Young should help older net users

A campaign is urging the six million older people in the UK who have never been online to get connected as a way to help stave off loneliness.

The charity Age UK is calling on net-savvy friends and relatives to help the older generation take their first steps in the digital world.

A survey suggests that less than half of the UK's over-55s use the internet.

By contrast, 58% of older citizens in Norway and Luxembourg are online.

The statistics, collated by Eurostat, show that 43% of UK citizens aged 55-74 are web users. The average across Europe is 28%.

Age UK is running a campaign to get people with internet skills to pass on their knowledge to older friends, relatives or neighbours.

Nearly one million older people are often lonely, and over half (five million) say that they consider the TV as their main form of company, according to the charity.

"Older internet users are telling us that they are better connected to their loved ones," said Helena Herklots, services director at Age UK.

"If everyone helps one older person they know to get online, the UK's older population could surf their way to the top of the European table, helping in the battle against social isolation along the way," she added.

64-year-old Margaret Goodwin said that being online has helped her avoid loneliness. "I regularly use the internet to keep in touch with friends and family around the world and have got back in contact with family I had lost touch with. I've even tried internet dating," she said.

Ofcom launches next-generation 4G consultation

The telecoms regulator has launched a consultation on how best to sell off the rights to the next generation of mobile wireless networks.

The auction of the fourth generation, or 4G, spectrum will be the largest ever, equivalent to three quarters of the mobile spectrum in use today.

The last time an auction was held, for 3G in 2000, it raised a record £22.5bn for the Treasury.

The auction itself is expected to start in the first quarter of 2012.

The additional spectrum to be sold off should mean faster speeds for downloading data - such as music and movies - to phones as more capacity is made spare for all the networks.

The actual parts of the spectrum being sold - at the 800MHz and 2.6GHz bandwidths - will include parts of the wireless spectrum historically used by analogue TV, which is being switched off as digital is rolled out.

"The auction is not only critical to the future of the UK mobile telecommunications market but it is also of significant importance to the wider economy. It will support a wide range of data services that are fast becoming essential features of the modern world," said Ofcom chief executive Ed Richards in a statement.

Competition concerns

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If they were to leave the auction open they risk a player leaving the market and further consolidation; possibly to the detriment of consumers”

Matthew HowettAnalyst, Ovum

Smartphones such as the iPhone, Google Android and tablet devices are big users of bandwidth, which means there has been a squeeze on what is left.

Ofcom has even allowed mobile phone carriers like Vodafone and O2 to use parts of the old 2G network until more of the spectrum is made available.

The UK network Three has complained about that, and about its fears for the auction.

The country's smallest mobile phone operator is worried that its rivals will outbid it at auction, buying up larger slices of the available bandwidth and squeezing Three out of the market altogether.

The regulator said it would impose a cap on the amount of new airspace companies could win at the auction to try to ensure fair competition.

"The use of spectrum caps is bitterly controversial since they effectively distort what is otherwise a market mechanism designed to allocate spectrum to those who value it most," said Ovum analyst Matthew Howett.

"However, Ofcom is essentially stuck between a rock and a hard place. If they were to leave the auction open they risk a player leaving the market and further consolidation; possibly to the detriment of consumers," he added.

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What happens next is probably a huge row - various operators have already held up the process for years with legal action”

Rory Cellan-JonesTechnology correspondent, BBC News

• Read Rory's blog

Rural coverage

Ofcom said it would make any successful bid conditional upon a licensee agreeing to extend their coverage to 95% of the UK population.

Ofcom points out that current mobile coverage, particularly 3G coverage, is less comprehensive in rural areas than in urban areas.

The regulator said it wanted to ensure more "uniformity of coverage" for 4G services.

Ofcom proposed a supplementary obligation that would mean licence holders would also have to cover a certain proportion of the population in rural areas.

3G auction

Ofcom will also hope to avoid the mistakes of the last auction in 2000.

Then, the biggest bid for 3G was from Vodafone, which paid £5.96bn.

BT Cellnet - which eventually became O2 - paid £4.03bn. Orange paid £4.1bn and One2One paid £4bn.

But most carriers and observers believe that operators overpaid for those licences and were not able to invest in the infrastructure as a result of paying those huge fees.

The dramatic growth of phones such as the iPhone means that mobile carriers need more bandwidth

The German government raised 50bn euros ($71bn, £43.6bn) at its 3G auction in 2000, but managed to raise only 4.3bn euros at its 4G auction last year.

