How to Follow the 2012 Olympics Online

After months and months of anticipation by athletes and fans alike, the 2012 Olympic Games officially begin this Friday. For most fans, however, the world’s most global sporting event can be tricky to catch — many of the competitions will take place during the workday, when posting up in front of a TV is tough. Not to worry, the modern surfeit of online info is more clutch than ever.
Above, Mashable details the best ways to access quality social and editorial content online from now through the closing ceremony on Aug. 12.
Social media will play a bigger role than ever for this year’s Olympics, thanks largely to its eye-popping growth since the last summer games in 2008. In that span of time, Facebook‘s user base has grown from about 100 million to more than 900 million since then, and the number of posts per day by Twitter users worldwide has exploded from about 300,000 to 400 million.
SEE ALSO: 2012 Olympics: The Must-Follow Athletes on Twitter Making sense of social networks’ deluge of information from fans, media and athletes can be tough, so we’ve got some tools and tips to get you started.
But while we love social media, it alone isn’t enough to follow an event as massive and multifaceted as the Olympics. That’s why we’ve got a range of sources for top-notch editorial content, from columnists to reporters on the ground.
Scroll through the gallery above discover 10 ways to follow the 2012 Olympics online, then add your own suggestions in the comments.

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Chirp app sends smartphone data via 'digital birdsong'

Rory Cellan-Jones tries out the new chirping method of communication

An app that transmits data via a burst of "digital birdsong" aims to simplify the way users share images and other files between smartphones.

Chirp plays a two-second long noise that sounds as if it was made by a robotic bird. When heard by other devices it triggers a download.
The software was developed by Animal Systems, a spin-off business from University College London (UCL).
It is free to use, but companies will be charged a fee for add-on services.
At the moment users are limited to sending pictures, website links or 140-character text messages. These appear in a feed similar to Facebook's timeline.
Other applications such as Android Beam, Bump, Datasync and Dropbox allow users to swap material via bluetooth, wi-fi or links to cloud-based storage.
But Chirp has the advantage that it can quickly send data to multiple devices at once without them needing to be either paired or have a wireless connection.
If recipients are offline their devices will remember the "chirp" and download associated content later.
"We are pretty sure this is unique," the firm's chief executive Patrick Bergel told the BBC.

"We solve the problem of having to pair devices to move data. It's fairly novel to be able to transmit information to anyone who is in earshot - a large number of devices can share the same information at the same time using sound.

"You can also use it as a device shifting mechanism. In the future you will be able chirp yourself a link to a map from your laptop."
Mr Bergel says Chirp's distinctive sound allows it to work at low volumes in relatively noisy locations such as pubs, clubs or busy streets.
It can also work over public address systems or radio transmissions - potentially allowing broadcasters a way to send up-to-date pictures or links to background information; or an advertiser to send coupons or snippets of a song or promotional video.
Animal Systems subscribes to a "blacklist" service to prevent users transmitting known pornographic or illegal-content website links. However, it does not plan to moderate other material.
The application works by uploading a user's material to the firm's servers. The data is then identified with a 50-bit address space: one of trillions of available identifiers.
This location is then sent to the sender's device. When the user presses a button in the app it plays an audio-encoded version of the address.

Copy-protected

Data has long been passed between machines in the form of sound, including recordings on tapes used to load programs into 1980s home computers and early modems dialling into networks.
Even so, Mr Bergel said he had taken steps to prevent others copying his product.

A feed of messaged material appears beneath a visualised sound-wave

 

"We have a systems patent on moving short codes over the air," he said.
"We have [also] solved a lot of difficult problems. There's a lot of technical issues around moving data and making it robust against noise and echoes."
Having launched the app the five-man team behind it will now focus on offering premium services to marketers and other businesses.
Mr Bergel said these could include:

• A guarantee that uploaded content would be permanently kept on the firm's servers.
• Access to analytical data letting firms track whose devices have "listened" to their chirp.
• The ability to send video messages that play within the Chirp app.

Mr Bergel said the ultimate goals was to see manufacturers pre-install Chirp on handsets.
However, he must first convince users that they need the service at a time when wi-fi, 4G data and advanced bluetooth connectivity are becoming increasingly common.
For now Chirp is only available as an iPhone app. An Android version is promised "soon".

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Penn State blamed over Jerry Sandusky sex abuse

The leaders of US university Penn State showed a "total disregard" for the safety of victims of sex abuser Jerry Sandusky, a report says.

Former FBI chief Louis Freeh said: "The most powerful men at Penn State failed to take any steps... to protect the children who Sandusky victimised."
Mr Freeh cited the former university president and legendary football coach Joe Paterno, who died last year.
Both were sacked during the probe into assistant coach Sandusky's abuses.
Sandusky, who worked on Paterno's nationally lauded football team, was convicted of 45 counts of child sexual abuse in a trial in June.
He is expected to serve a life sentence.
'Most powerful people' Louis Freeh's report, released on Wednesday, laid much blame in the hands of four of Penn State's "most powerful people": President Graham Spanier, Vice-President Gary Schultz, athletic director Tim Curley and head football coach Joe Paterno.

They "failed to protect against a child sexual predator harming children for over a decade," Mr Freeh wrote.

The four men knew that Sandusky was under investigation by university police for allegations of child sex abuse on campus as early as 1998.
Sandusky retired from the university a year later, gaining emeritus status, which allowed him unfettered access to campus buildings.
Three years after the first allegations, the report found that officials did not take any action to identify a victim seen being abused by Sandusky in the Penn State showers in 2001.
In fact, Mr Curley informed Sandusky that another coach, Mike McQueary, had reported seeing the incident. That move further endangered the victim, Mr Freeh concluded.
According to emails uncovered by the report, Mr Curley, Mr Schultz and Mr Spanier had initially planned to report the incident to child welfare services, but decided against it.
Instead, offering Sandusky professional help and telling him "guests" were not permitted to use campus facilities was deemed a "more humane and upfront way to handle this", as Mr Schultz wrote in an email.
"Although concern to treat the child abuser humanely was expressly stated, no such sentiments were ever expressed by them for Sandusky's victims," Mr Freeh said in prepared remarks on Thursday.

