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Blackberry pulls out of Pakistan over spying allegations

In July, the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority notified the country’s mobile phone operators that BlackBerry’s BES servers would no longer be allowed to operate in the country starting in December "for security reasons". Blackberry alleges that the government wanted to monitor every email and BBM message sent through its servers in the country, a directive the company was not prepared to comply with. “As we have said many times, we do not support ‘back doors’ granting open access to our customers’ information and have never done this anywhere in the world,” the company said in a blog post. “Pakistan’s demand was not a question of public safety; we are more than happy to assist law enforcement agencies in investigations of criminal activity.” “Rather, Pakistan was essentially demanding unfettered…

IET EngX in Telecommunications
FM radio can boost Wi-Fi speeds

Residents of densely packed areas, such as those living in tower blocks, frequently suffer from inconsistent Wi-Fi performance, which the researchers blame on too many networks being located in a small area. "Most people think it's a mystery," said Aleksandar Kuzmanovic, a professor with the university. "They get upset at their routers. But what's really happening is that your neighbour is watching Netflix." When network data is sent at the same time from different networks, it can ‘bump’ into each other. This results in data packets failing to reach their destinations causing unexpectedly slow Internet speeds. Kuzmanovic and his team of PHD students have created a solution called Wi-FM that allows wireless routers to use the FM spectrum to determine the ‘quietest’ areas that will cause the…

IET EngX
Google balloons to offer internet access to Indonesians

The Project Loon programme was first tested in 2013 in New Zealand using thirty 12m-tall solar-powered balloons designed to reach the stratosphere. They are designed to travel at speeds between 8 and 30km/h and are guided by software algorithms to move up and down the stratospheric layers to control their direction. They contain equipment that broadcasts 3G-like wireless speeds to ground-based antennas, which spreads the signal further to users. About 250 million people live in Indonesia, which is composed of about 17,000 islands, although only 42 million have internet access, according to the CIA's estimates. The project is primarily funded by money that Google makes from digital advertising, although it was recently assigned to an independent lab called X that is run by Google's new parent…

IET EngX in Computing
Sainsbury's mobile network to shut down

The supermarket set up its virtual network, which piggybacks a signal from Vodafone’s mobile towers, in July 2013. Under a virtual network agreement, carriers such as Vodafone can opt to rent out some of their network capacity to another party so that it can avoid the high capital costs associated with setting up their own infrastructure. Its rivals Tesco and Asda have set up their own similar services that run on O2 and EE’s towers respectively. However, where Tesco Mobile boasts four million customers, Sainsbury’s had only managed to attract 150,000 to its network. It is understood Sainsbury's and Vodafone pulled the plug on the joint venture after disagreeing over the future of the service. Most of the customers affected are on sim-only pay-as-you-go deals and Sainsbury's said they will…

IET EngX in Telecommunications
Text message tweak to appointment alerts could save NHS millions

The research study found that when using the new message text, DNA incidents were reduced by 5,800. This figure could have risen as high as 28,900 if the Trust had a record of every patient’s mobile number. Healthcare providers are increasingly using SMS reminders to reduce DNA rates, with statistics showing in 2012–13 around 5.5 million NHS outpatient appointments were missed in England (9.3 per cent of the total). A recent estimate claims missed first outpatient appointments cost the NHS up to £225 million in 2012–13. If the NHS only had mobile numbers for 20 per cent of patients, this could still potentially avoid as many as 400,000 missed hospital appointments per year, saving the NHS and the taxpayer in excess of £64 million. The research Stating Appointment Costs in SMS Reminders Reduces…

IET EngX in Computing
EU mobile roaming charges to be scrapped

At a meeting of the EU Competition Council, the UK’s Business Minister, Baroness Neville-Rolfe, and her European counterparts are expected to give their formal agreement to the legislation. The new rule will mean that mobile phone users will not have to pay any extra for mobile roaming which includes making calls, texts and using the internet while abroad. Although the ending of the charge is not due to be implemented until June 2017, further cuts to roaming will be introduced on April 30 2016 as part of the same agreement. After the 2016 date, the cost of using data abroad will have been reduced by 95 per cent in comparison to four years ago. The UK government said it had led the calls to end roaming charges since the beginning by working with its allies in other EU countries and the European…