Already behind?

Japan and the US already have 4G networks - though these are often defined in slightly different ways by different countries.

The biggest mobile phone companies in the US - Verizon Wireless and AT&T - back a 4G network powered by Long Term Evolution (LTE) technology.

Verizon launched its LTE network in December, promising speeds up to 10 times faster than its current 3G network. It is planning full nationwide coverage by 2013.

AT&T this week bought T-Mobile USA from Deutsche Telekom for $39bn (£24bn), creating the largest US wireless network.

Quantum computing device hints at powerful future

One of the most complex efforts toward a quantum computer has been shown off at the American Physical Society meeting in Dallas in the US.

It uses the strange "quantum states" of matter to perform calculations in a way that, if scaled up, could vastly outperform conventional computers.

The 6cm-by-6cm chip holds nine quantum devices, among them four "quantum bits" that do the calculations.

The team said further scaling up to 10 qubits should be possible this year.

Rather than the ones and zeroes of digital computing, quantum computers deal in what are known as superpositions - states of matter that can be thought of as both one and zero at once.

In a sense, quantum computing's one trick is to perform calculations on all superposition states at once. With one quantum bit, or qubit, the difference is not great, but the effect scales rapidly as the number of qubits rises.

The figure often touted as the number of qubits that would bring quantum computing into a competitive regime is about 100, so each jump in the race is a significant one.

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We're right at the bleeding edge of actually having a quantum processor”

Erik LuceroUniversity of California, Santa Barbara

"It's pretty exciting we're now at a point that we can start talking about what the architecture is we're going to use if we make a quantum processor," Erik Lucero of the University of California, Santa Barbara told the conference.

The team's key innovation was to find a way to completely disconnect - or "decouple" - interactions between the elements of their quantum circuit.

The delicate quantum states that they create must be manipulated, moved, and stored without destroying them.

"It's a problem I've been thinking about for three or four years now, how to turn off the interactions," UCSB's John Martinis, who led the research," told BBC News.

"Now we've solved it, and that's great - but there's many other things we have to do."

Qubits and pieces

The solution came in the form of what the team has termed the RezQu architecture. It is basically a blueprint for a quantum computer, and several presentations at the conference focused on how to make use of it.

"For me this is kind of nice, I know how I'm going to put them together," said Professor Martinis.

"I now know how to design it globally and I can go back and try to optimise all the parts."

RezQu seems to have an edge in one crucial arena - scalability - that makes it a good candidate for the far more complex circuits that would constitute a quantum computer proper.

"There are competing architectures, like ion traps - trapping ions with lasers, but the complexity there is that you have to have a huge room full of PhDs just to run your lasers," Mr Lucero told BBC News.

The team has been steadily increasing the complexity of their quantum devices

"There's already promise to show how this architecture could scale, and we've created custom electronics based on cellphone technology which has driven the cost down a lot.

"We're right at the bleeding edge of actually having a quantum processor," he said. "It's been years that a whole community has blossomed just looking at the idea of, once we have a quantum computer, what are we going to do with it?"

Britton Plourde, a quantum computing researcher from the University of Syracuse, said that the field has progressed markedly in recent years.

The metric of interest to quantum computing is how long the delicate quantum states can be preserved, and Dr Plourde noted that time had increased a thousand fold since the field's inception.

"The world of superconducting quantum bits didn't even exist 10 years ago, and now they can control [these states] to almost arbitrary precision," he told BBC News.

"We're still a long way from a large-scale quantum computer but it's really in my eyes rapid progress."

Apple sues Amazon over 'Appstore' name

Apple is suing Amazon in a bid to stop the online retail giant from using the name Appstore.

The California-based firm, which makes iPhones and iPads, claims that the name is deliberately similar to its own App Store.

"It will confuse and mislead customers," said Apple spokeswoman Kristin Huguet.

Amazon's Appstore will offer downloadable applications for Google's Android operating system.

The lawsuit states: "Amazon has begun improperly using Apple's App Store mark in connection with Amazon's mobile software developer program.

"Consumers of mobile software downloads are likely to be confused as to whether Amazon's mobile software download service is sponsored or approved by Apple."

The company said that it had contacted Amazon three times to demand it stop using the name. Amazon has so far declined to comment.

Apple is seeking to trademark the App Store name in the United States, a decision which, according to court papers, is still being considered by a trademark trial and appeals board.