The report also faults the university's board of trustees for failing to press Mr Spanier for details about the 2011 grand jury investigation of Sandusky.

In a statement, Paterno's family said he had made mistakes but had "never interfered with any investigation".
"The idea that any sane, responsible adult would knowingly cover up for a child predator is impossible to accept," the statement said. "The far more realistic conclusion is that many people didn't fully understand what was happening and underestimated or misinterpreted events."

University ethics officer

Mr Freeh also noted that Penn State's policy to comply with a national child abuse reporting act that was expanded in 1998, was still in draft form when Sandusky was arrested in 2011.
Travis Forney, a Penn state alumnus who played as a kicker on the football team, told the BBC he was glad the report spread blame among the many people who could have acted.
"I totally agree with coach Paterno that this was an university issue," he said. "I think everyone can agree that more could have be done, but in my opinion the ball was dropped by the four people and the 31 other people on the board of trustees."
Mr Forney said that this year - for the first time at his summer sports camp - the university has implemented a seminar for "anybody who is involved with children" focusing on reporting child abuse and protecting children.
The report includes several recommendations on what steps the university should take going forward:

• create a stronger sense of accountability and transparency among leadership
• evaluate security for campus buildings and track university programmes involving children
• require all employees to provide training for abuse awareness and reporting
• establish a university police policy to seek assistance during sensitive investigations or where there is a conflict of interest
• appoint a university ethics officer and an ethics council.

In an initial response, the board of trustees of Penn State University said it was still considering the report, and would comment further in due course.
"We expect a comprehensive analysis of our policies, procedures and controls related to identifying and reporting crimes and misconduct, including failures or gaps that may have allowed alleged misconduct to go undetected or unreported," the board said in a statement.

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Badger culling legal challenge fails

Bovine TB costs the UK economy more than £100m per year, mainly in farm payments

 

A legal bid to block badger culling in England has failed in the High Court.

The government says that culling will help combat cattle tuberculosis, which costs the UK more than £100m per year.
The Badger Trust argued that the cull was illegal, as it will at best make a small impact on the disease and could make it worse.
Culling is now likely to go ahead later this year in west Gloucestershire and west Somerset, with as many as 40 sites to be licensed eventually.
Badgers become infected with the bacteria that cause bovine TB, and can carry them from farm to farm, although more cattle contract the disease from contact with infected herds.
Plans to begin culling in Wales were recently abandoned in favour of a vaccination policy following the change of Welsh Assembly Government last year.
At the High Court hearing in London last month, the Badger Trust argued that the cull plans drawn up by the Department the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) were illegal on several grounds.
Badgers are generally protected under UK law, but exceptions are allowed for disease prevention.

David Williams Badger Trust

The trust's lawyers argued that that the small reduction in cattle TB incidence anticipated by government scientists did not qualify as "prevention".

The government does not set a specific target for the percentage reduction in cattle TB incidence it expects to see, but the latest evidence suggests that nine years after culling, incidence might fall by 9-16%.
Scientific evidence, stemming mainly from the UK Randomised Badger Culling Trial (RBCT), shows that culling can actually spread the disease, as it disturbs badgers' family groups and makes them roam further afield, coming into contact with more herds.
The government acknowledges this, but believes its culling strategy will get round the problem.

 

The trust also argued that the plan to have culling licences issued by Natural England was outside the law, and that the only person authorised to issue them was the Environment Secretary - currently Caroline Spelman MP.
In his judgement, Mr Justice Ouseley ruled against the trust on both counts.
"Although the Secretary of State has tried to interpret the science to her advantage, nothing has altered the basic finding that while badgers are implicated, killing them can make no meaningful contribution to tackling the disease, and cattle measures in themselves are sufficient if properly applied," said Badger Trust chairman David Williams.

Badgers (Meles meles) are protected by a number of UK and European laws

"We did not embark on this litigation lightly; and England now faces the prospect of 40,000 badgers being slaughtered over the next four years."
Costing the cull The trust also raised issues regarding cost.
The government says that cull areas must be at least 150 sq km in size, and the groups of landowners and farmers applying to cull must show they can access at least 70% of the land.

The groups will employ trained marksmen to shoot the badgers as they roam - so-called "free-shooting".

The effectiveness of free-shooting badgers has never been studied. In the RBCT, they were trapped in cages and then shot.
The trust pointed out that if free-shooting proves ineffective, farmers may have to resort to trapping - which would increase costs approximately 10-fold.
The government said it was pleased with the judgement.
"No one wants to cull badgers, but last year bovine TB led to the slaughter of over 26,000 cattle," said a Defra spokesman.
"To help eradicate the disease, it needs to be tackled in badgers.
"We will continue to work with the farming industry so badger control in two pilot areas can start as soon as is practical."
Natural England is currently processing the Somerset and Gloucestershire applications.
The judge left the option of a written appeal open to the trust, and it has a week in which to decide whether or not to pursue that avenue.
Humane Society International has mounted a parallel challenge through the EU, arguing that Defra's plans contravene the Bern Convention on protection of wildlife.

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Academics say 'no truth' to lying eyes theory

New research says the lying eyes theory is a myth

 

Research by academics at two universities have concluded that the common belief of lying eyes is a myth.

Many psychologists think when a person looks up to their right they are likely to be telling a lie and glancing up to the left is said to indicate honesty.
However, the experts from Edinburgh University and Hertfordshire University carried out tests and found the theory to be wrong.
The research appeared in the online journal Public Library of Science ONE.
The claimed link between eye movements and truth telling is a key element of neuro-linguistic programming (NLP), a method of enhancing people's lives using psychological techniques.

