Google + 1 to rival Facebooks like button

Google is today to introduce the most significant social feature to its search service, however, add a one click button to allow users to recommend sites and share these recommendations with their friends.

Photo of the . reid. on Flickr. Some rights reserved

Plus one will initially only be available for 2% of Google's English users in the United States, but it will be perceived as a rival to Facebook's increasingly ubiquitous ' Like ' tool, which appears on hundreds of thousands of third-party Web sites.

Appears as a small icon next to each search result and text ad logged in users can share their recommendations with contacts through their Gmail address book, Google Reader and Buzz contacts and finally Twitter contacts. Google will not comment on the Facebook contacts to finally be integrated.

Google characterizes Plus one as another feature similar to Facebook, says that the recommendations be shared only within the framework of relevant searches, rather than spamming all contacts. Social be understood in a broad sense as the next generation of Web-services, but Plus one also begin to affect the ranking of sites in Search results listings. Users will be able to choose to recommended Web sites must be more visible in search results.

Google also plans to expand service to news publishers so that they can integrate Plus one on history pages.

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South Korea sites targeted in the attack

Hackers have attacked some 40 South Korean Government and private websites, prompting officials to warn against a significant threat to the country's computers.

The country's National Cyber Security Centre said it had seen signs of a "denial of service" attacks, where large numbers of computers trying to connect to a site at the same time in an attempt to overwhelm the server.

A South Korean cyber security company, AhnLab, said in a statement the objectives included South Koreasites belonging to presidential elections office, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, national intelligence service, US forces Korea and large financial institutions.

South Korea's media regulation agency, the Commission communication Korea said no immediate damage to the sites was reported.

AhnLab spokesman Park Kun-woo said the attacks are similar to other earlier that they were denial of service attacks and largely targeted at the same Web sites.

AhnLab said a computer user discovered a flaw in their system on Thursday. AhnLab found malicious software designed to attack sites after analysing it, and warned the objectives in advance, so that they could prepare. As a result, Park said, there had only been a short descending some of the sites.

Government officials have said that the previous denial of service attack on the South Korean Government websites was traced Chinato. It was not immediately clear from where Friday's attack came from.

Park said people often point to China as a source of such attacks, since a large amount of malware of tribes from there. Malware is malicious software designed to access a computer without the owner's consent.

Cyber attack on South Korea in 2009 was blamed initially on north korea, but experts said later that they had no conclusive evidence that Pyongyang was responsible.

South Korean media has previously reported that north korea runs an internet warfare unit hacking directed against us and South Korean military network to collect information and interfere with the service.

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What effect has the net had about accessibility?

There are more than 10 million people live in the United Kingdom with a long-term illness, impairment disability or according to the Office for disability issues (ODI) and even if medical treatment and pre-birth screening has reduced this number dramatically in the last half-century, many of the difficulties for this population has not been altered. Compared with their counterparts in non-disabled people, probably by people with disabilities in this country increasingly are poor and unemployed with fewer qualifications than non-disabled people, more likely to be victims of crime and more likely to experience occupational and social discrimination.

This should have been fixed by the Internet. Put it roughly, there is, of course, no stairs online. If you subscribe to the mythology, which is spun; in the structure internet of technological utopians, should be on the Internet an entirely available resource available to all, where everyone can achieve personal and social self-actualisation despite the barriers that they face offline. It should be the great leveller. It should be, but as always, it is more complicated than that.

In 2003 I launched a MSc in Social Psychology, with all the wide-eyed academic expectations for a baby. I want to prove that the web and specifically online games such as EverQuest and World of Warcraft-could provide benefits to society. If you want to show my hypothesis, I chose to look at the qualitative and holistic experience of persons with severe physical handicap; I interviewed players who had harmed their spinal cords as seriously as they were almost completely paralysed.

My argument was with the right tools, physical disability will be changed in cyberspace; action in order to achieve objectives, rely on their brains rather than on Crouch — makes the natural corpus obsolete – would serve to increase the players ' welfare. In fact, thanks to a number of unusual technical adaptations, my participants be able to play with able-bodied persons, online exercise their psychological identities rather than physical ones, who had a tendency to dominate the social interactions offline.

Two results stood. First offered web personal and physical anonymity of a population, which is experiencing a significant amount of stigma offline. In General, to people like my participants who do not "pass" in real-life situations allows them to experience the web an unlimited freedom. They can interact in a place where there are no barriers to access, single them out. Online interaction disembodied nature gave them a sense of control over how they are perceived and transformed power dynamic that exists offline where a disability is obvious.

The second was the Internet described as a stepping platform, giving your audience the sense that they were responsible for their own destiny. Extend this remark to the broader web, leveling not just in games; Retrieves information, get a posse is an agent for change through whatever means giving each an ego boost and is much more attainable now than it ever has been.

I was satisfied with these results, but surprised at how little research has been done looking at these issues, given the potential social advantage. Almost universally specify the results of the few small studies that have been published in this area that the Internet is an untapped resource for people with disabilities, with the potential to transform the social participation by providing information and networks, which should reduce the adverse effects of social isolation. Based on these, there are countless initiatives to get people with disabilities online, such as the Race Online 2012 and Directgov, and reduce the significant access gap.

This is unfortunately a part of the problem. All of this supports a theory called the social model of disability, which says that the society, which creates barriers for access to and equal opportunities, experience, people with disabilities, rather than the actual disability. It is in other words, architecture, culture and social constraints that exclude people with disabilities from full participation. Clearly, the Internet has become a good place to test this: removing the obvious barriers and evidence heat dispersion happy, functioning members of society. But these obstacles still exist. We still live in the real world.

One of the strongest criticism against the social model is to hide a physical disability or attach non-physical disability clumsiness or inattention, disabled people perpetuate a discriminatory society and strengthen the perception of personal tragedy, inefficacy and stigma. The Internet is the greatest passing platform for all: all is normal online. And so, where to let our attitudes to disability offline?