Microsoft, which is also looking to move into the app marketplace with its new line of Windows mobiles, has asked officials to block the trademark attempt.

Shoe store

"An app store is an app store," Russell Pangborn, Microsoft's associate general counsel said in January.

"Like shoe store or toy store, it is a generic term that is commonly used by companies, governments and individuals that offer apps," he continued.

Amazon's Appstore has been accepting submissions since the beginning of the year, launching a dedicated blog to help developers.

Like Apple, Amazon will curate the apps on offer and will hope that its trusted brand will give it an edge as the market for mobile applications widens.

For developers, access to Amazon's tens of millions of customers worldwide offers the potential for huge revenues.

Google already offers its own store - Android Market - with over 200,000 applications available to download, but submissions to Amazon's store will be standards-checked prior to being added.

The store, which launches in the US today, will offer exclusive applications such as Angry Birds Rio, the follow-up to the multi-million selling Angry Birds.

Justin Bieber and U2 to appear on Japanese charity disc

Justin Bieber and U2 are among artists who have agreed to contribute songs to an album to raise funds for victims of the Japanese earthquake and tsunami.

Record label Universal Music said it hoped to release the digital-only album globally by the end of the week.

Bon Jovi and Rihanna have also been confirmed for the album, which will raise money for the Japanese Red Cross.

On Tuesday police said the death toll from the disaster had risen to 9,079, with 12,645 people listed as missing.

"We are doing it only digitally because it is faster," said a Universal spokesman, adding that the record would be "a worldwide release".

Announcing his involvement with the album on Twitter, Bieber wrote: "Japan needs our help... We all need to step up."

Trinidadian singer and rapper Nicki Minaj, whose album Pink Friday went to number one in the US last year, is also confirmed.

Universal artist Lady Gaga may also appear on the album, with more artists set to be announced.

The Poker Face singer has designed a "We Pray for Japan" rubber wrist band to sell to fans, with all proceeds going to relief efforts.

Last week she announced her fans had raised $250,000 (£153,000) within the first two days of sales.

US crew rescued after Libya crash

Two US airmen have been rescued after ejecting from their F-15E Eagle warplane just before it crashed during allied operations in eastern Libya.

The plane appeared to suffer mechanical failure near the rebel stronghold of Benghazi, the US military said.

It came down after a third night of US-led coalition attacks on Col Muammar Gaddafi's forces, aimed at enforcing a UN resolution to protect civilians.

Debate is continuing in the coalition over who should take command.

'Don't be scared'

The US military would not give the exact location the F-15E Eagle came down, but said both crewmen suffered only minor injuries after ejecting.

The aircraft was based in England and was operating out of Aviano in Italy. It was on a mission against a Gaddafi missile site, the Pentagon said.

One Libyan who came across the crashed jet told Britain's Daily Telegraph that one pilot held his hands in the air and said "OK, OK", but was quickly thanked by locals for his participation in the air strikes.

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The significant military fighting that has been going on should recede in the next few days”

Robert GatesUS Defence Secretary

• Hewitt: Who's in charge?
• Daily View: What is coalition goal?

Younis Amruni told the Telegraph: "I hugged him and said 'don't be scared, we are your friends'."

The crash followed renewed allied air strikes overnight.

Libyan state television reported that Tripoli was "under crusader enemy aerial bombardment" and that several sites had been attacked.

The Libyan authorities said a naval base at Bussetta, about 10km (six miles) east of Tripoli, and a fishing village had also been hit.

Libyan government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim said Monday's air and missile strikes had caused "numerous" civilian casualties, especially at the "civilian airport" in Sirte.

Fighting between Col Gaddafi's forces and the rebels continued on Friday, despite the declaration of a ceasefire by the government:

• A doctor in Misrata - the last rebel-held city in western Libya - told the BBC that residents had suffered another night of shelling by government forces, with 22 deaths and 100 injuries
• In Zintan, near the Tunisian border, one resident told Reuters at least 10 people had been killed in a Gaddafi bombardment
• In Yafran, 130km south-west of Tripoli, at least nine people were killed in clashes, residents said
• Gaddafi forces continue to hold rebels on the eastern frontline near Ajdabiya

Many of the reports of overnight strikes and fighting cannot be independently confirmed.

Embargo

US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said on Tuesday that coalition forces were "going to great lengths to avoid civilian casualties".

Mr Gates, after talks in Moscow with his Russian counterpart Anatoly Serdyukov, added: "I also told him that I thought the significant military fighting that has been going on should recede in the next few days."