Five ways to detect a liar

Prof Richard Wiseman outlined other ways to spot a liar;

1. Me, myself I: Liars make up stories that never actually happened, and so tend to reduce the number of times they refer to themselves. Look out for any sudden drop in words like me, mine and I
2. Shifty: Lying is difficult and people tend not to move around when they are concentrating on something. Be wary if a person suddenly becomes very still
3. Umm ... err: Liars are far more hesitant than truth tellers and tend to stumble over their words. Listen out for tell-tale umms and errs.
4. Timing: Liars often have to think about what they are going to say before they speak. Be suspicious if someone suddenly pauses before starting to answer a question.
5. Token gesture: Liars tend to move their hands around more than truth tellers. Be wary if someone suddenly starts covering up their mouth or touching their hair as they chat.

One aspect of NLP involves teaching people about the relationship between eye movements and thought.

According to the theory, when right-handed people look up to their right they are likely to be visualising a "constructed" or imagined event.
In contrast when they look to their left they are likely to be visualising a "remembered" memory.
For this reason, when liars are constructing their own version of the truth, they tend to look to the right.
The idea was tested by filming volunteers and recording their eye movements as they told the truth or lied.
A second group of volunteers was then asked to watch the films and try to detect the lies by watching the eye movements.
Co-author Dr Caroline Watt, from Edinburgh University, said: "A large percentage of the public believes that certain eye movements are a sign of lying, and this idea is even taught in organisational training courses.
"Our research provides no support for the idea and so suggests that it is time to abandon this approach to detecting deceit."
Psychologist Professor Richard Wiseman, from Hertfordshire University, said: "The results of the first study revealed no relationship between lying and eye movements, and the second showed that telling people about the claims made by NLP practitioners did not improve their lie detection skills."
A follow-up study involved analysing videos of high-profile press conferences in which people appealed for help in finding missing relatives, or claimed to have been victims of crime.
While some were telling the truth, others turned out to be lying.
Again, there was no evidence of a correlation between lying and eye movements.

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Warning over 'low prescribing' for elderly

Statins are cholesterol-lowering drugs

 

More elderly patients should be prescribed drugs to tackle high blood pressure and cholesterol, experts say.

Oxford and Birmingham university researchers said older patients were "largely ignored" after looking at prescribing for nearly 37,000 people.
They found for blood pressure-lowering drugs prescribing dropped after the age of 85, while for treatment for high cholesterol the fall started at 75.
But other experts said there could be valid reasons for the findings.
The study, published on the British Medical Journal website, showed that prescribing of both types of drugs increased every five years after the ages of 40 to 44.
But by the age of 75 statin use had peaked at 29%, falling to 23% after that.
The use of blood pressure drugs peaked later at 57% at age 80 to 84 and then started declining afterwards.

'Good reasons'

The researchers said this should not be happening, pointing out that blood pressure drugs had been shown to help reduce the risk of heart disease in the elderly, while there was nothing to suggest statins should not be used.
Writing for the BMJ, they said: "With continuing advances in healthcare, the elderly population is increasing and people are living to an older age. They should... not be ignored."
June Davison, senior cardiac nurse at the British Heart Foundation, said: "Available evidence would suggest that older people can benefit from heart protective drugs, but more research is needed.
"Sometimes there are good reasons for not prescribing certain medicines.
"An older person may be more vulnerable to particular side-effects or already be on multiple medicines for other health conditions, meaning it isn't always appropriate to prescribe additional medicines."

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Breast cancer surgery women 'risk more operations'

Surgery to conserve the breast can cause scarring

 

One in five women with breast cancer who has part of the breast removed, rather than the whole breast, ends up having another operation, a BMJ study suggests.

The reoperation rate increases to one in three for women whose early-stage cancer is difficult to detect.
In England, 58% of women with breast cancer have breast-conserving surgery.
Women should be told of the risk of further operations when choosing surgery, researchers say.
The study, led by researchers from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and published in the British Medical Journal, looked at data collected on 55,297 women with breast cancer in England.
They all underwent breast-conserving surgery, rather than a mastectomy, on the NHS between 2005 and 2008. All the women were aged 16 or over.
They then looked at procedures carried out in the three months following the first breast operation.
The researchers took tumour type, age, socio-economic deprivation and other health problems into account.

When combined with radiotherapy, the study says that breast-conserving surgery is as effective as mastectomy, particularly for patients with an obvious, invasive tumour.

'Emotional distress'

However, because some pre-invasive cancers called 'carcinoma in situ' are difficult to detect, because they don't form a lump, breast conserving-surgery may not remove the cancer completely.
This could result in another operation.
The study says that additional operations put women's lives on hold while they wait for more surgery. It can delay their return to work, cause emotional distress and result in the need for reconstructive surgery to the breast.
Out of the 55,297 women who underwent breast-conserving surgery, 45,793 (82%) were suffering from isolated invasive cancer, 6,622 (12%) had isolated carcinoma in situ (pre-cancerous disease), and 2,882 (6%) had both types of cancer.
Another operation was more likely among women with pre-cancerous disease (29.5%) compared with those with isolated invasive disease (18%).
Around 40% of women who had a reoperation underwent a mastectomy.
Further results suggest that reoperation is less likely in older women and women from more deprived areas.

'Empowering patients'

Prof Jerome Pereira, study author and consultant breast surgeon at James Paget University Hospitals in Great Yarmouth, said the findings would help women to make decisions about their treatment.
"Patients should feel reassured that clinicians can now advise them more clearly.
"We all have a different attitude to risk but this is empowering patients to make the right decision for themselves."
Prof Pereira said the study results would help surgeons too.
"This research focuses surgeons and challenges us to try and reduce reoperation rates.
"We need to refine imaging techniques to make this happen - and this opens up more areas for more research."

'Increase survival'

Ramsey Cutes, Cancer Research UK breast cancer surgeon at the University of Southampton, said it was standard practice to discuss the possibility of further surgery with patients.
"It's important for patients to fully understand the pros and cons of surgery. The ultimate aim of these repeat operations after breast-conserving surgery is to reduce the chance that breast cancer will return in the breast, and increase survival from the disease.
"Rates of breast cancer recurrence are also reduced by other treatments such as radiotherapy, hormone therapy and chemotherapy where appropriate.
"There's an ongoing need to better identify those at high risk of breast cancer recurrence, and to carefully select those who would benefit the most from further surgery."