There have been improvements for people with disabilities in employment, education and participation in cultural activities in the last decade, but the Internet is not the only factor in this change. Not surprisingly, are gaps between disabled and non-disabled people in these areas still substantial; ODI reports that only 48% of people with disabilities are employed, compared with 78% of the non-disabled people.

If the Web's unlimited potential was actually realised, we would expect major changes have taken place in the last 20 years. It seems ironic that a technology that has the potential to empower a group can also be perpetuating divisions.

The Internet has transformed the personal experiences of people with disabilities by creating a rules of play for empowerment with access to information, connections and a platform for change. Nevertheless, we must think of our social attitudes to disability in the offline world rather than to ignore what we don't see online. Only then will the Web's effect on disability will be really clear.

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Ofcom under the plans the end roll over contracts

Automatic contract renewals, which binds the home phone and broadband customers for further 12-month contracts are prohibited under the proposal of telecommunications Ofcom underregulator.

At the moment, find thousands of telephone users, typically come to the end of a 12-or 18-month contract, even sign up for another year unless they actively opt out renewal. These contracts, also known as rollover contracts currently offered by BT and several smaller Telecoms providers.

Consumers who fail to read their mail correctly, or is away at the time have found themselves bound to a new contract – often against their will.

Ofcom under estimates, around 15% of British residential consumers who roll over contracts. It mentions that they are anti-competitive and should be prohibited.

The regulator said that it will consult industry in a process that ends on the 12. Unless companies can justify why roll over contracts should continue, they will probably be banned "in summer".

Separately, Ofcom under the has this week warned it could yet TalkTalk faces a fine, even though it pays £ 2. 5 m compensation for former Tiscali customers over 62,000 defective invoicing.

Ofcom under says it received more than 1,000 complaints regarding incorrect bills from companies after people had stopped taking their services.

Problems are caused by the acquisition of Tiscali, TalkTalk in late 2009. The issue has been highlighted in the Guardian money many times.

Among billing errors received a customer bills for £ 110 from TalkTalk after she switched to another provider. Another customer paid Tiscali £ 610, despite cancelling her account in February 2006, after being sent bills from debt collection services.

Several customers have complained to the money they have been chased by the debt collectors to money, as they knew they did not owe.

TalkTalk says: "we are pleased Ofcom under has recognized the significant steps we have taken to resolve the billing issues. We moved our customers to our single billing platform at the end of January, and our focus on the ability to resolve any outstanding issues continue.

But the watchdog still receiving complaints and warned it could issue the TalkTalk with a fine, which could be up to 10% of its turnover – if it found evidence that it had continued to violate the rules.

Because TalkTalk had taken significant steps to solve the problem within the time limit set, says Ofcom under that, under existing rules could not be fine company for the original offence.

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Charlie Sheen Twitter sensation

It may not make it to $ 1. 5 m per episode he has lost from the suspension of his TV Show, two and a half men and Twitter become Twitter he probably did not earn a penny. But Charlie Sheen least satisfaction becomes the latest social media sensation.

On on Tuesday at noon, Sheen was a Twitter Virgin olive oilwith nary a Tweet to his name. At the end of the game today he is almost certain to have acquired that essential celebrity badge pride: 1 m twitter followers.

As guardian began to write this statement, he had 813,569. At the end, he had 813,995 — it's how hot Charlie Sheen is in the Twittersphere. In fact, he took his first 100,000 supporters while his Twitter feed was still empty.

His first ever Tweet Tuesday afternoon opened with his motto: "winning …!" You hope he used the term in view of the fact that in the past week Sheen has initiated one of the most spectacular public self-fire in Hollywood history paradoxical sense.

To his credit, he suggested a certain clear irony of a few hours later when he tweeted "Winner …! 2012 ... "along with a picture of himself holding a picture of an Academy Award with his own superimposed on statuette face.

On his sixth Tweet introduced Sheen a Tigerblood hashtag, a reference to his remark that his veins were full of tiger blood. Hours was # tigerblood No1 trending on Twitter.

Sheen's tweets reveals that he does not get sufficient sleep. He appeared Tweet hour, every hour throughout the night. They also revealed, Sean Combs, aka P Diddy, Sheens want Private address because he has "dreamin on a party like this my whole life". As Sheen replied: "Get dressed my man … sends driver …!"

On a more sombre note said Sheen also its twin boys, Max and Bob age almost two, who were taken away from his Los Angeles home of LAPD officers after his estranged wife, Brooke Mueller, obtained a restraining order against the actor.

According to TMZ, had Sheen, who was last year convicted of domestic violence charges against Mueller, threatened to cut off his head and send it to his mother.

"My sons [sic] is fine …" he wrote. "My path is now clear … Defeat is not an option …! "

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Thinner, faster, smarter: how Apple keeps us taking tablets

Wednesday Apple released the second iPadversion of. Pardon me while I gabe: I know, it is impolite to make it publicly but what the hell? iPad 2 is thinner – down from the 13.4 mm to 8.8 mm, if you please. (Who has said that you can never be too thin or too rich?) It is also faster courtesy of a dual-core A5 processor. And it has been two cameras, not less, a front and a back, plus a gyroscope. If there is no spin, news, iPad 2 is 15% lighter than its predecessor, permanently.

And – get this – a simple $ 39 (£ 24) extra you can get a magnetised polyurethane cover which switches the unit from when you put it on the top! Oooh: and the cover also smudge marks cleans left by your greasy fingers on touchscreen! Now I know what you think, dear reader: a subculture who think that this thing is hot news must be multiple bit map in a byte. And it is difficult to disagree.

On the other hand, is unpleasant, that Mr jobs ability to lure as many otherwise sane people to his product, the upgrade treadmill Apple has the second most valuable company on the planet. And it is definitely news. The logical next step for Apple fans will be to have their salary (plus bonuses, of course) is paid directly to the Steve Jobs, which will then provide them with regular kit upgrades plus food coupons in return.