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Coalition forces

• US: B-2 stealth bombers; EA-18G Growler and AV-8B Harrier strike aircraft; destroyers USS Barry and USS Stout firing Tomahawk cruise missiles; amphibious assault ship USS Kearsage; command and control vessel USS Mount Whitney; submarines
• France: Rafale and Mirage strike aircraft; refuelling and surveillance aircraft; aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle and escort ships
• UK: Typhoon and Tornado strike aircraft; refuelling and surveillance aircraft; Trafalgar-class submarine firing Tomahawk cruise missiles; frigates HMS Westminster and HMS Cumberland
• Italy: Tornado aircraft; providing military bases
• Canada: CF-18 strike aircraft; frigate HMCS Charlottetown
• Spain: F-18 strike aircraft; refuelling and surveillance aircraft; frigate and submarine; military bases
• Denmark: F-16 aircraft
• Belgium: F-16 aircraft

• Libya: Coalition firepower
• In pictures: Libya conflict

Russia, which abstained in last week's UN Security Council vote on the resolution authorising force in Libya, has since criticised the air strikes.

China has also urged all parties to "immediately cease fire and resolve issues through peaceful means".

On Monday US President Barack Obama said the US would soon cede control of operations in Libya - "in a matter of days and not in a matter of weeks".

Mr Gates has said the mission could come under French-British or Nato control.

But divisions have emerged within Nato over taking command, with France and Turkey in particular offering objections.

France has indicated Arab countries would not want Nato to lead and that the organisation should support US, French and British political control.

Turkey wants limits on Nato involvement and says the air strikes have already gone beyond the UN resolution.

Italy said it could withdraw its bases without a co-ordinated Nato structure and Norway said its jets would not take part in the action as long as it was unclear who was in overall command.

Nato officials say they do not expect a decision for several days.

Nato did agree on Tuesday to begin enforcing a UN arms embargo on Libya, using aircraft and ships in the Mediterranean to "conduct operations to monitor, report and, if needed, interdict vessels suspected of carrying illegal arms or mercenaries".

Ajdabiya, west of Benghazi, is now the frontline for rebel and Gaddafi forces

Also on Tuesday, Algeria called for an "immediate cessation of hostilities and foreign intervention", saying the latter was "disproportionate" in relation to the UN resolution.

Meanwhile rebel leaders based in eastern Libya have had talks with United Nations officials on the humanitarian situation there.

The BBC's Kevin Connolly in Tobruk, where the talks were held, says that although food is being imported in the region from Egypt, it is not clear how viable the local economy will be if it remains cut off from the rest of Libya.

United Nations aid agencies say they believe thousands of Libyan citizens are displaced within the country, amid reports of severe shortages of food and medicines, and reprisals by government forces.

The agencies are hoping to get a convoy of aid into Libya on Wednesday.

India Wikileaks cable is 'authentic' - Assange

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has said the Indian PM is wrong to have doubted the authenticity of a document which has caused an uproar in India.

The diplomatic cable released by Wikileaks suggested that India's ruling Congress party bribed MPs to survive a crucial vote of confidence in 2008.

Mr Assange said Manmohan's Singh's comments "seem like a deliberate attempt to mislead the public".

Mr Singh denied the allegations set out in the cable.

He questioned the veracity of the leak, which has put him under renewed pressure after a string of corruption scandals.

The vote took place after the government's left-wing allies withdrew their support over a controversial nuclear deal with the United States.

But the Congress party narrowly survived the vote despite substantial opposition.

The leaked cable, reported in The Hindu newspaper, caused uproar in the Indian parliament with the main opposition parties calling on the prime minister to resign.

Mr Singh responded that no member of his Congress party or government bribed MPs ahead the vote and cast doubt on the veracity of the cable.

'Misleading'

"It is unfortunate that speculative, unverified and unverifiable communication can be given dignity by the opposition to revive old charges that have been soundly rejected," Mr Singh said.

Responding to the criticism, Mr Assange told NDTV news channel that Mr Singh's statements "seem like a deliberate attempt to mislead the public by suggesting that governments around the world do not accept the material and it is not verified".

"There is no doubt that these are bona fide reports sent by an American ambassador back to Washington, and these should be seen in that context," Mr Assange said.

"That does not mean every fact in them is correct. You have to look at their sources and how they gave this information."

If the government had lost the vote, India could have faced early elections. A defeat would have also put the nuclear deal in doubt.