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How algorithms shape our world

 

It takes you 500,000 microseconds just to click a mouse. But if you’re a Wall Street algorithm and you’re five microseconds behind, you’re a loser.

Synopsis

Kevin Slavin argues that we're living in a world designed for - and increasingly controlled by - algorithms. In this riveting talk from TEDGlobal, he shows how these complex computer programs determine: espionage tactics, stock prices, movie scripts, and architecture. And he warns that we are writing code we can't understand, with implications we can't control. Talk recorded 13 July 2011.

About the Speaker

Kevin Slavin navigates in the algoworld, the expanding space in our lives that’s determined and run by algorithms.
Are you addicted to the dead-simple numbers game Drop 7 or Facebook’s Parking Wars? Blame Kevin Slavin and the game development company he co-founded in 2005, Area/Code, which makes clever game entertainments that enter the fabric of reality.
All this fun is powered by algorithms - as, increasingly, is our daily life. From the algorithms used by Google, to those that give you “recommendations” online, to those that automatically play the stock markets (and sometimes crash them): we may not realize it, but we live in the algoworld.

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T-shirts developed that could charge mobile phones

The researchers turned the t-shirt fabric into a 'supercapacitor'

Scientists at the University of South Carolina have found a way to use a cheap T-shirt to store electrical power.

It could pave the way for clothes that are able to charge phones and other devices.
Experts predict that new technologies including roll-up smartphones and laptops will be on the market soon.
These developments would spur on the need for "flexible energy storage", said the professor behind the project.
Xiaodong Li, a professor of mechanical engineering at the university teamed up with post-doctorate researcher Lihong Bao to find a solution.
The pair wrote up their findings for the Advanced Materials journal.
They used a T-shirt bought from a local discount store, which was soaked in a solution of fluoride, dried and then baked in an oxygen-free environment at high temperature.

Hybrid fabric

The fibres in the fabric converted from cellulose to activated carbon during the process, but the material remained flexible.
By using small parts of the fabric as an electrode, the researchers showed that the material could be made to act as a capacitor.
Capacitors store an electrical charge and are components of nearly every electronic device on the market.
By coating the individual fibres of the carbonised fabric with manganese oxide just a nanometre thick, the electrode performance of the fabric was further enhanced.

Tests on sections of the t-shirt suggested it was capable of being recharged thousands of time

 

"This created a stable, high-performing supercapacitor," said Prof Li.
The hybrid supercapacitors proved resilient - even after thousands of charge-discharge cycles their performance did not diminish more than 5%, the researchers said.
"By stacking these supercapacitors up, we should be able to charge portable electronic devices such as cell phones," Prof Li added.
"We wear fabric every day. One day our cotton T-shirts could have more functions; for example, a flexible energy storage device that could charge your cell phone or your iPad."

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Yahoo investigating exposure of 400,000 passwords

Yahoo is looking into claims a hacker has stolen 400,000 passwords

 

Web giant Yahoo has confirmed it is investigating a breach of its system which may have exposed 450,000 user IDs.

US security firm Trustedsec said the attack appeared to have originated from servers connected to Yahoo Voices, a user-generated section of the site.
It said that hacking group D33DS had claimed to be behind the attack.
Hours after the attack came to light, Yahoo had not put a warning on its site.
In a statement Yahoo said: "We confirm that an older file from Yahoo Contributor Network... containing approximately 450,000 Yahoo and other company users' names and passwords was compromised yesterday.
"Of these, less than 5% of the Yahoo accounts had valid passwords. We are taking immediate action by fixing the vulnerability that led to the disclosure of this data, changing the passwords of the affected Yahoo users and notifying the companies whose users accounts may have been compromised."
According to US security firm Trustedsec, the compromised passwords were associated with a variety of email addresses including those from yahoo.com, gmail.com and aol.com.
It said that hackers used a well-established technique known as SQL injection to extract the sensitive information from the database.
"The most alarming part of the entire story was the fact that the passwords were stored entirely unencrypted," the security firm said in its blog.
Initial analysis by another security firm Imperva suggested that the compromised database might have contained some private data as well including names, addresses including postcode, phone numbers and dates of birth.
Reset passwords Meanwhile social network Formspring has disabled nearly 30 million passwords following a separate attack.
It said it was a precautionary move after 420,000 passwords showed up on a security forum.
Formspring, which launched in 2009 as a crowd-powered question-and-answer site, has asked users to reset their passwords.
In a blog post it confirmed that a breach had occurred after someone hacked into one of the San Francisco-based company's servers.
A spokeswoman said it had been alerted on Monday that some 420,000 encrypted passwords had shown up on a security forum which she refused to name because she did not want to draw attention to it.
Encrypted passwords aren't immediately useable, although they can sometimes be decoded by a clever attacker.

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Facebook 'likes' and adverts' value doubted

Suspected fake profiles have prompted some marketers to become wary of Facebook adverts

 

A BBC investigation suggests companies are wasting large sums of money on adverts to gain "likes" from Facebook members who have no real interest in their products.

It also appears many account holders who click on the links have lied about their personal details.
A security expert has said some of the profiles appeared to be "fakes" run by computer programs to spread spam.
Facebook said it had "not seen evidence of a significant problem".
"Likes" are highly valued by many leading brands' marketing departments.
Once a user has clicked on a link the company it belongs to can then post content on their news feed, send them messages and alert their friends to the connection.
Facebook makes money by charging companies a fee to show adverts designed to attract new "likes".
Some companies have attracted millions of "likes".
But the BBC has been contacted by one marketing consultant who has warned clients to be wary of their value, and carried out an experiment that backed up his concerns.
The vast majority of Facebook's revenues come from advertising and its performance will be scrutinised when it releases its financial results on 26 July - the first such report since its flotation.

