Tomorrow's Newspapers Online. 10-30-2013 | S

The South Korean firm is releasing five new software development kits (SDKs).

It said they would make it easier to create programmes that can share content on its phones, tablets and TVs.

The company announced the news in San Francisco at its first ever developer conference. It is already the best-selling Android device manufacturer.

Samsung wants to defend that position by ensuring new software takes advantage of its devices' proprietary features, such as support for its S Pen stylus and its Multi Window function, which allows two apps to be run in split-screen mode.

"Consumers want the best possible experience," Samsung Senior Vice President Curtis Sasaki told the BBC.

"So, part of our job is to get developers excited about supporting all of our new features. That ends up benefiting the consumer with much better applications. "We're hoping that innovation happens outside of the company. That's why we have developers from 33 different countries."

Stand-out smart devices In holding a developers conference, Samsung follows the lead of other firms including Apple, Google, Microsoft and Blackberry.

All are seeking to offer unique software features to help their platforms stand out.

In the last couple of years Samsung has overtaken Apple to become the world's top-selling smartphone maker.

But, unlike Apple and Blackberry - which develop both their own hardware and the operating systems that power it - Samsung relies on a third-party OS, Android, which is engineered by Google.

The same software is also used by many of Samsung's competitors - including Sony, HTC and LG.

Although Samsung adds its own TouchWiz user interface to the system, its use of Google's OS means its customers may find it relatively easy to migrate to other Android devices when they decide to upgrade.

It also means that customers who purchase apps after they buy a device typically funnel revenue to Google rather than Samsung itself, a situation the Asian firm is keen to address. To do so, Samsung has developed a multi-pronged approach.

In terms of hardware, it is trying to build an ecosystem in which one device relies on another. This is the case with its recently launched Galaxy Gear smartwatch, which is only being made compatible with the company's Galaxy Note, Mega and S handsets.

Project Ara allows users to buy a basic phone structure and add modules such as keyboard, battery or other sensors.

Motorola has partnered with Dutch designer Dave Hakkens, who has created Phonebloks, a modular phone idea, on the project.

Experts were unsure on how big a shake-up for the mobile phone industry the customisable handsets would represent.

In a blog post, Motorola said that it had been working on the project for more than a year.

"We want to do for hardware what the Android platform has done for software - create a vibrant, third-party developer ecosystem," the firm wrote in a blog post.

"To give you the power to decide what your phone does, how it looks, where and what it's made of, how much it costs and how long you'll keep it."

The project will consist of what Motorola is calling an endoskeleton, the frame that will hold all the modules in place.

"A module can be anything from a new application processor to a new display or keyboard, an extra battery, a pulse oximeter - or something not yet thought of," the firm said. Motorola plans to begin inviting developers to create modules in a few months time with a module developer's kit launching soon afterwards.

Motorola came across the work of Dave Hakkens, the creator of Phonebloks, while developing the project and asked him to team up with them. Phonebloks has gained much interest in recent months.

Lego phone Mr Hakkens launched Phonebloks on crowd-promoting website Thunderclap and quickly amassed 950,000 supporters.

"We've done the deep technical work. Dave created a community," Motorola added in its blogpost.

Chris Green, principal technology analyst at the Davies Murphy Group consultancy, dismissed the project as a "gimmick".

"I don't see this as being a big deal. It is not responding to any particular demand and there is no real benefit to assembling your own device,

"The days of DIY IT, people building their own desktop PC, are gone due to falling costs of hardware," he said.

Ben Wood, a mobile expert from CCS Insight, is equally unsure of how mass market such a product can be.

"Creating a Lego-like phone seems on the face of it like a great idea but the commercial realities of delivering such a device are challenging. Consumers want small, attractive devices and a modular design makes this extremely difficult.

While most people stayed away, I rushed to the scene to report on the unfolding attack. It was impossible to keep up with all the responses, and equally challenging to send out my own queries – to friends, loved ones and acquaintances who could be inside, amid the chaos and confusion. Meanwhile, those inside the mall frantically tried to keep those on the outside updated through text messages and emails – as long as batteries lasted – desperately hoping for rescue, or information on a passage to safety.