The technology industry appetite for trivia never ceases to amaze a. Over in another corner of the forest, HP and rim, two companies that are trying to play the iPad computer experiences, petty on each other. RANDS BlackBerry device called the shooting script, while HPS efforts are called TouchPad. They have different screen sizes, but in some respects seem remarkably similar. "The BlackBerry Tablet operating system", says Laptop magazinesees the "specific out RIM has taken a page out of webOS [ie HP] script." For example, "both tablets make open applications as map, which you can easily a swipe through for multitasking, and you can close apps use both operating systems by reservation guarantee them off the screen".

The magazine asked both companies for their responses to these comments. ' It is a rapid innovation cycle and rapid imitation cycle in this market, ' says HP's Jon Oakes, snootily, "so … we want to keep innovating … these guys and hopefully will continue to see value in it and keep after us for about a year".

Stung by this, Jeff McDowell rim pointed out that "cars of the future end look very similar, because you put them through a wind tunnel, and when you are trying to come up with the best coefficient to drag ratio, there is the optimized shape that gets the best wind resistance, right? Well, when you try to optimize the user experience that Promo multitasking, multiple apps open at once, and a small screen, you will have people land on similar types of design. "

In other words, as American technology commentator John Paczkowski say it: "our iPad challenger is more original than your iPad challenger".

Neither man commented on the really interesting aspect of the story, namely that neither the company had yet been able to actually deliver a tablet, though both come really soon now.

While this was going on, Apple Microsoft and arguing about capitalization. A while back Apple tried to trademark law phrase "App Store" – the name of its online store downloadable applications. Microsoft objected, arguing that the term was also "generic". (This from the company whose main products are Windows, Office, Word and Excel.) On Monday last, beaten Apple back. "Beneath the stands a decades long genericness [sic] challenge to its alleged Windows mark," sniffed it in a court filing, "Microsoft should be good, the focus of the evaluation is on genericness mark as a whole and requires a fact-intensive assessment of primary importance to in the long term to a substantial majority of the relevant public.

"Yet, Microsoft is missing the forest for the trees, not base its motion for a resolution on a comprehensive evaluation of how the relevant public understands the concept of the App Store as a whole. It offers instead is out of context snippets and misleading material printed by its outsiders from Internet lawyer and claims about how the public supposedly interpret the components of the term App Store, ie, ' app ' and ' great '. "

If this reminds you two bald men argue over a comb, then welcome to the Club. You don't have to be a neurotic work with technology company, but it helps secure.

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Spiders webs Ask Mazda recall

Japanese car maker Mazda recalling more than 50,000 Mazda6 car in the United States after discovering spiders webs in the ventilation openings.

A further 15,000 vehicles from 2009-10 models of Mazda6, which the company has marketed with his ' Zoom-zoom ' advertising campaign, it will be recalled Canada, in Mexico and Puerto Rico.

The company said a spider weaving a Web page in a connected the fuel tank system and clog up the tank ventilation vent. Pressure on the fuel tank can lead to a crack, cause fuel leakage and the risk of fire.

Mazda said it was unaware of the fires, injuries or crashes in vehicles, but

spokesman Jeremy Barnes said negotiators had identified 20 cases where spiders webs were found in the ventilation openings. Web sites were linked with yellow sac spiders, Barnes said, but it was unclear why they crawl in Mazda6 rather than other vehicles.

The recall covers vehicles with 2.5 litre engines built between April 2008 and February 2010.

Owners will be notified by mid March and is advised to take their vehicles to dealers for inspection and repair. Dealers will inspect and clean, the outlet line, and install a spring to prevent a spider entry.

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PlagiPedia shows the Internet is passionate about correcting its own Follies

In recent weeks, the world has followed the popular protests overthrow dictators in the Middle Eastwhole. These revolutions has been called "Twitter revolutions" or "Facebook revolutions", and although these claims are somewhat exaggerated, they are also not entirely fanciful. The truth is always more complex and more interesting than simple bromides can capture.

It is worth taking a look beyond these contemporary events to see what's going on. What other tools people use to call for greater transparency, openness and honesty from institutions? How can you get involved online and offline, with thoughtful people who seek to make a better world?

German Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg has announced his resignation after admitting that he had plagiarised parts of his PhD from the University of Bayreuth. Online Tools played a major role in exposing his methods: for almost two weeks a group worked to identify the specific sections from his dissertation, was lifted from other sources. When they realized that Google Docs – although a useful tool for small team collaboration – was not the right platform for mass participation in the project, they have created a "wiki" (a site for collaborative works) with the name PlagiPedia to manage the effort.

In a few days the wiki went into overdrive: from any page views on 16. February to almost 2 m 18 February. A University investigation – culminated in decision described by the Anonymous Weber-Wulff, professor of media and data processing at the Berlin university, as the fastest of a German academic institution in 400 years – resulted in the withdrawal of Zu Guttenberg doctorate. To date, the wiki has received 40,000 observations and 15,000 Facebook "likes", and there are 1,224 pages on the explore details about accusations of plagiarism against him.

Last week a other wiki was launched in order to examine whether Saif Gaddafi's PhD dissertation from the London School of Economics included plagiarism. A few days later, Britain's Media standards Trust unveiled a Web site called churnalism.com, which helps expose plagiarism in the media. By pasting press releases in a "churn engine" can readers discover the extent to which they have been recycled, Word for word in online news articles. The Internet is thought to have promoted a cut-and-paste culture of uncritical plagiarism: school teachers and university lecturers in particular regularly complain about coursework lifted straight from the Web site that is running the Wikipedia., But if no other sites such as Plagipedia and churnalism.com shows us that the Internet is fully able to correct its own Follies.

Saif Gaddafi is obviously guilty of much worse than plagiarism. But his history with the LSE is a black mark for the institution, and in particular for examiners, which the Lord Desai, who approved his thesis. We may be able to forgive them, some aspects of this – plagiarism is sometimes notoriously difficult to detect, especially when you have only a small selection of experts makes it examines.

In open source software world we have a saying: "many eyeballs make all bugs shallow". Many people are working together to search plagiarism can also be dramatically more efficient than only a few.

