Facebook will use drones and lasers to deliver internet access to the developing world

Zuckerberg confirms the social network is working on high altitude, solar-powered drones as well as satellites and lasers

Facebook will be bringing internet to the developing world using drones, satellites and lasers.

Following hard on the heels of the company’s $2bn purchase of virtual reality firm Oculus Rift it does sound like an early April’s Fool, but it’s actually the next step in Mark Zuckerberg`s Internet.org initiative to deliver internet to the two-thirds of the world that are offline.

“In our effort to connect the whole world with Internet.org, we’ve been working on ways to beam internet to people from the sky,” wrote Zuckerberg in a blog post.

“Today we’re sharing some details of the work Facebook’s Connectivity Lab is doing to build drones, satellites and lasers to deliver the internet to everyone.”

The announcement confirms earlier rumours that the social network will be working on using high-altitude, solar-powered drones to achieve its goals.

It had been previously suggested that the company would purchase drone manufacturers Titan Aerospace, but it now seems they’ve secured talent from Nasa and Somerset-based aerospace company Ascenta.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxX6r-xDgG4

The latter wrote on their site that they would be joining Facebook in a “special partnership” to work on “high altitude long endurance vehicles”. The five-member team has more than 100 years of combined experience within the aerospace industry.

The technology behind the sorts of aircraft that Facebook is interested in is already quite well established. The basic design is to use solar panels on the top of the wings that charge batteries during the day and keep the craft flying at night, and position the plane at high enough altitudes (roughly 20,000 metres of 65,000 feet) that they’re essentially flying above bad weather.

Zuckerberg has not provided a specific road-map for the use of this technology, but did highlight the project’s recent successes in the Philippines and Paraguay. In these countries he said thatInternet.org has “doubled the number of people using mobile data […] helping 3 million new people access the internet.”

Internet.org has partnered with a number of big tech companies including Samsung, Nokia and Qualcomm, but the initiative has also been criticized for prioritizing internet access over more tangible improvements for the developing world such as vaccination programs and access to clean water.

The Stranglers on 40 years of fights, drugs, UFOs and 'doing all the wrong things'

Legend has it the Stranglers started a fight with the Clash, took heroin for a year, exploited strippers on stage, and incited a riot in Nice. But the truth was often much worse

The Stranglers’ Jean-Jacques Burnel and Hugh Cornwell playing in Battersea Park in London in 1978. Photograph: Gus Stewart/Redferns

A fight with punk royalty

Jean-Jacques Burnel (bass): In 1976, we played with the Ramones. In those days, [Clash bassist] Paul Simonon had a nervous tic: he used to spit on the ground. He did this just as we came off stage at Dingwalls in London, so I thumped him and it all kicked off. We were thrown out by the bouncers and it continued in the courtyard. On one side were the Pistols, the Clash, the Ramones and a load of their journalist friends. On the other side was us, a few of our fans and me, nose to nose with Paul. Dave [Greenfield, Stranglers keyboards] had John Lydon up against the ice-cream van.

Burnel: Contrary to what has been written, Hugh [Cornwell, Stranglers singer] and I never had punch-ups. There was one incident in Rome where he tried jumping in the air during Hanging Around and managed to get two inches off the ground. I said something afterwards and he threw a glass against the wall. I pushed him and he just went straight through a paper-thin wall. It was like a Tom and Jerry cartoon, with a silhouette in the wall in the shape of Hugh.

Jet Black (drums): It polarised opinion against us, but we've always been at our best with our backs against the wall.

Touring in an ice-cream van

Black: I had an ice-cream business and decided to sell it to start a band, but I kept one of the vans. It was the perfect mode of transport for two years. We had a special way of arranging all the speakers and equipment so they'd all fit in.

Burnel (bass): Jet would drive and the rest of us would lie on top of the gear. After some gigs, we'd pile out and sleep in a field, surrounded by cows.

Black: In Bude, we once slept on a lawn by the sea. The next morning, we were woken by the sound of a lawnmower. We'd slept on a cricket pitch and they were cutting the wicket around us.

Burnel: There were some funny incidents in those early days. We were booked to play a Young Conservatives dance.