Nearly three quarters of humans on this planet are practically tethered to their mobile phones. Yet it is only during emergencies that we realise how precious this connection is to our lives. Perhaps reassuringly, a series of technologies are now emerging that promise to make it easier to reach loved ones and share vital news during emergencies – be it armed attacks or natural disasters.

Early signs suggest that the rise in mobile phone ownership is beginning to mitigate the impact of emergencies and natural disasters. Last year saw the lowest number of deaths and people affected by disasters for a decade, according to the 2013 World Disasters Report from the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC). Bekele Geleta of the IFRC admits the number of disasters in 2012 was also amongst the lowest in several years, but argues that technology played a significant role in reducing the human toll – specifically ownership of phones, linked to weather prediction, satellite imagery and mass alert systems.

But when the NSA director and other spy chiefs appear at a House Intelligence Committee hearing on Tuesday it will be against a backdrop of angry European allies accusing the United States of spying on their leaders and citizens.

The most prominent target appears to have been German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose mobile phone was allegedly tapped by the NSA.

More than any previous disclosures from material given to journalists by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, the reports of spying on close U.S. allies have forced the White House to promise reforms and even acknowledge that America's electronic surveillance may have gone too far.

"We recognize there needs to be additional constraints on how we gather and use intelligence," White House spokesman Jay Carney said on Monday.

U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein, who chairs the Senate's intelligence committee, joined the ranks of critics on Monday, expressing outrage at U.S. intelligence collection on allies, and pique that her committee was not informed.

"With respect to NSA collection of intelligence on leaders of U.S. allies - including France, Spain, Mexico and Germany -let me state unequivocally: I am totally opposed," said Feinstein, who appeared to confirm U.S. spying on Merkel's communications since 2002.

The White House is conducting a review of intelligence programs prompted by disclosures about top secret spying programs to the media by Snowden, who is living in Russia, out of reach of U.S. attempts to arrest him.

NSA Director General Keith Alexander, NSA Deputy Director Chris Inglis, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and Deputy Attorney General James Cole will testify at an open hearing of the House Intelligence Committee at 1:30 p.m. (1730 GMT) on Tuesday.

Their testimony will cover NSA programs and potential changes to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which regulates electronic eavesdropping.

"The House Intelligence Committee continues to assess a number of proposals to improve transparency and strengthen privacy protections to further build the confidence of the American public in our nation's FISA programs," said Susan Phalen, spokeswoman for Republican committee Chairman Mike Rogers.

The relatively upbeat announcement by Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency may further buoy hopes for a negotiated solution to the international standoff over Tehran's nuclear ambitions after the June election of moderate President Hassan Rouhani, who is seeking to reduce tension with the West.

The U.N. agency wants to resume an investigation, long stymied by Iranian non-cooperation, into what it calls the "possible military dimensions" of the Islamic Republic's nuclear program. Tehran says it is enriching uranium solely for electricity generation and medical treatments.

The IAEA and Iran "had a very productive meeting on past and present issues", Tero Varjoranta, the agency's deputy director general in charge of nuclear inspections, told reporters at the end of the two-day session in Vienna.

Iranian Ambassador Reza Najafi said Tehran presented new ideas to overcome the dispute, which revolves around the U.N. watchdog's suspicions that Iran researched how to build nuclear bombs despite being part of a global non-proliferation treaty.

"I believe that, with the submission of these new proposals by Iran, we have been able to open a new chapter of cooperation," he said, standing next to Varjoranta. The next meeting will be held in Tehran on November 11.

Their conciliatory comments marked a change in tone after a string of meetings since early 2012 failed to yield a deal giving the IAEA access to sites, files and officials in Iran relevant to its investigation.

The IAEA talks are distinct from Iran's negotiations with world powers, but both diplomatic tracks center on suspicions that Tehran may be seeking the capability to assemble nuclear bombs behind the facade of a civilian atomic energy program.

Rouhani, a pragmatist, took office in August promising to try to resolve the nuclear dispute and secure an easing of sanctions that have severely hurt Iran's oil-dependent economy.