What we cannot forgive, is, however, Lord Desai cowardly response for the allegations. Desai calls on LSE not to disown Saif Gaddafi, in spite of it all. "The man is evil enough-you don't have to add that he is a plagiarist," he said. Actually, yes we need to add that, but not for what it says about him, but what it says about the lack of institutional control on LSE and, perhaps, most of the other institutions.

Opportunities for Community action to achieve a wiki form expanding daily, as more people become active online and online activism mature beyond what has been rightly reviled as "clicktivism" – platter of clicking "like" for some reason, or distribute a single Tweet and feeling as if you have done something.

Some, such as Malcolm gladwell, has criticized the concept of "Twitter revolutions," says lightweight network of people who do not know each other not the beginning and end of activism, although they have played a part. Gladwell has a point, but he overlooked the deeper net come together online. These are networks of people who know each other over a period of years, and not just online but in the face to face meetings; network of people who spend an enormous amount of time on Wikipedia, discuss, debate, learning and work passionately to get things right.

We do not know the whole story about uprisings in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya for several years. But when we do, we certainly want to discover, although these revolutions came along with the speed of the Internet and to mobile phones, SMS, Facebook and Twitter were important tools for the organisation of the grass-roots movement, there was also something much deeper go on. These revolutions was the product of thoughtful people, working together for a longer period of time, to find friends, plans and support hopes and dreams for the common future.

• Under the heading of this article was amended on 2. March to the, who appeared in the newspaper

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Tech weekly: Google reorganizes its index

Aleks Krotoski and Jemima Kiss joined Tom Watson MP, former Director of digital engagement Publications Office Cabinet to discuss the amount the Government pay for their Web solutions.

Charles Arthur asks Margaret Manning, CEO of digital consultancy assistance reading room, which is why her organization charged UK taxpayers almost £ 600 for a 32 x 32 pixel favicon under information Commissioner Office corporate throbber button in July 2010.

Tom explains challenges becomes a digital advocate in public office, ways of civil service may be authorised technological role, and the current minister for the Cabinet Office, Francis Maude, must play in the work climate digital procurement strategies. He proposes the same digital work could be done for half price, that some projects overcharged and unnecessary, and to try to tackle in government technology projects is like trying to catch water in your hands.

Also this week: Sue Black from University College London explains how Britain's important role in the computer science history has been secured thanks to a social media fundraising efforts for the purchase of Alan turingpapers from Bletchley Park.

Finally, the team on the future of web search, after several credible news aggregators was down ranked in search results after they fell foul to a tweak in the Google algorithm aims Weeding out sites, trash other people's content.

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The risk of aid from dial-up computer resides on, unknown

A friend received a phone call out of the Blue yesterday from one company claimed that her computer showed a number of problems, as they would be able to solve externally. My friend, do not know much about computers, and were persuaded to part with £ 200 for a four-year contract, giving the company access to her machine to fix any problems. She told me she was excited to see her pointer, move around on the screen "all in itself", which seems to indicate the company, had in fact obtained control over her computer. I looked up company on the net, and they seem to have a solid based action in the company since 2007 with a money-back guarantee. Two questions: how to get her phone number and know that she was a computer user? And safe letting everyone has access to your computer via remote access is not a good idea. They can be in resolving problems, but what is to stop them during a rummage around your private information while they work there?
Robin O'Connor

You mention not the name of the company or the Web site address, but I would be worried, and I strongly recommend to carry out additional checks. Although the UK's advertising standards authority (ASA) now have the power to police the placing on the market on the Internet – which, from 1. March – it will not have much if any impact on Web sites that are not controlled by UK businesses. Requirements, the company has been undertaking since 2007 and offers a money-back guarantee may not work correctly. Spelling errors and bad grammar often gives away scam sites, but even a fixed appearance of the site is no guarantee, because design could easily be stolen from a well-established company.

In response to a question on the Unwanted support calls in 2009, I pointed out that: "there is nothing fundamentally wrong with Remote support: it is a service Windowsbuilt in, and is provided by, for example the very reputable Geek Squad in the United Kingdom." However, I also warned against companies "cold calling", possibly from India, which "may seem to suggest the Microsoftare calling from, but they are not".

These companies argue that there is something wrong with your PC and offers to fix it via remote access. When your PC does not have anything wrong with it as they know (they do the same offerings for Mac and Linux users), and they are actually not solve anything, it is equivalent to fraud. They can install legitimate anti-virus software, but they could just as easily be installed "backdoor" programs to collect personal information or malwareinstall. As you say, brings this personal data at risk.

Ask: "how to get her phone number and know that she was a computer user?" I suspect they got her phone number from the leaked data sold cheaply on the black market, or leaked from an Indian call center, even if they could work from phone books. Today, the majority of UK home at least one Windows PC so that it would take many calls to find the potential victim.

Regardless of this "cold calls" approach has grown dramatically in the past 18 months, with scammers often offer Windows services. (Other pitches seem to include replacement Sky boxes and Dyson maintenance). We have covered the story in depth, and I recommend that you get your friend to read at least two of Charles Arthur excellent reports: Virus phone scam run from call centers in India (July 18, 2010) and ' Microsoft support center» fraud continuesand worse takes strike (1 March 2011). Ask her if anything in them, sounds familiar. Microsoft absolutely will not phone someone out of the blue, and reputable computer service companies not "cold call" home users, so I suspect it will.

If your friend has been scammed, she could test the company's money-back guarantee. (The United Kingdom distance selling regulations gives at least a 7-day cooling off period, if applicable.) But often the best approach is to contact the issuer's credit card and get the transaction reversed. This may involve getting some crime from her local police station. Cancellation charges affects on credit card suppliers and makes them less likely to treat the companies set up by scammers.

She should also report what happened to the Action fraud, the UK's national fraud reporting centre, if only to get the sum added £ 4bn from British citizens, according to the deception national fraud authority (NFA) estimates. Your friend can call action fraud on 0300 123 2040 or use fraud reporting form on its website.