Puppet masters

Earlier this year Facebook revealed that about 5-6% of its 901 million users might be fake - representing up to 54 million profiles.
Graham Cluley of the security firm Sophos said this was a major problem.
"Spammers and malware authors can mass-produce false Facebook profiles to help them spread dangerous links and spam, and trick people into befriending them," he said.
"We know some of these accounts are run by computer software with one person puppeteering thousands of profiles from a single desk handing out commands such as: 'like' as many pages as you can to create a large community.
"I'm sure Facebook is trying to shut these down but it can be difficult to distinguish fake accounts from real ones."
A spokesman for the social network said: "We don't see evidence of a 'wave of likes' coming from fake users or 'obsessive clickers'."
But Mr Cluley said it was in the firm's interest to downplay the problem.
"They're making money every time a business's advert leads to a phoney Facebook fan," he said.
'Suspicious' fans Michael Tinmouth, a social media marketing consultant, ran Facebook advertising campaigns for a number of small businesses, including a luxury goods firm and an executive coach.
At first, his clients were pleased with the results. But they became concerned after looking at who had clicked on the adverts.
While they had been targeting Facebook users around the world, all their "likes" appeared to be coming from countries such as the Philippines and Egypt.
"They were 13 to 17 years old, the profile names were highly suspicious, and when we dug deeper a number of these profiles were liking 3,000, 4,000, even 5,000 pages," he said.
Mr Tinmouth pointed out a number of profiles which had names and details that appeared to be made up.

One, going by the name Agung Pratama Sevenfoldism, showed his date of birth as 1997 and said he had been a manager at Chevron in 2010.

Mr Tinmouth said this seemed "unlikely".
An experiment by the BBC appears to have confirmed this was not a one-off issue.
The BBC created a Facebook page for VirtualBagel - a made-up company with no products.
The number of "likes" it attracted from Egypt and the Philippines was out of proportion to other countries targeted such as the US and UK.
One Cairo-based fan called himself Ahmed Ronaldo and claimed to work at Real Madrid.

Payment dispute

Mr Tinmouth asked Facebook to investigate the issue of questionable profiles after one of his clients refused to pay for his adverts on the basis they had not reached "real people".
The company told him that the majority were authentic, and refused to meet him to discuss a refund.
Facebook told the BBC that Mr Tinmouth appeared to have sent out scattergun advertising to a global audience without specifying a target group.
"We would never recommend that anyone conduct business in this way," a spokesman said.
The BBC also spoke to a social marketing executive at one of the UK's biggest companies who said he was increasingly sceptical about the value of advertising on the social network.

"Any kind of investment in Facebook advertising has brought us very little return on sales," he said.

The executive, who did not want to be named, added that his company had found it could increase engagement with customers via the social network without buying adverts.
"The fans you get from advertising may not be genuine, and if they are genuine are they people who will engage with your brand?" he asked.
"The answer, more and more, appears to be no."

Detecting fakes

Facebook played down the issue of fake profiles.
"We've not seen evidence of a significant problem," said a spokesman.
"Neither has it been raised by the many advertisers who are enjoying positive results from using Facebook.
"All of these companies have access to Facebook's analytics which allow them to see the identities of people who have liked their pages, yet this has not been flagged as an issue.
"A very small percentage of users do open accounts using pseudonyms but this is against our rules and we use automated systems as well as user reports to help us detect them."

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Start-up attempts to convert Prof Hawking's brainwaves into speech

Prof Hawking communicates using a sensor attached to his glasses which records his cheek movements

 

An American scientist is to unveil details of work on the brain patterns of Prof Stephen Hawking which he says could help safeguard the physicist's ability to communicate.

Prof Philip Low said he eventually hoped to allow Prof Hawking to "write" words with his brain as an alternative to his current speech system which interprets cheek muscle movements.
Prof Low said the innovation would avert the risk of locked-in syndrome.
Intel is working on an alternative.

Prof Hawking was diagnosed with motor neurone disease in 1963. In the 1980s he was able to use slight thumb movements to move a computer cursor to write sentences.
His condition later worsened and he had to switch to a system which detects movements in his right cheek through an infrared sensor attached to his glasses which measures changes in light.
Because the nerves in his face continue to deteriorate his rate of speech has slowed to about one word a minute prompting him to look for an alternative.
The fear is that Prof Hawking could ultimately lose the ability to communicate by body movement, leaving his brain effectively "locked in" his body.
In 2011, he allowed Prof Low to scan his brain using the iBrain device developed by the Silicon Valley-based start-up Neurovigil.
Prof Hawking will not attend the consciousness conference in his home town of Cambridge where Prof Low intends to discuss his findings, but a spokesman told the BBC: "Professor Hawking is always interested in supporting research into new technologies to help him communicate."

Decoding brainwaves

The iBrain is a headset that records brain waves through EEG (electroencephalograph) readings - electrical activity recorded from the user's scalp.

The iBrain device collects EEG data which it transfers to a computer

 

Prof Low said he had designed computer software which could analyse the data and detect high frequency signals that had previously been thought lost because of the skull.
"An analogy would be that as you walk away from a concert hall where there's music from a range of instruments," he told the BBC.
"As you go further away you will stop hearing high frequency elements like the violin and viola, but still hear the trombone and the cello. Well, the further you are away from the brain the more you lose the high frequency patterns.
"What we have done is found them and teased them back using the algorithm so they can be used."
Prof Low said that when Prof Hawking had thought about moving his limbs this had produced a signal which could be detected once his algorithm had been applied to the EEG data.
He said this could act as an "on-off switch" and produce speech if a bridge was built to a similar system already used by the cheek detection system.

Intel began working with Prof Hawking after he wrote a letter to its co-founder Gordon Moore in 2011

 

Prof Low said further work needed to be done to see if his equipment could distinguish different types of thoughts - such as imagining moving a left hand and a right leg.
If it turns out that this is the case he said Prof Hawking could use different combinations to create different types of virtual gestures, speeding up the rate he could select words at.
To establish whether this is the case, Prof Low plans trials with other patients in the US.