The fact that the next meeting will be held in the Iranian capital may help raise expectations that Iran would start to resolve the IAEA's concerns, said David Albright of the U.S. Institute for Science and International Security.

Marilyn Tavenner, administrator of the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), said the website faces "complex technical issues" four weeks after it opened for enrollment.

"We know that consumers are eager to purchase this coverage. And to the millions of Americans who have attempted to use Healthcare.gov to shop and enroll in healthcare coverage, I want to apologize to you that the website has not worked as well as it should," Tavenner told a congressional hearing.

Tavenner's testimony to the U.S. House of Representatives Ways & Means Committee is the Obama administration's first formal statement to Congress about the challenges facing Healthcare.gov. Tavenner's boss, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, is scheduled to testify before another House oversight panel on Wednesday.

The website is a lynchpin of President Barack Obama's program to provide healthcare coverage to millions of uninsured Americans under the 2010 Affordable Care Act, commonly called Obamacare. Republicans have seized on the website's technical glitches as evidence of broader problems with the law and renewed their call for a delay in the federal mandate that most Americans obtain insurance for 2014 or pay a penalty.

At Tuesday's hearing, written testimony submitted by Tavenner, a nurse and former hospital company executive, was at odds with sworn testimony from two contractors who told the House Energy and Commerce Committee last week that CMS bears ultimate responsibility for the website's performance.

"CMS has a track record of successfully overseeing the many contractors our programs depend on to function. Unfortunately, a subset of those contracts for Healthcare.gov have not met expectations," Tavenner told the Ways and Means Committee, one of at least three Republican-controlled House panels investigating the problem-plagued debut of Obama's signature domestic policy.

Republicans have long opposed the policy because they consider it an unwarranted expansion of the federal government.

The People's Bank of China also warned against "excessive leverage", or borrowing, that would leave banks overexposed to sudden spikes in demand for cash, said the sources, who attended a closed-door meeting between a PBOC official and traders from major financial institutions late last week.

China's short-term interest rates began rising sharply last week, leaving banks stretching for funds even as the central bank repeatedly declined to inject fresh cash.

The central bank official reassured traders that liquidity remained ample and the bank would keep its short-term monetary operations - which it uses to steer the country's money supply - stable this year, four sources who attended the meeting said.

The jump in rates came after official data showed startling rises in housing prices and increasing inflationary pressure aggravated by capital inflows, leading some economists to argue that Beijing was preparing to tighten money conditions to suck excess cash out of the system.

The sources, who included both primary dealers and liquidity strategists, said that the official, who is involved in the management of the country's short-term money supply, blamed the rate rise on institutions failing to adequately anticipate the impact upcoming tax payments would have on demand for cash in the interbank market. The official said that actual liquidity conditions were still accommodative.

The sources declined to give the official's name due to the sensitivity of relations with the regulator, and requested anonymity themselves because they were not authorized to speak to the press.

"The message from the PBOC is the same as last time: warning banks against building up too much leverage," said a money dealer at a foreign bank in Shanghai.

"But the central bank has been clearer this time around by reassuring the market that if participants do underestimate market conditions, it will come to the rescue."

CHANGE OF TUNE

The technique involves binding the arms and legs with blankets and is used to help calm a baby and prevent crying.

But Prof Nicholas Clarke, of Southampton University Hospital, said swaddling was damaging developing hips.

The Royal College of Midwives and other experts advised parents to avoid tightly swaddling a child.

Restricts movement Swaddling has been widely used in many cultures globally. It is thought the blanket wrapping can simulate the feelings of being in the womb and calm the child.

But the technique holds the legs out straight and restricts movement, which can alter the development of the hip joint. Writing in the journal Archives of Disease in Childhood, Prof Clarke argued: "There has been a recent resurgence of swaddling because of its perceived palliative effect on excessive crying, colic and promoting sleep.

"In order to allow for healthy hip development, legs should be able to bend up and out at the hips. This position allows for natural development of the hip joints.

"The babies' legs should not be tightly wrapped in extension and pressed together."

Jane Munro, of the Royal College of Midwives, said it was a "seemingly innocuous" thing to do, but it posed "significant problems" for the baby.