Unfortunately, but perhaps understandably "Windows service" scam does not seem to be a high priority on action fraud: this is probably a small proportion of the £ 38bn loss just announced in the annual indicator of fraud. However, search its website an advisory note from 10 November 2010, with the headline identity theft scam warnings. It says: "people are being warned to look-out fraud for aim to trick them into divulging their personal information, after an increase in the number of complaints to consumer direct and Trading standards."

Consumer direct and trade standards has also reported a recent increase in complaints about a scam using Microsoft's name, targeting internet users. Victims receive a phone call from someone claiming to be from Microsoft. The customer is directed to a Web site, allows remote access to the caller of the client computer. The fraudster then appears to make a number of "fixes" to their computer. In fact, we give you private access to the victim's personal information, often by installing malware. This personal information can again be used to commit fraud.

If all of the reported trials on "Windows service" fraud – and there must be thousands of people every day – that would raise its profile.

Sorry to say, as things stand, I can not see anything affecting the few hundred people, who are sitting in an Indian call center, using the internet connections to call UK numbers with negligible costs and sell unwanted services. Still, tell all your friends. The calls stop when everyone knows it is a scam and they cannot get any gifts, although I expect that they should just switch to another scam instead.

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2D Forever: decrease and increase hardcore Japanese game design

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Five years ago, something interesting happened in western game development: 2D returned. Back in 1995, 3D was the future. The only future. Sega was widely derided for concentrating the architecture of its Saturn games console on 2D friendly features like hardware sprite generation, while PlayStation was built entirely around polygonal performance – it triumphed accordingly.

But then we saw the rise of casual gaming, of mobile and social games, and of digital distribution. Xbox Live Arcade, PSN and Wiiware meant that smaller development teams could produce leftfield titles and sell them at a cheaper rate straight to 'core' gamers. And many looked backwards for inspiration – titles like Mutant Storm and Geometry Wars eulogised the era of the classic 2D shooter, while Castle Crashers leered longingly at Golden Axe, and Shadow Complex at Metroid. 2D made more sense to emerging studios like Twisted Pixel, The Behemoth and Metanet Software – there was no need to spend months developing a complex 3D engine, and 'retro' visuals could be much more stylised, more avant garde, which suited the indie mindset. 2D was back.

Deathsmiles: more scrolling madness from Cave.

But the thing is, it never went away. Not where these genres started. Not in Japan. Here, studios like Treasure, Cave, Arc Systems, Vanillaware and SNK have spent the past two decades belting out what we'd term 'hardcore' 2D titles – shooters, fighters and RPGs – to a passionate fanbase. These companies have expertly twisted and turned to face the machinations of an evolving industry. When SNK went bust in 2001, founder Eikichi Kawasaki set up a new company, PlayAsia, and bought back all the rights to his back-catalogue, as well as taking on staff from cult 2D developer, Aicom (see here). After shoot-'em-up giant Toaplan collapsed in 1994, several splinter studios – including Takumi and Cave – formed to continue the legacy. Somehow, despite everything, 2D survived.

And now, gratifyingly, the architects of modern two-dimensional game design are thriving. Street Fighter IV has revived interest in the 2D fighter, and the likes of Cave and Treasure are bringing their classic shooters to XBLA and PSN (despite some initial resistance).

Today, I'm sitting in the library of Bath's sumptuous Royal Crescent Hotel with Toshimichi Mori and Daisuke Ishiwatari from Arc System Works, the developer of classic fighting game series Guilty Gear and the more recent BlazBlue titles. They're in Europe to attend a series of fighting game tournaments as well as to meet the local games press. Blazblue, written and directed by Mori, has been a critical smash, with the latest instalment, Continuum Shift, pulling a Metacritic average of 85. Set on a distant Earth in which magic and science have been combined by a dictatorial government, the game features an inspired combat system based around dramatic special attacks and a uniquely complex defence mechanic.

"The main goal was to create a brand new fighting title that introduced systems and gameplay elements that people had never experienced before," says Mori who counts sci-fi movies Bladerunner, Gattaca and Brazil as well as the manga series, Trigun, among his key influences. "With this in place, I wanted to then create a 'universe' on top of it. We focused on creating very strange, very unusual characters with special attributes. These very 'different' characters meant inventing new gameplay mechanics by necessity – the 'Drives' are special abilities that can alter the direction of the wind, magnetise opponents, absorb health and so forth. With these kinds of mechanics in place, it was inevitable that BlazBlue ended up being such a unique and interesting experience."

This uncompromising approach to design typifies the 2D rebirth and aligns studios like Cave and Arc to the emerging indie studios in the west. Although Mori and Ishiwatari jokingly refer to their company's founder Minoru Kidooka as 'the god of Arc' it seems there is more creative freedom here than at the more hierarchical mainstream giants like Capcom and Konami. Mori initiates the narrative and gameplay concepts for BlazBlue (he also devised the game's hugely complex plot and wrote the brilliantly sarcastic text for the tutorial mode), but he then hands over his design documents to programmers and designers who add their own ideas.

It sounds like a creative free-for-all, but a structure gradually emerges. "Members of the BlazBlue team are very opinionated about all aspects, from character design to the specifics of gameplay mechanics and fighting style," he explains. "Everyone has their tastes and believe in being forthright in making their opinions known – but that also means being very stubborn! So adjusting to each opinion is never easy. After these final brainstorms have been completed and people have voiced their opinion, a director has to step in and make the final decisions and everyone has to obey. It's the only way it works!"

At Cave, a smaller workforce means that individual designers are given plenty of autonomy. "In most cases, we will hand new titles over to one planner to build the game system, " says co-founder Tsuneki Ikeda. "Since most planners also double as programmers, that person will build the game's main system from the ground up." Ikeda himself also has a second role as a coder – he has worked on most Cave titles, including Deathsmiles, Dodonpachi and Guwange.