Intel's effort

The US chipmaker Intel announced, in January, that it had also started work to create a new communication system for Prof Hawking after he had asked the firm's co-founder, Gordon Moore, if it could help him.
It is attempting to develop new 3D facial gesture recognition software to speed up the rate at which Prof Hawking can write.
"These gestures will control a new user interface that takes advantage of the multi-gesture vocabulary and advances in word prediction technologies," a spokeswoman told the BBC.
"We are working closely with Professor Hawking to understand his needs and design the system accordingly."

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Afghanistan aid: Donors pledge $16bn at Tokyo meeting

Donors at a conference on Afghanistan have pledged to give it $16bn (£10.3bn) in civilian aid over four years, in an attempt to safeguard its future after foreign forces leave in 2014.

The biggest donors, the US, Japan, Germany and the UK, led the way at the Tokyo meeting in offering funds.
The pledge came as Afghanistan agreed to new conditions to deal with endemic corruption.
There are fears Afghanistan may relapse into chaos after the Nato pullout.
The Afghan economy relies heavily on international development and military assistance. The World Bank says aid makes up more than 95% of Afghanistan's GDP.
Meanwhile in Afghanistan itself two roadside bombs killed 14 civilians and injured another three in the southern Kandahar province, regional police chief Gen Abdul Raziq said.
The first bomb hit a car, and the second exploded when a tractor arrived to rescue the wounded. Women and children are among the dead, the regional governor's office said.

'Fragile'

In his opening remarks at the conference, Afghan President Hamid Karzai pledged to "fight corruption with strong resolve".
He said that despite the progress made in the past 10 years, Afghanistan's economy remained vulnerable and security a major obstacle.
"It will take many years of hard work on our part as Afghans, as well as continued empowering support from our international partners before Afghanistan can achieve prosperity and self-reliance," he said.
"We must do what we can to deepen the roots of security and make the transition irreversible."

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon echoed Mr Karzai's remarks, saying progress in Afghanistan remained "fragile".

"Failure to invest in governance, justice, human rights, employment and social development could negate investment and sacrifices that have been made over the last 10 years," said Mr Ban.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stressed the need for reform to safeguard changes achieved in Afghanistan.
"That must include fighting corruption, improving governance, strengthening the rule of law, increasing access to economic opportunity for all Afghans, especially for women," she said.
The Tokyo conference is being attended by high-level delegates from more than 70 nations and international organisations.
Participants had promised $4bn in annual aid between 2012 and 2015, Japanese and US officials said, in return for mechanisms to monitor the Afghan government's progress on improving governance and combating endemic corruption.
Military support The civilian aid sought in Tokyo comes on top of $4.1bn in military assistance for Afghanistan's armed forces pledged by a summit of Nato leaders in Chicago in May.

 

According to plans endorsed at the Chicago meeting, Nato-led forces will hand over combat command to Afghan forces by mid-2013, followed by a withdrawal of combat troops by the end of 2014. After that, only training units will remain.
Speaking during a brief stop-over in Kabul on her way to Tokyo on Saturday, Mrs Clinton announced that the US had given Kabul the status of "major non-Nato ally".
The a move is seen as another signal aimed at allaying Afghan fears about waning Western support.
The designation as major non-Nato ally, which already includes close US allies such as Australia and Israel, gives Kabul easier access to advanced US military technology and streamlines defence co-operation between the countries.
The last country to be granted the status was Pakistan in 2004.
In May, US President Barack Obama and his Afghan counterpart, Hamid Karzai, signed a 10-year strategic partnership agreement outlining military and civil ties between the countries after 2014.

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Partial recount in Mexico presidential election ordered

Electoral authorities in Mexico have announced they will recount votes cast at more than half of the polling stations in Sunday's presidential election after finding inconsistencies.

Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador of the leftist PRD had demanded a total recount after initial results put him in second place.
He accused leading candidate Enrique Pena Nieto of breaking electoral rules.
Mr Pena Nieto of the PRI denied allegations his party had bought votes.
Preliminary results gave Mr Pena Nieto a lead of more than six percentage points over Mr Lopez Obrador.
Executive Secretary of the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE) Edmundo Jacobo said the recount was "an exercise in openness and transparency".

He said votes cast at 78,012 of the 143,132 polling stations would be recounted.

Fraud allegations

According to Mexico's electoral law, votes should be recounted if any of the following apply:

• there are inconsistencies in the final tally reports
• the result shows a difference of one percentage point or less between the first and second-placed candidate
• all the votes in one ballot box are cast in favour of the same candidate

On Tuesday, the candidate which preliminary results put in second place, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, had demanded a full recount citing evidence of widespread irregularities.
"Where these things happen, there needs to be a recount of the votes. It is not asking for a favour; it is asking for the law to be fulfilled," he said.
He has said the process itself was neither fair nor clean, accusing Mr Pena Nieto's Institutional Revolutionary party (PRI) of spending more than their allotted electoral budget and condemning biased media coverage.
Mr Pena Nieto has denied allegations of vote buying.
He told the BBC's Will Grant in Mexico City that he was "completely clear that the party acted within the law".
Asked about videos showing voters claiming they received credit with a major supermarket chain in exchange for their votes, Mr Pena Nieto said they had been faked.

'Sore loser'

Electoral workers started recounting votes straight away

 

He added that while the process of counting the votes continued, there was no doubt that the Mexican people had expressed their will and given him a lead over his nearest rival of more then 3,200,000 votes.
Mr Pena Nieto said he was disappointed Mr Lopez Obrador had not recognised the result.
He said his rival had a long record of refusing to accept defeat.
After losing the 2006 presidential election by a narrow margin to Felipe Calderon, Mr Lopez Obrador launched street protests that lasted for several months.
Preliminary results put Mr Pena Nieto on 38.15% and Mr Lopez Obrador on 31.64%.
The BBC's Will Grant in Mexico City says Mr Pena Nieto now faces an uncomfortable period.
Our correspondent says even though he continues to hold the lead, there is a long legal process to go before any candidate is officially confirmed as Mexico's president-elect.