Black: At the start of the first song, there were 300 people in the hall. By the end, there were four left watching. But they started following us. It was a similar story all over the country

Gaffer-taping a journalist to the Eiffel Tower

Burnel: A guy called Philippe Manoeuvre – who's now head of the biggest music magazine in France – was always bugging me. One day, he turned up at our hotel demanding an interview, so I agreed – if we could do it at the Eiffel Tower. We took his trousers off, gaffer-taped him to one of the girders and left him there to be photographed by Japanese tourists. It was only the first floor. Admittedly, that is 400ft off the ground.

Deciding to take heroin for a year

Burnel: It was an artistic decision to see what would happen. 

Black: It was crazy.

Burnel: Jet and Dave were sensible and quit after a day. Hugh and I didn't. We headed into a surreal, dark, necromantic abyss.

Black: We were making an album called The Meninblack, which was based on this phenomenon back then known only to a small coterie of UFO obsessives – that people who saw UFOs were visited by strange people wearing black to shut them up. Anyway, as soon as we started making the album, studios blew up, tour buses broke down and gigs became riots. People working for us dropped dead. We were convinced something occult was going on.

Burnel: One night, I was so blissed out I thought it would be wonderful to die. I wrote a lovely suicide note, took loads of heroin and woke up three days later. The band hadn't even noticed I hadn't been in the studio.

Being escorted out of Sweden by armed police

Burnel: This happened twice. The first time, 200 members of this teddy boy gang who hated punk drove up in their big 1950s American cars, beat up our road crew and smashed our equipment. We were locked in our dressing room, but managed to escape by throwing a few Molotovs before the police arrived. The second time was your fault. You destroyed the hotel restaurant!

Black: That's true. I kicked up a fracas because I couldn't get served any food and the hotel threatened to call the police, who turned up with machine guns again to escort us on to the next plane. There's been so many incidents in hotels. We once locked a hotelier in the broom cupboard, where he was found the following morning by the receptionist.

Burnel is dragged back on stage by Hells Angels during a 1977 concert in Bracknell. Photograph: Peter Still/Redferns

Performing with strippers in a park

Burnel: The Battersea Park incident was completely misinterpreted. I was living with my girlfriend, Tracy, who shared her flat with a stripper called Linda. When we became the focus of attention, right-on shops such as Rough Trade banned our records, saying they were sexist and misogynist. So Linda said: "Look, I've got some friends who'd love to strip for you – to show we're in control of our bodies." So these girls stripped off on stage at Battersea during Nice'n'Sleazy and, of course, everyone thought we were being exploitative.

Black: The police inspector wanted everybody arrested, but he couldn't find his coppers. They were all in the front row watching the show.

Being jailed for "inciting a riot"

Burnel: We were booked to play Nice University but unknowingly walked into a war between the students and the authorities, who wouldn't let us use any of the power points on campus. We ended up having to run elevated cables from generators outside the university, because the authorities wouldn't let them touch the campus grounds. It was ludicrous. Every time we went on stage, the power failed. In the end, we gave up and told the crowd: "We're really sorry. Just remember it's not our fault." All hell broke loose. A full-scale riot ended with us being put in prison, where I shared a cell with two murderers.

Black: We were facing 10 years. In the end, a large fine was split between us and the university, but we laughed all the way to the bank. Before that, we were unknown in France. From then on, we played to packed houses.

Burnel: You might well ask why we are still here. The latest tour is our biggest-selling ever. We've done all the wrong things – but they turned out to be right.

• Giants and Gems, the Stranglers' 40th anniversary 11-CD box set, is out on Parlophone on 24 March. The band tour until 29 March. Details:stranglers.net

Russian state nuclear firm in talks to build power station in the UK

Rosatom meeting Whitehall officials but experts say a Russian VVER reactor is unlikely to open in UK for at least 10 years

Hinkley Point is being built with French and Chinese money. Now the Russians want to invest in UK power. Photograph: Suzanne Plunkett/Reuters

Britain is in talks with the Russian state nuclear company about building a nuclear power station in the UK, an official said on Tuesday.