There is a popular misconception that 2D games are somehow easier to produce or at least less taxing on modern hardware. This is not the case. When some players moaned that last year's BlazBlue sequel, Continuum Shift, only added four new characters to the roster, they seemed unaware of the intense development detail that goes into each new addition. "Every character goes through a long process of specification and design," says Mori. "Initial sketches, colouring, how the character moves, animates and behaves, and then finally fine tuning and adjustment. Each one takes roughly five months and over 1000 individual drawings to perfect, so you can begin to appreciate the volume of work involved in the 2D style of fighting games." That's also a lot of data to include in a game file, which explains why you won't be seeing any BlazBlue titles on XBLA or PSN without significant alternations – they're too big.

Interestingly, 3D graphics are involved in the BlazBlue process, but only in the development phase. When the initial concept sketches for new characters are produced, the company's artists all have different drawing styles and produce designs of wildly different dimensions. Consequently, 3D rendering software is used to unify the various designs, ensuring they all work to the same scale, and that the physical movements imagined by the art team can actually work in the virtual space. Then it's back to hand drawing all the animations.

This process, instigated by Mori, has apparently sped up the development cycle considerably. Earlier today, when the Arc duo were visiting Future Publishing, one journalist asked Ishiwatari about the longest time he'd ever spent at the office without going home. "18 months," was he rather astonishing reply, referring to his work on the last Guilty Gears title. When he tells me this story, Mori quietly adds, "There is a public bath around the corner from the office. That helped." Now, most of the staff keep regular hours – apart from Mori. "The Arc building has two floors," he explains. "The ground floor is the office, and the top floor is a big storage room with a large couch. That is now called Mori's bedroom."

For Mori, this obsessive attention to design and narrative detail is vital – it's about creating rounded characters that exude life. "We take great care to flesh out every character's story," he says. "We consider their likes, their dislikes, their history and we make efforts to work these details into the final designs. This is very important. Animation is loved globally and I really believe that a traditional 2D drawing style contributes to the game because of the warmth and organic feel of the art. I want to develop games which pursue that feel."

Indeed, animation is a key influence on the Blazblue aesthetic; the game's artists regularly employ techniques derived from anime. For example, when a character performs a double jump, the size of their head is subtly and momentarily reduced to give a greater impression of height; and both fists and feet are enlarged when contact is made with an opponent's body to emphasis impact.

When I ask Mori and Ikeda about how their respective genres have lasted into the modern age, they both answer in the same way: community. Both Cave and Arc have a hardcore of fans, who play their games obsessively, both at home and in the sorts of flashy game centres (think Taito HEY and Sega GiGo) that we don't have in the UK anymore. 2D shooters and fighting games are like indie bands – they rely on passionate knowledgeable audience to keep going.

But there are great opportunities for expansion. We're now seeing a vast userbase of mature Western gamers clamouring for interesting and unusual titles. As a result, there's a growing number of publishers specialising in bringing 'cult' Japanese titles to European and American audiences. Set up in 2004, Rising Star is a key example. The Luton-based company has brought over the likes of Harvest Moon, Deadly Premonition, Half-Minute Hero and DeathSmiles, all to critical acclaim and decent sales. "There's a big fan base for Japanese games in Europe, especially for JRPGs," says marketing manager, Yen Hau. "There are a lot of people who appreciate their authenticity, their quirkiness. We've worked with Cave, SNK, Grasshopper Manufacture… DeathSmiles was Cave's first retail release in Europe and it's done really well. That deal came though us asking our community what games they'd like to see over here. We have an open dialogue with our gamers and there was a real enthusiasm for this game. So we approached Cave at the Tokyo Game Show, that was how it started."

The aim now for studios like Cave and Arc is to create games that can meet new audiences halfway. Over the last year we've seen fascinating hybrids like Marvelous Entertainment's Half-Minute Hero and Atlus' 3D Dot Game Heroes, which have added a tongue-in-cheek, self-referential sheen to the JRPG genre, thereby generating appeal among non-converts. This philosophy needs to extend to the fighting game and shooter genres.

And in some ways it already is. BlazBlue was devised very much as an entertainment experience first and a fighting game second. As Mori explains: "for BlazBlue I personally wanted to develop a fighting game with a much stronger entertainment value, a fighting game that could be enjoyed by all skill levels or gamer types, or simply for the characters, the music or the story. One of my biggest intentions was to make a game that was really fun to watch – that was where it really started." Mori is extremely serious and possessive about the BlazBlue story. He tells me that when a publishing house approached him with the idea of publishing a BlazBlue novel, they put forward five possible authors – Mori rejected three straightaway because he'd already had creative bust-ups with them, the other two he dismissed because they were trying to impose their vision on the Blazblue universe.

But there is a novel now, and there are even tentative hopes of an anime movie. I've also played the 3DS conversion of BlazBlue: Continuum Shift, which looks gorgeous, the paper-like 2D characters appearing almost ethereal against the deep background visuals. It is also highly likely we'll see a return of the Guilty Gears series this year, although Mori would not confirm it, and faintly admonished me for asking. He did, however, give a hint of a post-Blazblue future: "I personally want to continue developing 2D fighting games, to push what can be done in this space, but I'm also very interested in action games such as Bayonetta and Devil May Cry – and also in third person shooting games like Gears of War." Hmm, we saw Platinum Games make an impressive, idiosyncratic impact in this area with Vanquish – could Arc be next?

Meanwhile, Cave is creating new gameplay systems to unlock its codified genre to newcomers. "With Deathsmiles, from the beginning, we had the goal of involving new players who were not necessarily shooting fans already," says Ikeda. "The game includes a system that allows players to shoot both left and right, but there will still be enemies appearing from behind. To give balance to that, we put a little pop-up into the game which lets you know when an enemy is about to appear behind you. We also introduced a life point system, which doesn't penalise the player as heavily when their character runs into an enemy."