IET EngX in Ethical Aspects
Apple's iOS 9 mobile software available from today

The software will be built into the latest generation of iPhones, the 6s and 6s Plus, due for release in just over a week. Users with an iPhone 4s or newer, as well as owners of an iPad 2 or newer, will receive a notification today telling them they can download the new iOS. The update includes improved security features, with default pin codes now six digits long rather than four, which Apple says makes a user's devices more immune to hacking as it increases the possible combinations from 10,000 to one million. Two-factor authentication, where a second layer is added to log-in, is also being introduced, with users now required to enter a code when they log in from a new device for the first time. This code will be sent to and displayed on a user's other Apple products. On the iPad, users will…

IET EngX in Computing
Smartphone-controlled gaming drones out in December

Designed by German start-up TobyRich, the new fixed wing drones can be controlled from as far as 90m away via a mobile app, which will let users take part in multi-player air battles and races as well as carry out a number of stunts in single player mode. The firm's entry level model, the tobyrich.vegas, uses BluetoothSmart technology to communicate with the users smartphone as well as GPS for flight planning and will be delivered to customers this December after the firm reached their funding goal of $100,000 on KickStarter yesterday. The firm is also working on two more advanced designs, the tobyrich.tokyo which features an HD camera and the tobyrich.guru, which has larger wings and is 4G/LTE-enabled boosting the drone's range and allowing the user to stream video live on their smartphone…

IET EngX in Computing
US Government investigating drone take-down technology

More than one million drones are expected to be sold in the United States this year, compared to 430,000 in 2014, according to the Consumer Electronics Association and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said last week that US pilots have reported more than 650 drone sightings so far this year compared to 238 over the whole of 2014. This surge in drone activity has raised concerns that one could hit a commercial aircraft during landing or take-off, or be used as a weapon in a deliberate attack, prompting the authorities to investigate ways to track and disable drones, sources familiar with the matter said. "We can't shoot it out of the sky. We have to come up with something that's kind of basic technology so that if something happens, the drone or device will just go right back to the…

IET EngX in Aerospace
5G calls for new test strategies

5G wireless communications brings with it a number of challenges, not least for test and measurement. Not only is the upcoming standard likely to be a sprawling document that covers many different possible frequencies and modes but it will have much tighter requirements for system attributes above the RF interface such as round-trip latency. The tighter timings will be needed to support new applications such as autonomous driving and long-distance robotic control. “The latency of 4G on average is 80ms. For car-to-car communications you need sub-1ms latencies,” says Rahim Tafazolli, professor of mobile and satellite communication systems at the University of Surrey. The need for 5G to expand into new frequency ranges comes from a parallel requirement for higher data rates to support video and…

IET EngX in Telecommunications
Smartphones become most popular Internet access device

The phones unseated laptop computers as the most popular device for using the Internet, with the larger devices falling from 40 per cent of online connections in 2014 to 30 per cent in 2015. The multi-purpose handsets however have risen from 23 per cent last year to 33 per cent this year, with younger users the main driver behind the change, said Ofcom's 2015 Communications Market Report. The change was attributed to the expansion of high-speed 4G data networks by the report, which allows users to watch video on the go. It also found that two-thirds of adults now have a smartphone, up from 39 per cent in 2012, and the amount of time we spend using them to go online has risen to one hour and 54 minutes per day. Jane Rumble, director of market intelligence at Ofcom, said: "You can see these devices…

IET EngX in Computing
Artificial whiskers could help us see in the dark

Scientists from the University of Illinois, inspired by the way mammals use whiskers to sense their way through dark environments, created an array of five super-elastic Nitinol wires covered with plastic straws about 15cm-long to mimic whiskers, which were then hooked up to strain gauges at their base. Electronic signals from these gauges enabled the researchers to measure movement in each whisker, as motors moved them through an air stream from a hair drier and this data was then used to build up a digital image of the fluid flow past the array. “When it is dark, whiskers play a key role for animals in exploring, hunting or even just living underground” explains Cagdas Tuna, lead author of a paper on the array published today in journal Bioinspiration and Biomimetics. “For example, seals…

IET EngX in Research and Innovation
Standard computer hacked to transmit data via sound