Hergen Haye, head of new nuclear developement at Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC), told students at Edinburgh University that active discussions were taking place in London after a memorandum of understanding had been signed with Russia. "I can tell you that, behind closed doors and with microphones switched off, there are interesting debates happening in Whitehall," he said. "Russia wants to build a nuclear power station in the UK."

Haye chairs a UK-Russian working group on nuclear power, and was in Russia recently for discussions. Haye regards the Russian VVER reactor proposed for the UK as "perfectly safe", but he cautioned that there would be problems convincing the public that a deal with Russia was acceptable, especially given the current crisis in the Crimea. "It's a long road, a very long road," he said.

He offered his personal view that a Russian nuclear station in the UK may be "a bridge too far – at least for the next ten years." But he stressed that it wasn't his decision to make.

A memorandum of understanding between DECC and the Russian state nuclear corporation, Rosatom, was signed in September 2013. It agreed a programme of co-operation "designed to be the most effective means of enabling Rosatom to prepare for entry into the United Kingdom civil nuclear market."

The plan was to give Rosatom access to the UK government's watchdogs, the Office for Nuclear Regulation and the Environment Agency, so that it could understand British regulatory and licencing requirements. The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills "will have detailed discussions with Rosatom to facilitate commercial links with United Kingdom's industry," the memorandum said.

Rosatom has already formed a partnership with the British nuclear engineering company, Rolls Royce. "The participants hope that this relationship will lead to joint projects in the United Kingdom and overseas," said the memorandum.

Russia is also reported to have signed a deal with the Finnish power company, Fortum. It operates two Russian VVER reactors near Loviisa in Finland.

In his lecture, Haye highlighted the difficulties of getting private companies to invest in something as commercially risky as nuclear power. He defended the £89.50 per megawatt hour "strike price" for electricity agreed with the French state nuclear company, EDF, for 35 years. This was essential to secure investment in the construction of a new nuclear power station at Hinkley Point in Somerset, he argued. The UK is also seeking Chinese investment in the nuclear station, and has signed a memorandul of understanding in China.

According to Haye, securing money from the Chinese was one of the remaining barriers to actually starting work on the Hinkley station. Another was winning agreement from the European Commission that the strike price deal didn't breach state aid rules. The commission has announced that it is investigating the funding arrangements for Hinkley. Hay said he was about to embark upon a tour of European capitals to try and win backing for the UK's position.

If Chinese funding was secured and the European Commission gave the go-ahead, the earliest work could start at Hinkley was next year, Haye said. Then it could start generating power by 2023.

A DECC spokesperson said: "Last year Russia and the UK committed to working towards greater co-operation in the field of civil nuclear. It is to be expected that government staff will have discussions about how that might develop. Any new nuclear plants will need to meet stringent UK regulations enforced by independent regulators."

"The UK actively welcomes inward investment to our energy sector, but any energy company, nuclear or otherwise, that had an interest would need to meet all independent regulatory standards required in the UK and EU."

Flappy Bird may return to app stores

The game’s creator, who withdrew the title from sale, is considering bringing it back, according to a magazine interview

Flappy Bird – returning to the nest soon?

As comebacks go, it may not quite be up there with Elvis Presley’s ‘68 special or the forthcoming Monty Python reunion, but fans of ridiculously difficult smartphone game Flappy Bird may soon have cause for excitement. 

The title was nicknamed “the new Angry Birds” when it topped the Apple Apps charts in January, selling millions of downloads and becoming a much discussed cultural icon. However, developer, Dong Nguyen, withdrew his game from the Apple and Android stores in February, seemingly worried about its addictive qualities and driven to depression by Twitter insults and even death threats. Ironically, after withdrawing the game, he received further abuse and threats, many demanding that it be re-instated.

But according to an interview with Rolling Stone magazine, Nguyen is considering bringing the game back – albeit with an added warning to take regular breaks. The young Vietnamese developer, who worked on a couple of games before his unexpected blockbuster says that he was overwhelmed by the success of Flappy Bird, a game in which players must fly through a series of pipes by tapping the screen to flap the bird’s wings.