There are plenty more 2D titles on the way in 2011. Treasure is releasing Bangai-O HD: Missile Fury as well as a hotly anticipated conversion of its legendary shooter, Radiant Silvergun, while Arc System Works is overseeing the home console ports of Arcana Heart 3, a beautiful arcade fighting game from Examu featuring an all-female roster. And of course, Square Enix is still active in 2D via its many re-releases – Final Fantasy IV: The Complete Collection is due on PSP later this year.

While Mori is protective of the arcade and its importance in the Arc process, it seems that Cave is open to the new opportunities afforded by digital distribution. It has a version of Guwange on XBLA and Espgaluda II has been converted to iOS. Ikeda sees a future in which his studio must adapt to the 'softer' tastes of a worldwide audience. "Currently we are concentrating on porting older titles originally developed for the arcade to home systems and smart phones. However, what you will see in the future are releases on platforms other than arcade hardware, and game designs based on those platforms. The direction of shooting games at the moment is influenced by a demand for games that don't 'play hardball' but have gameplay that can be engaged in a more accessible manner, so you may see shooters heading that way.

"Still," he adds slyly, "'playing hardball' has its own appeal..."

Five 'hardcore' Japanese titles for the interested newcomer

DeathSmiles
(Cave, Xbox 360)
Visually stunning side-scroller, with interesting gothic design, immersive game system and bags of scoring depth. You can pick up the UK deluxe edition on Amazon for less than twenty quid. Alternatively, you can also download Cave's startlingly frenzied Guwange from XBLA.

BlazBlue: Continuum Shift
(Arc System Works, PS3, Xbox 360)
Incredibly stylish fighter with gorgeous hand-drawn sprites and some amazing fighting styles. If you've never played a 2D fighting game before it comes with a highly entertaining tutorial that explains all the basics and is fun to play through. Again, you can find this online for £20 and it's worth every penny.

Bangai-O Spirits
(Treasure, Nintendo DS)
An astonishing small-screen sequel to Treasure's Dreamcast classic, Bangai-O. You control a robot through 160 exhausting side-scrolling levels, and there's a map editor so you can create your own missions. This is £6.99 on Amazon! £6.99!

Muramasa: The Demon Blade
(Vanillaware, Wii)
Based on a old Japanese folk tale, this is a simply gorgeous side-scrolling hack-'em-up with hand-drawn 2D characters and lush pseudo-3D environments. From the makers of cult classic PS2 RPG, Odin Sphere.

Half-Minute Hero
(Marvelous Entertainment, PSP)
Absolutely inspired retro-style RPG shooter, in which each level and boss encounter must be completed in 30 seconds. Lovely visuals and bundles of chaotic charm. The sequel, Half-Minute Hero Second, is yet to be confirmed for UK release.

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Getting started: Indie dozen

28 Feb 2011:

Keith Stuart: The entire 2011 we will follow the fortunes of 12 indie developers as they work on a diverse range of fascinating, original titles. Here, we meet with the first six ...

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Average broadband speeds ' less than half of them announced, says Ofcom under the

Millions of broadband customers sold Super-fast connections, internet their providers are not capable of delivering for fire-fighting, according to new research.

Data released Ofcom under theof, communications watchdog, shows that broadband average speed is still less than half of the average advertised speed.

The report, published on Wednesday, saying that the British have a broadband average speed of 6 2 megabits per second (Mbps) — less than half the advertised average speed of 13,8 Mb.

Ofcom under pressure for a change in the way internet service providers, announces including BT, sky and O2, "up to" broadband speeds at which most customers are able to receive.

Its results will participate in a consultation now launched of Advertising Standards Authority Committee of advertising practice (Cap) and the broadcast Committee of adverting practices (BCAP) in how broadband speeds advertised. That is expected to report in the next three months.

"The research shows that Internet providers must do more to ensure they provide customers clear and accurate information on the services they provide, and the factors that may affect the actual speeds customers receive," said Ed Richards, by Ofcom concerning the Executive Director.

"It is important that the rules around broadband advertising changes, so that consumers can make more informed decisions based on advertisements they see, and that advertisers are able to communicate more clearly how their products compared to others on the market."

Ofcom under perform functional tests in 1700 homes throughout the United Kingdom in November and December last year. The report is based on the 11 broadband packages from the UK's seven largest providers, including Virgin Media and TalkTalk.

The increasing demand for faster broadband packages has led internet providers to advertise the maximum speeds, despite current infrastructure could support them. The only ISP delivers close to the maximum speed was announced, according to Ofcom under the Virgin Media, with the advantage of a relatively new cable networks in many urban areas.

Typical broadband speed received by customers was much closer to the advertised speed of fiber-optic cable packages, which they are provided by Virgin Media and Bouygues Telecom's Infinity package. However, only 22% of Britons fiber-optic connections with 77% of the population by using copper-based DSL phone lines.

The main difference in advertised and delivered broadband speeds came with "up to" 20Mbps connections provided through current-generation DSL lines. Only 3% of customers with this package received an average speed close to 20Mbps, with 69% receive an average speed of less than 8Mbps.

The overall average broadband speed increased from 5.2Mbps in may last year to 6.2Mbps in December, the report shows, which means a typical five-minute song would take just under four seconds to download, compared with only slightly more than five seconds on the slower speed.

Ofcom under recommends that broadband speeds shall be advertised in a "typical throughput lies" – the speed at which customers can expect to receive. Regulators say typical speeds must "have at least prominent" to the heading, speed, and maximum speeds should only be announced "If it is actually achievable in practice by a material number of consumers".

Under by Ofcom concerning the recommendations would ISPs advertising DSL connections of ' up to ' 8Mbps service used by the majority of Britons – be forced to reveal that the typical speed is in reality between 2Mbps and 5Mbps.

However, BT said it had "real concerns" with by Ofcom concerning the approach. "Move to the typical speed areas will potentially very misleading as the average performance will vary depending on where people live," said John Petter, Managing Director BT Retail consumer business. "Enforce typical speed areas are also dangerous it could encourage more internet service providers (ISPs) to cherry pick customers who want to increase their average leaving customers in rural areas and suburbs of under-served. That would encourage digital exclusion rather than solving it. "

Sky said the debate on the headline speeds had the potential to be a "red herring", since the existing Ofcom under the guidelines, providers must give customers individual speed estimates at the point of sale.