The program built by Red Balloon Security is able to take control of the physical prongs on general-purpose input/output circuits and vibrates them at specific frequencies set by the controller to transmit data from the computer. The sound need not be audible and the signal can be picked up with an AM radio antenna a short distance away. The so-called 'Funtenna' would be hard to detect because no traffic logs would catch data leaving the premises. Red Balloon's lead researcher Ang Cui demonstrated the system for reporters ahead of his talk later today at the annual cyber-security conference Black Hat in Las Vegas. He said he would release 'proof-of-concept' code after his talk today so that other researchers could verify his work. While the technique may pique the interest of spy agencies,…

IET EngX in Computing
Apple Pay readied for UK live debut

The system allows users to simply tap their iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus or Apple Watch on contactless payment points to complete transactions, using the same near-field communication technology found in contactless debit and credit cards. Apple is still yet to officially confirm the date of the launch, but leaked memos from at least one UK supermarket made reference to Tuesday's date - July 14 - and a tweet from the HSBC UK Twitter account on Sunday confirmed the date in response to a question, before the tweet was swiftly deleted. The technology is already available in the US, but the UK launch will mark the first time it has been made available outside the States. It does not require Apple-specific contactless payment terminals and when it is launched more than 250,000 locations will accept payments…

IET EngX in Computing
Cumbria Constabulary police to replace notebooks with smartphones

Cumbria Constabulary has teamed up with telecoms firm EE and is equipping all its frontline officers as well as some staff with Samsung Galaxy Note 4 smartphones. The move comes as part of a technology plan to assist with policing duties and enable officers to cut down on administration. The smartphones feature bespoke apps to help the force go paper-free and buy them more time in the community. Chief superintendent Steve Johnson said: “Cumbria Constabulary polices one of the largest geographical areas in England and Wales, which covers difficult terrain. As a result, call and data coverage and communication quality are important factors in mobilising the workforce in order to increase the amount of time officers are able to spend in the community, keeping people safe and dealing with crime…

IET EngX in Telecommunications
Anywhere Sim card aims to kill off signal dead zones

The national roaming idea behind the sim card is the brainchild of Lancashire-based start-up Anywhere Sim, which aims to launch its notspot-tackling service within the next five weeks. The new mobile network hopes to make it easier for UK users who live in signal dead zones. A handful of mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs) already offer national roaming in the UK, but rather than being consumer-focused they target their products at business customers. The main operators such as Vodafone, EE, O2 and Three have managed not to succumb to government pressures to offer the service themselves. Anywhere Sim will be more expensive than single-network alternatives and one expert told the BCC that demand for the new service might be limited by its costs. However, for users based in rural areas,…

IET EngX in Telecommunications
Obama passes Freedom Act to cut back bulk data collection

The USA Freedom Act extends the government’s ability to collect large amounts of data, but with restrictions, and is the first piece of legislation to reform post 9/11 surveillance measures. The bill, seen as a substitute for the Patriot Act, had been backed by President Barack Obama as a compromise addressing privacy concerns, while preserving a tool to protect the country from terror threats. It ends a system exposed by former NSA contractor-turned-whistleblower Edward Snowden where the spy agency collected and searched records of phone calls looking for terrorism leads, but was not allowed to listen to their content. After the Senate voted 67-32 on Tuesday to give final congressional approval to the bill, Obama used his Twitter account, @POTUS, to say he was glad it had passed. “I'll sign…

IET EngX
Twitter and mobile phone data to gauge how big crowds are

Researchers from Warwick University analysed geo-tagged tweets and mobile phone use over a two-month period in Milan and were able to estimate attendance numbers for football matches. They used the San Siro Stadium and Linate Airport – locations with known numbers of visitors – to conduct the study and found that mobile activity rose and fell in close step with the flow of people. The scientists said the analysis could help measure unpredicted events like evacuations, crowd disasters or protests. “We found that this automatically generated data provides an excellent basis for estimating the size of a crowd,” said Federico Botta, a co-author of the study. “Quick and accurate measurements of crowd size could be of vital use for police and other authorities charged with avoiding crowd disasters…

