."
He adds: "Providers must improve their coverage, and it will be interesting to see what measures are taken in the coming months."
To get a further idea of the price differences Guardian Money did its own quick comparison. We looked at Great Chishill, a village in south Cambridgeshire, and at the city of Cambridge itself.
The current cheapest broadband in Great Chishill is Plusnet's half-price deal at £6.49 for 12 months. This has a 10GB monthly download cap.
In central Cambridge, meanwhile, Tesco is currently offering an uncapped service for just £2 a month.

Rural fibre broadband scheme two years behind schedule, say auditors

Much-trumpeted plans to introduce superfast broadband to rural areas will be delivered nearly two years late, with taxpayers footing a greater proportion of the £1.2bn bill, the government's official auditors have said.
Fewer than a quarter of the projects will be ready by May 2015, the expected delivery date, and the scheme will cost the public purse an extra £207m, according to a report from the National Audit Office.
The government has already announced that superfast broadband will reach 95% of the population by 2017, two years after the original date for reaching that target.
Just nine out of 44 local projects are expected to reach the original target of 2015, according to the report, with the delay partly attributed to the EU state aid process taking six months longer than expected.
Auditors also said competition among suppliers had been limited, leaving BT as the only active participant. It is expected to win all 44 local projects.
The worst affected areas include Merseyside, Oxfordshire and Derbyshire, which are among those councils that have yet to sign a contract with BT. Residents in these areas have no idea when their broadband will be upgraded.
The findings will make uncomfortable reading for David Cameron, who in 2011 announced the latest stage of the scheme and said it would be "absolutely vital in driving the creation of the small businesses and growing businesses that will be so important to keep the growth of employment in our country".
Helen Goodman, the shadow media minister, said many in the countryside were being left without access to the internet at a time when the government was shifting essential services online.
"We are not a 'one nation' country with this digital divide, and that divide is being deepened by [the culture secretary] Maria Miller," she said.
The report has been seized upon by Tory opponents of the HS2 rail scheme as proof that the government has got its priorities wrong. The former cabinet minister Cheryl Gillan said: "This is disappointing and an example of how putting more resources into this type of operation would yield more immediate benefits to the wider economy rather than spending money on HS2."
Superfast broadband will be accessible to nearly two-thirds of the UK by next spring. Government support is needed to supply the final third in difficult-to-reach areas where telecoms operators will struggle to make a profit on their investment.
Significantly, the auditors said the government had "secured only limited transparency" over the costs in BT's bids. For reasons of commercial confidentiality, BT has told councils they cannot share information with each other to ensure they are getting a fair deal. Last year a whistleblower was dismissed by Broadband Delivery UK, the national broadband funding programme, after drawing up a spreadsheet to help councils share information.
His research suggested big disparities between contracts, and auditors have now confirmed this. Their checks showed the cost of connecting fibre to BT's green street cabinets, which link homes to telephone exchanges, varied between £19,600 and £51,000. The cost of cabinets is a major element in contracts, accounting for more than a third of costs.
Some areas, where cabinets are a long way from the nearest exchange or fibre trunk route, are clearly more expensive to connect than others. But the average cost in England is 12% higher than in Northern Ireland, where BT has already completed its work.
Checks made by civil servants have already identified over-charging. In one area BT was found to have inflated project management costs by £3m. BT refused to let civil servants inspect its books to confirm that the costs it charges to the public purse were the same as on its own commercial projects, the report said.
Margaret Hodge, chair of the public accounts committee, said she remained concerned about whether BT was being transparent enough to allow parliament to follow the public pound. "Opaque data and limited benchmarks for comparison mean the [DCMS] has no idea if BT is being reasonable or adding in big mark ups," she said.
A BT spokesman said: "We have been very transparent from the outset and have invested hundreds of millions of pounds when others decided to ignore rural Britain."

Samsung shares fall despite forecasting record profits

Shares in Samsung Electronics fell on Friday, despite the company forecasting it would report a record quarterly profit for the second quarter of 9.5tn won (£5.5bn), up 47% on a year ago.
But the news fell short of analysts' expectations and the shares fell by nearly 4% on the Seoul stock market.
The company was preparing to announce 20m shipments of its new Galaxy S4 phone, two months after its release but analysts are increasingly concerned that Samsung, like its principal smartphone rival Apple, is facing saturated markets in the developed world as ownership passes 50% in many countries.
Average smartphone ownership in the US and Europe is heading towards 60%, leaving few new buyers to expand the business at the high end. Mobile network operators are also cutting subsidies for phones, making high-end phones more expensive.
South Korean networks cut subsidies for new phones this year, contributing to weaker Galaxy S4 sales in Samsung's home market and higher marketing spending for the handset maker, said Seo Won-seok, an analyst at Korea Investment & Securities.
China is the fastest growth area in smartphones, but at low prices with highly competitive markets. Samsung has been releasing cut-down versions of the S4 to try to protect its market share from rivals such as ZTE and Huawei.
The saturation at the top end of the market seemed to be reflected in Samsung's Galaxy S4 figures. Though shipments of the S4 in the first month after release were twice as high as for last year's Galaxy S3, the time it took to reach the 20m mark suggested shipments were slowing to a rise of only 60%.
The company still dominates the smartphone and "featurephone" business, shipping about half of all smartphones and a quarter of all mobile phones worldwide. It is the biggest seller of phones running Google's Android software, taking about 95% of all profits in the Android space.
Samsung said total sales in its electronics division had grown 20% to 57tn won (£33.2bn). It will announce its full audited quarterly results this month.
Analysts suggested that high marketing costs – which exceeded those for research and development for the first time in three years – may have hit the profit figure, despite the strong first-month sales.
"Because of the marketing costs, the telecommunications business was probably weaker than expected," said CW Chung, an analyst at Nomura Financial Investment in Seoul. "Semiconductor and other businesses seem to have improved from the previous quarter."
Analysts cut their figures last month for the total numbers of S4 phones Samsung will ship this year from 80m to 60m.
"Apple is suffering from iPhone fatigue, while Samsung is suffering from Galaxy fatigue," Neil Mawston, executive director of Strategy Analytics, told Bloomberg before the financial announcement.
Samsung is increasingly reliant on its mobile business for growth. Samsung's division making and selling mobile phones, tablet computers and cameras contributed 75% of its operating income in the first quarter of this year. Analysts surveyed by FactSet said 60% of Samsung's second-quarter sales probably came from the mobile business.