She said there was also the risk of the baby overheating and a raised risk of cot death.

She added: "We advise parents to avoid swaddling, but it is also crucial that we take into account each mother's cultural background, and to provide individualised advice to ensure she knows how to keep her baby safe, able to move and not get overheated."

Video guidance Andreas Roposch, a consultant orthopaedic surgeon at Great Ormond Street Hospital, said: "Similar effects may be seen in all devices or manoeuvres that place the legs in a purely straight position for prolonged periods in this critical age of early infancy.

"Swaddling should not be employed in my view, as there is no health benefit but a risk for adverse consequences of the growing and often immature hips."

Rosemary Dodds, of parenting charity the NCT, advised against tight swaddling.

"It is helpful to raise awareness of hip dysplasia in relation to swaddling. Some parents and babies seem to like swaddling, but it is important that babies do not overheat and their legs are not restricted.

Signs have emerged that demand for the cheaper model is lagging the top-tier iPhone 5S - both of which went on sale in September - because its $100 discount is proving to be insufficient to motivate emerging market and price-conscious customers.

But some analysts say the concerns are overblown and that a greater proportion of iPhone 5S shipped, translates into better margins and earnings overall.

Apple will be reporting results just a week after taking the wraps off an incrementally improved iPad Air. But it is the iPhone, which accounts for more than half the company's profit and is its highest-margin gadget, that takes center stage.

Apple is expected to report sales of 33 million to 36 million iPhones in its fiscal fourth quarter that ended in September, rising to more than 50 million in the typically strong holiday quarter - the first full quarter of sales of the two new phones.

"Media reports of 5C production cuts are misleading, in our view, given what we think has been strengthening overall 5S/5C production with 5S vectors continuing to strengthen even real time," Timothy Arcuri, an analyst at Cowen & Co, said in a research note.

Apple has come under pressure over the past year or two to bolster sales of its iPhones and iPads as perennial rival Samsung Electronics and cheaper gadgets based on Google Inc's Android software chip away at its once-leading market share.

Its stock has gained 12.5 percent since August, when famously aggressive activist investor Carl Icahn disclosed a large position in the iPhone maker and began making calls for a new, stepped-up $150 billion share buyback program - boosting hopes of a bigger return of cash to shareholders than anticipated.

But the stock is still down about 1 percent this year, vastly underperforming the S&P 500's 23 percent gain.

Longer-term, investors wonder whether the company that revolutionized the cellphone industry and popularized the tablet computer has another groundbreaking device left in it.

Analysts say it will take a genuinely new device - like the oft-rumored smartwatch or some sort of TV - to revive the stock. Investors also hope that Apple will seal a deal to sell phones through China Mobile Ltd, gaining access finally to the country's largest telecoms operator.

The researchers used a micro-LED light bulb to transmit 3.5Gbit/s via each of the three primary colours - red, green, blue - that make up white light.

This means over 10Gbit/s is possible.

Li-fi is an emerging technology that could see specialised LED lights bulbs providing low-cost wireless internet connectivity almost everywhere.

High speed The research, known as the ultra-parallel visible light communications project, is a joint venture between the universities of Edinburgh, St Andrews, Strathclyde, Oxford, and Cambridge, and funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.

The tiny micro-LED bulbs, developed by the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, allow streams of light to be beamed in parallel, each multiplying the amount of data that can be transmitted at any one time.

"If you think of a shower head separating water out into parallel streams, that's how we can make light behave," said Prof Harald Haas, an expert in optical wireless communications at the University of Edinburgh and one of the project leaders.

Using a digital modulation technique called Orthogonal Frequency Divisional Multiplexing (OFDM), researchers enabled micro-LED light bulbs to handle millions of changes in light intensity per second, effectively behaving like an extremely fast on/off switch.

This allows large chunks of binary data - a series of ones and zeros - to be transmitted at high speed.

Earlier this year, Germany's Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute claimed that data rates of up to 1Gbit/s per LED light frequency were possible in laboratory conditions.

And this month, Chinese scientists reportedly developed a microchipped LED bulb that can produce data speeds of up to 150 megabits per second (Mbps), with one bulb providing internet connectivity for four computers.