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Barclays: MPs query Bob Diamond evidence

MPs who questioned former Barclays chief executive Bob Diamond on the rate-rigging affair have expressed surprise at some of his evidence.

Mr Diamond called the behaviour of those responsible for the Libor rate-rigging at the bank "reprehensible".
But Andrew Tyrie, chairman of the Treasury Committee, said some of what the banker said seemed "implausible".
And another committee member, David Ruffley, said he was not satisfied with Mr Diamond's explanation.
During three hours of questioning by the Treasury Committee, Mr Diamond said he had only learned the true extent of the scandal this month.
He had felt "physically ill" when reading incriminating emails from traders that they had conspired to manipulate the Libor rate.
Mr Diamond said he "loved" Barclays and had resigned on Tuesday to protect its reputation: "I'm sorry, disappointed and angry."
But Mr Tyrie, who has been asked to lead a parliamentary inquiry into banking following the scandal, was sceptical about some of what he heard.
He told the BBC after the hearing: "We learnt that Bob Diamond says he didn't know anything about this until about month ago, which I find rather surprising.
"I think, cumulatively, the whole package looks somewhat implausible. And if it is plausible, it's only because there is something wrong with the culture of Barclays and, of course, it's the culture that needs to be put right."
In a separate BBC interview, committee member David Ruffley said: "Either [Mr Diamond] was complicit or, frankly, incompetent.
It was quite shocking testimony, in the sense that there was serious wrongdoing and he didn't know about it," the MP said. "Heaven knows what else was going on inside the bank."

 Clarify

In another development, the Bank of England's deputy governor, Paul Tucker, has asked to give evidence to the Treasury Committee in order to give his side of the story.
"Mr Tucker is keen to give evidence to the committee in order to clarify the position with regard to the events involving the Bank of England, including the telephone conversation with Bob Diamond on 29 October 2008," the Bank said in a statement.
John Mann, a Treasury Committee member, confirmed on the BBC's Newsnight that Mr Tucker would appear some time next week.
On Tuesday, Barclays released Mr Diamond's note of a conversation in 2008 with Mr Tucker.
In it, Mr Diamond wrote that Mr Tucker told him "senior figures within Whitehall" were concerned about why Barclays was setting its Libor rate at the "top end".
Subsequently, the Libor borrowing rates submitted by Barclays fell, potentially understating the extent of the bank's borrowing costs.
Banks borrow from each other daily, and report at what rate they got the money. A high rate can indicate a bank is having trouble borrowing money because it is in financial trouble.

 'A nod and a wink'

Mr Diamond told MPs that Mr Tucker had not identified these "senior figures" in Whitehall.

The former Barclays boss reiterated that he did not view his conversation with Mr Tucker as an instruction to change its rates submissions.
But Mr Tyrie suggested to Mr Diamond that the conversation with Mr Tucker could have been interpreted as "a nod and a wink".
"It reads that way to almost anyone who looks at it," said Mr Tyrie.
Mr Diamond has subsequently relayed his conversation with Mr Tucker to Barclays' chief operating officer Jerry del Missier.
But Mr del Missier, who also resigned on Tuesday, had "misunderstood" the conversation, and directed traders to take actions to lower Barclays' Libor rates.
The Financial Services Authority has investigated Mr del Missier's actions, and will take no further action.
Meanwhile, Chancellor George Osborne has directly accused members of Gordon Brown's government of involvement in the rate-rigging scandal.
Mr Osborne said the former prime minister's inner circle, including current shadow chancellor Ed Balls, had "questions to answer" over apparent pressure on Barclays to post lower Libor rates during the credit crunch.
The comments came in an interview for Thursday edition of the Spectator magazine.

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Seaweed toothpaste 'to stop tooth decay'

The purple shows up the plaque on the half of the dentures that has not had the "seaweed" treatment

 

Adding enzymes from seaweed microbes to toothpaste and mouthwash could provide better protection against tooth decay, a team of UK scientists have said.

Researchers at Newcastle University had been studying Bacillus licheniformis to see if it could clean ships' hulls.

But the scientists now believe it could protect the areas between teeth where plaque can gather despite brushing.

Their lab tests suggest the microbe's enzyme cuts through plaque, stripping it of bacteria that cause tooth decay.

Dr Nick Jakubovics, of the university's school of dental sciences, said: "Plaque on your teeth is made up of bacteria which join together to colonise an area in a bid to push out any potential competitors.

"Traditional toothpastes work by scrubbing off the plaque containing the bacteria - but that's not always effective - which is why people who religiously clean their teeth can still develop cavities.

"We found this enzyme can remove some of these undesirable bacteria from plaque."

Plaque is made up of lots of different decaying bacteria.

When bacterial cells die, the DNA inside them leaks out and makes a biofilm that sticks to the teeth.

Instead of removing the plaque entirely, Dr Jakubovics believes the treatment could strip away the harmful bacteria, like Streptococcus mutans,that cause tooth decay.

"Ultimately we hope to harness this power into a paste, mouthwash or denture-cleaning solution."

He said more studies are needed to show the technique works and is safe before any products could be brought to market.

He is presenting the latest findings to a meeting of the Society for Applied Microbiology, the organisation that is funding the research along with the Newcastle Healthcare Charity.

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US approves first over-the-counter HIV home-use test

A home HIV test is expected to go on sale in the US within months, after winning regulator approval.

The OraQuick test checks saliva from a mouth swab for HIV and can produce results in 20 to 40 minutes.
Government estimates suggest 1.2 million people in the US are HIV-positive, but 20% do not know they are.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has said it hopes the over-the-counter test will reach people who might not otherwise get tested.
The test is expected to be sold in as many as 30,000 pharmacies and homeware shops, as well as online.
The manufacturer, OraSure, has not said how much the test will sell for but confirmed it would cost less than $60 (£38).
"We expect all the major retail outlets to carry this product," chief executive Douglas Michels said.
The company is planning a "pretty massive effort" to market the test, Mr Michels added.
'Empowering people' Approval of the test has been praised by HIV/Aids awareness groups.
"This test will allow anyone to empower themselves to know their HIV status when, how and with whom they want to," Tom Donohue, founding director of Who's Positive, told the Associated Press.
But the FDA has highlighted in its announcement that the test may not be 100% accurate, and has stressed the need for additional testing by medical professionals to confirm the result.
OraSure said that in trials the test was able to correctly detect HIV among people carrying the virus only 92% of the time.
It was 99% accurate for negative results - or identifying that someone does not carrying the virus.
Meanwhile, Dr Jonathan Mermin, director of the HIV unit at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said people who receive negative results should take the test again after three months, because it can take weeks before antibodies to HIV appear.
Healthcare professionals have been using a version of the OraQuick test since 2002.
For the last two decades there have been about 50,000 new cases of HIV in the US each year.