Some have criticised the title for its simplicity and graphical similarities to the Super Mario Bros series; others, like games designer and author Ian Bogost, have praised its compulsive nature. Whatever the case, the return of the original will be a relief to the sorts of people who considered buying highly priced second-hand iPhones on eBay, just to experience the game’s avian delights.

Since its absence from smartphone app stores, a cottage industry in Flappy Bird clones has grown up, with dozens of games sporting titles like Hoppy Frog and Splashy Fish dominating the charts. There are also versions that run on PC and Mac, including one massively multiplayer take on the recipe. So whatever happens with the original title, we are assured of many flappy returns.

VIDEO Website Model Dancing to Pump up the Jam

An American Apparel website model appears to be dancing to ‘Pump Up the Jam’ by Technotronic, thanks to Youtuber Ben Chambers who is switching between swimsuit photos to the beat of the music

VIDEO Dogs Patiently Waiting for Dinner Call

A woman demonstrates her impressive feeding routine with incredibly patient and smart Sheltie and Collie dogs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_wJ5vG_wrw

2014 is the year of the smart watch - and the toothbrush

Smart watches are just the beginning of a more internet-connected world, when every gadget in our homes will track and share data - starting with a toothbrush that can share data with your dentist

The Oral-B SmartSeries electric toothbrush at MWC 2014 Photograph: Xie Haining/Xinhua Press/Corbis

A new smart toothbrush unveiled this week could monitor how well you brush your teeth, and could one day be used to send data back to your dentist. Oral B’s Smartseries toothbrush, which launched in the UK in June priced at £199, sends data back to a smartphone app recording how many brushstrokes are used, targeting problem areas and following personalised brushing routines.

This vision of the internet-connected future was just one of the gadgets unveiled this week at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, which kicked off with a keynote from an exuberant Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.

Explaining the company’s $19bn acquisition of the messaging app WhatsApp, MWC’s 75,000-strong audience was abuzz with what the deal would mean for mobile networks, and whether WhatsApp’s latest move into voice technology would threaten traditional mobile businesses.

For Facebook, expansion depends on gaining users in developing markets, where the mobile phone is king and mobile broadband outstrips traditional internet three to one, according to data from the International Telecommunication Union.

But it was the internet of things - connecting physical devices to the internet - preoccupying the discussions of mobile phone networks. The potential is vast, and operators are excited by potential expansion of providing data services to everything from toothbrushes and fridges to cars and washing machines.

“We currently have 13m devices connected to our network, of which 1.6m of those connections are machine-to-machine,” said Olaf Swantee, chief executive of EE talking to the Guardian. “We are working to grow those connections up to 32m and M2M connections are going to play a very big part in that.”

The goal is to turn everything into a smart, data-driven device. Cars could talk to the road about black ice, fridges could order food automatically when it runs out, or you could ask your washing machine “how are you getting on?” and the washing machine could reply “almost there sir, just on the spin cycle, I’ll be done in 15 minutes”.

These machine-to-machine (M2M) connections are expected to number 250m globally by the end of 2014, according to data from the GSMA. To support the vast number of devices networks are working on capacity and speed, so there were plenty of companies keen to show off hardware that enables super fast connectivity.

In another corner of the trade show South Korean Telecom demonstrated its next generation 4G mobile data network, which is capable of delivering speeds of up to 450 megabits per second – over three times as fast as the fastest standard UK home broadband. Nokia Solutions & Networks claimed to be the ultimate king of speed, supplying data at 2.6Gbps or 2,600Mbps. At that speed, a very large 4K ultra high definition film could be downloaded in seconds.

For the high street, however, the first wave of a more connected world will be yet more devices to track health and fitness.

South Korean giant Samsung launched three new smartwatches, the Gear 2, Gear 2 Neo and Gear Fit, each with a built in heart-rate monitor.

Signalling an increasingly intense battle between the mobile phone makers, Huawei also launched a fitness tracker for the wrist but that can convert to a headset to take phone calls. Sony already has a smartwatch and a fitness band, while both Motorola and HTC are working on a smart wearable.

Mobile World Congress 2014 may not have been the year that internet connected devices became mainstream, but it will certainly be remembered as the year of the smartwatch.