'Light fidelity'

In 2011, Prof Haas demonstrated how an LED bulb equipped with signal processing technology could stream a high-definition video to a computer.

He coined the term "light fidelity" or li-fi - also known as visual light communications (VLC) - and set up a private company, PureVLC, to exploit the technology.

Li-fi promises to be cheaper and more energy-efficient than existing wireless radio systems given the ubiquity of LED bulbs and the fact that lighting infrastructure is already in place.

Visible light is part of the electromagnetic spectrum and 10,000 times bigger than the radio spectrum, affording potentially unlimited capacity.

The device sends out two pulses instead of one, mimicking how dolphins pinpoint their prey.

The twin inverted pulse radar (TWIPR) can distinguish between the electronics at the heart of an explosive and other "clutter" such as pipes or nails.

Experts said the system "showed promise".

The radar device has been developed by a team led by Prof Tim Leighton, of the University of Southampton, and scientists from University College, London.

Strong signal Prof Leighton took his inspiration from the way dolphins are able to process their sonar signals to pinpoint prey in bubbly water.

Some dolphins blow bubble nets around schools of fish to force them to cluster together.

Their sonar would not work if they could not distinguish the fish from the bubbles.

He wanted to see if the same technique would work with radio waves, and so developed a system that also sent out pulses in pairs.

Traditional radar typically sends out just one pulse.

The device his team came up with was just 2cm in size and cost less than £1 to put together.

The second pulse has the reverse polarity of the first. This means that if it hits an electronic device, it turns the pulse into a positive, which in turn gives off a very strong signal.

In tests the team applied the radar pulses to an antenna typical of the circuitry used in explosive devices, which was surrounded by "clutter" metals.

The antenna showed up 100,000 times more powerfully than the other metal "clutter".

Animal super-senses Such a device could also be extremely helpful in finding surveillance device as well as bombs, the team said.

It could even help locate people buried after an avalanche or earthquake by detecting their mobile phones.

"Such technology could also be extended to other radiations, such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and light detection and ranging (Lidar)... offering the possibility of early fire detection systems," said Prof Leighton.

Gary Kemp, programme director at technology consultancy Cambridge Consultants, said that the system "shows promise".

He said: "We continue to take inspiration from the many animal super-senses found in nature, whether from the sophisticated echolocation techniques used by bats and cetaceans or the remarkable chemical detection ability of dogs and bees.

Earlier, the Spanish newspaper El Mundo said the NSA had recently tracked over 60 million calls in Spain in the space of a month, citing a document which it said formed part of papers obtained from ex-NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

"I had been in touch with (the U.S. ambassador) before this morning's meeting...So far, we have no official indication that our country has been spied on," Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo said at a joint news conference with his Polish counterpart in Warsaw.

"As in previous occasions, we've asked the U.S. ambassador to give the government all the necessary information on an issue which, if it was to be confirmed, could break the climate of trust that has traditionally been the one between our two countries."

Madrid has also asked the United States to provide more data from the National Security Agency (NSA), the foreign ministry said in a statement issued after a meeting between Spain's Secretary of State for the European Union, Inigo Mendez de Vigo, and U.S. Ambassador to Spain James Costos.

U.S. President Barack Obama has ordered a review of U.S. surveillance programs after Snowden leaked documents that raised alarm in the United States and abroad.

"We will continue to confer with our allies, such as Spain, through our regular diplomatic channels to address the concerns that they have raised," Costos said in a statement.

Spain has so far resisted calls from Germany for the European Union's 28-member states to reach a "no-spy deal", after reports that the NSA monitored the phone of German chancellor Angela Merkel.

El Mundo reproduced a graphic on Monday which it said was an NSA document showing the agency had spied on 60.5 million phone calls in Spain between December 10, 2012 and January 8 this year.

The newspaper said it had reached a deal with Glenn Greenwald, the Brazil-based journalist who has worked with other media on information provided to him by Snowden, to get access to documents affecting Spain.

El Mundo said the telephone monitoring did not appear to track the content of calls but their duration and where they took place.