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Smoking mothers' embryos 'grow more slowly

Time-lapse photography has shown that embryos of smoking women develop more slowly.

French academics in an IVF clinic took regular pictures of an egg from the moment it was fertilised until it was ready to be implanted into the mother.

At all stages of development, embryos from smokers were consistently a couple of hours behind, a study showed.

The lead researcher, from Nantes University Hospital, said: "You want a baby, quit smoking".

Smoking is known to reduce the chances of having a child. It is why some hospitals in the UK ask couples to give up smoking before they are given fertility treatment.

As eggs fertilised through IVF initially develop in the laboratory before being implanted, it gave doctors a unique opportunity to film the embryos as they divide into more and more cells.

Slow start

Researchers watched 868 embryos develop - 139 from smokers.

In the clinic the embryos of non-smokers reached the five-cell stage after 49 hours. In the smokers it took 50 hours. The eight-cell stage took 62 hours in smokers' embryos, while non-smokers' embryos reached that point after 58 hours.

Senior embryologist and lead researcher, Dr Thomas Freour, told the BBC: "Embryos from smoking women, they behave slower, there is a delay in their development.

"On average it is about two hours, it is significant and nobody knew that before."

This study cannot say what impact the slower development has, or if this affected the chances of having a child.

Dr Freour speculated that "if they go slower, maybe something is starting to go wrong and they wouldn't implant."

His advice was simple: "You should quit smoking, it couldn't be easier. What else can I say? You want a baby, quit smoking."

Dr Allan Pacey, senior lecturer in andrology at the University of Sheffield, said it was an "interesting" study which pioneered the use of new technology.

"It uses a fancy piece of equipment called an embryoscope which allows scientists to watch in real time how embryos develop without disturbing them.

"It's early days for this machine but we need trials like this to test its potential, we know our current methods of embryo selection are based on what looks good down the microscope to a trained eye."

The findings were presented at the European Society for Human Reproduction and Embryology (ESHRE) meeting in Turkey.

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 Human head found in Canada park belongs to murder victim

A human head found in a Montreal park on Sunday belongs to a Chinese student allegedly killed by the so-called Canadian psycho, according to police.

Luka Magnotta, 29, denied last month killing Jun Lin, whose body parts were posted to political offices in Ottawa and schools in Vancouver.

The 33-year-old's torso was found in Montreal, but his head was missing.

The head was discovered by police at Angrignon Park in south-west Montreal after a tip-off.

Police now believe that they have recovered all of Mr Lin's remains, spokesman Robert St-Onge told the AFP news agency.

Lin's family held a private memorial for him last week in Montreal.

Luka Magnotta was arrested in Germany last month.

He is thought to have posted a video of himself online defiling the corpse.

A preliminary hearing before his trial is expected to be held in March.

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Independence Day plans hit by US power cuts and heat

Nearly one million people went without power on Independence Day as utilities worked to restore service five days after severe storms hit the eastern US.

Residents without air-conditioning or working refrigerators faced searing heat in the storm's wake.

Some towns cancelled firework displays marking the national holiday, saying police and firefighters could not be spared as repair work continued.

Some customers were expected be without power until the weekend.

However, Washington and Maryland electricity provider Pepco brought some cheer to its stricken customers on Thursday, predicting 90% restoration by the end of the 4 July holiday - two days ahead of its initial estimate.

"We were able to get more mutual assistance crews from out of state than we expected, and we thank our employees and local contractors for their tireless work," the company said.

The damage was mostly blamed on a meteorological phenomenon known as a derecho, which saw hurricane-force winds buffeted ahead of fast-moving thunderstorms.

The derecho brought down trees and power lines, leaving three million people without electricity in the wake of the storm.

'Dangerously hot'

The extreme heat, which continued over the following days, was blamed for 24 deaths in seven states. Two additional deaths were reported on Wednesday.

The National Weather Service has issued excessive heat warnings for parts of Ohio, Kentucky, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Missouri, Nebraska, Iowa, South Dakota, Illinois, Michigan, Indiana, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware.

It warned that "a prolonged period of dangerously hot temperatures will occur", and advised residents to wear loose-fitting clothes, drink plenty of water and check up on friends and neighbours.

Heat indices could climb to 105F (41C) in some affected areas, the warning said.

In Maryland, the town of Rockville cancelled its official celebrations because of trees and wires blocking two of three entrances to the venue. In Gaithersburg the city manager said utility companies were using its fairgrounds as a staging area for repairs.

Utility regulators in Maryland and the District of Columbia said they were partly to blame for the slow restoration of service to customers, the Washington Post has reported.

Regulators should have required power companies to meet higher standards, Douglas Nazarian, chairman of Maryland Public Service Commission said.

Meanwhile, the state of West Virginia was reported to have the largest number of people stranded without power. About 317,000 people did not have electricity, the US Department of Energy said on Wednesday morning.

West Virginia officials asked residents not to set off fireworks at home because the high temperatures increased the risk of fire in many places. Fallen trees that have not yet been removed could add to the hazard, they said.

Further west, Colorado was one of several states hit by destructive wildfires rage in recent weeks that are scrapping their firework displays too, amid fears that dry grass could become tinder for wildfires.

Festivities were planned to go ahead on the National Mall in Washington DC, and at George Washington's historic home at Mount Vernon, Virginia.

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