IET EngX in Telecommunications
New technology paves way for global roaming on 4G

Radio systems like mobile phones and wireless internet connections use as much of the radio spectrum as is necessary. But the new technology can estimate and cancel out the interference from one’s own transmission, allowing a radio device to transmit and receive on the same channel at the same time. The scientists from the University of Bristol said their technology could use half as much spectrum compared to the current technology. But this research in particular, as well as being part of the evolution of 5G mobile, is also relevant to 3G and 4G in mobile devices. Traditionally, a separate filtering component is required for each frequency band, which means that mobile phones can’t support all the frequency channels available around the world. Different devices are manufactured for different…

IET EngX in Telecommunications
Data usage set to double over the next four years

The research found that only 41 per cent of the data generated by these devices will be carried over cellular networks by 2019, with most of mobile data traffic offloaded to Wi-Fi networks. It's forecasted that mobile data will approach almost 197,000 Petabytes, with the average monthly data usage by smartphone and tablet users to double over the next four years. It is also expected for the daily media consumption by mobile users to continue to rise, bolstered by the increase in 4G adoption and HD video usage. “Certainly, video is forming an ever-greater proportion of network traffic,” said Nitin Bhas, author of the Mobile Data Offload and Onload study. “Video traffic over smartphones will increase by nearly 8 times between 2014 and 2019.” Video currently accounts for around 60 per cent of…

IET EngX in Telecommunications
Mobile payments set to surge in coming year

But countries such as Turkey, Poland, the USA, Italy, Spain and Romania are all predicted to have higher levels of mobile payment app take-up in the next 12 months, according to the ING International Survey on Mobile Banking. Of the 15 countries surveyed Turkey was found to have the highest proportion of people with a mobile device intending to use mobile payments in the next 12 months, at 78 per cent. While only 46 per cent of people in the UK who own a mobile device intend to use a mobile payment app in the next 12 months, 30 per cent already use mobile payments – a figure which was higher than the levels found in France, Germany and Australia. Across the European countries surveyed, 33 per cent of people have already used a mobile payment app and this is expected to increase to 51 per cent…

IET EngX in Computing
Electromagnetic theory breakthrough leads to 'antennas on a chip'

One of the biggest bottlenecks to miniaturisation in modern electronics is the fact that antennas remain far larger than electronic circuits, so ultra-small antennas could transform wireless communications and have been called the 'last frontier' of semiconductor design. "Antennas, or aerials, are one of the limiting factors when trying to make smaller and smaller systems, since below a certain size, the losses become too great," said Professor Gehan Amaratunga of Cambridge University's Department of Engineering, who led the research. The foundation of current understand of electromagnetic radiation comes from theories first proposed by James Clerk Maxwell in the 19th century, which state that electromagnetic radiation is generated by accelerating electrons. But in new results published in…

IET EngX in Telecommunications
4G 'significantly outperforms' 3G networks

The average download speed for 4G networks was of 14.7Mbit/s compared with 5.9Mbit/s on 3G and it took 0.72 seconds to load a web page, in contrast with 1.04 seconds on 3G, according to figures from Ofcom. It collected 120,000 test samples on smartphones in five towns and cities where both 4G and 3G networks have been rolled out, including Edinburgh, Leeds, London, Newcastle and Poole/Bournemouth. EE delivered the fastest average 4G download speed of 18.6Mbit/s, surpassing O2, Three and Vodafone, but Three was the quickest on average for web browsing over 4G at 0.63 seconds to load a web page. Overall, 97 per cent of test samples across EE, O2, Three and Vodafone provided 4G download speeds above 2Mbit/s, typically sufficient to support high-capacity video services. Across the four networks…

IET EngX in Telecommunications
Fully digital radio transmitter could be turnkey solution for IoT

The new breakthrough – codenamed Pizzicato – unlocks the potential of the IoT, opening the door to a new dynamic way in which the predicted 100 billion IoT devices can operate together in a crowded radio spectrum. It will also enable the creation of 5G systems, with multiple radios and antennas. The Pizzicato digital radio transmitter consists of an integrated circuit, outputting a single stream of bits, and an antenna. No conventional radio parts or digital-to-analogue converters are involved. Patented algorithms perform the necessary ultra-fast computations in real time, making it possible for standard digital technology to generate high-frequency radio signals directly. Unlike ‘software-defined radio’ (SDR), there is no mix of analogue and digital components – the radio is completely digital…

IET EngX in Computing

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