Jon James, Executive Director of broadband on Virgin Media, described in the report as "still a serious accusation that consumers continue to be treated like mugs and misled by Internet service providers (ISPs), which simply cannot deliver on their claims on the advertised speed."

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Gamesblog Live: Andy Tudor on simulation vs. feelings

Link to this video

As the lead designer of the need for speed Shift 2: Unleashed, Andy Tudor is close to finishing the second iteration of simulation flew by Electronic Arts Need for Speed-driving game franchise. He is the only homemade developer at Gamesblog (Live) – slightly Mad Studios is based in London – Tudor revealed the complexity of making an ultra-realistic racing and argued passionately about how mathematical realism in games fall flat unless it is complemented with emotional commitment.

What level of detail you have go to do a modern racing game realistic?

Start from scratch with cars in the game, we get the data from the CAD-producers. We have great relationships with producers, and they will be in our games. Of course, we will them just as much to showcase these amazing cars, as most of us cannot afford to buy. They provide us with all their assets, and when you look at these amazing cars, there are crafts with regard to the technical side of things – how fast they go, their acceleration, and so forth-and then in the aesthetic side. So the crafts, the subject in the real cars, we are trying to reproduce as precisely as possible, as well as in 3D. And it is the same with the tracks. We are trying to get as many tracks as possible and get them mathematically correct, but we also take the guys to track days, so they can drive the tracks themselves. Because what you find what looks correct on a Google Earth map does not necessarily give the same sensation when you drive it, you find yourself thinking things like: "Oh my God, that is way more than I trøde it would have been, or than the mathematical height elevation tells me. "

What is your favorite cars and tracks?

Shift 2, we have black, that people want. It is just as if you ask me what my favorite game, I would not be able to answer, because I would like one from each genre — one last-Gen Games, a handheld one, one MMO, etc – so when it comes to my favorite bilerJeg personally drive muscle-carbut other people can hate. The new Pagani, which we announced today, is absolutely amazing. But there are plenty of people who would like old retro machines.

Do you have tracks such as the Nürburgring Nordschleife in Shift 2?

Absolutely: we have 50 unique locations in the game now, including the Nordschleife and Nurburgring GP circuit. Then, we have included Bathurst circuit. Again, talk to black, Bathurst is something we really wanted in the game – it is based in Australia, there is an epic event each year and the scenery spans an amazing vista that you get a place less, like Hockenheim. I think Bathurst is one of my favorites, as is the new Shanghai circuit.

Technically, what Shift 2 has that other racing game not?

Genre simulation is really just a numbers game at the moment; It is about "we have the largest physics engine, and we will add 1,000 cars, belts, etc. There are pretty dry experience. We want to turn it on its head, by adding social features, such as Autologous, for example: what can you compete with your friends, even if they're not online right now. But that thing where I can see all your lap times and spend a half hour or hour trying just to beat you is great. And we continue to pioneer in new areas. Many games have night racing, for example, but none have night racing like we do, because the previous games have always made it the same as normal just with darker lighting – there are no new gameplay at all. We are removing all of the lights and you now have just misunderstood your headlamps to guide you, which is a scary place. Based on feedback, which has given us real drivers: they say: "we have got these high-beams, however strong they are, we still cannot see the next corner comes".

Shift 2: Unleashed is finished yet?

We are so close to completion – we just add the last 5% of Polish, verify that things are stable and everything is so bright that it can be, and it will be released on 1 April.

Where can simulation games go in the future? What lies behind the full realism?

It is one thing that always gets better graphics and better: cars will look smoother, the track has more spectators and details — each leaf of grass will be modeled and everything so that we can sort by: discount, it naturally will happen. Where we feel it will go add in a real feeling you get when you run: emotional response, G-forces. When you're sat at home on the couch with a gamepad, there already is one step removed from a wheel, which is one step removed from actually is in a car with suspension and so on. We believe that rather is merely a mathematical simulation, we need to be an emotional simulation of what happens. So with a helmet cam, for example, physics is transferred from the track to the deck, which is transferred to the suspension, which goes to your body, which goes to your head, and where a helmet cam come. Header move around simulates the things you don't actually feel with just a game pad in your hands.

What can you tell us about racing drivers you used as consultants?

I am sure that plenty of other games to say they had feedback from drivers, but need for speed-by-case basis, we have a racing team, Team Need for Speed. They are out there – they won Dubai 24-hour race, running BMW Z4 GT3 car. And another team is winners of the formula D Drift championship. These guys are the winners, best on their territory, and they run under need for speed flag. You have given us feedback on how the cars feel, how they handle what angles the lights should be on how effective they should be, how hard the parking brake must be, what angle the head must be happening in a corner, etc. Kind of feedback is probably without precedent.

How do you expect Shift 2: Unleashed stacks up against the Gran Turismo 5?

I have gone on record before saying the GT5 and Forza is on estrader currently: all believe they are games in beat. The great products, but they stop becoming a numbers game, a mathematical simulation of large physics, should we proceed with the emotional and social aspects. This has happened in the past in the games, when FIFA tried to keep with Pro Evolution Soccer and Dante's Inferno with God of war: it is the same kind of sparring, we have with our competitors. We will see where we go, but we are working in the long haul.

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Has tech robbed travel, its riches?

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Photograph: David Levenson/Getty Images

I began travelling professionally soon after the end of the second world war, and I travelled mostly in Europe, where the hyperbole of victory was fading, and disillusion had set in. Seven or eight of Europe's eastern countries, so recently liberated from the Nazis, now found themselves under Soviet oppression, and the so-called iron curtain divided the continent, as Churchill put it, from Stettin to Trieste. Everywhere was shabby. Everything was threadbare. Famous old cities of history lay ravaged, still in ruins.

Travelling in this disordered region was not easy. Currencies were hard to come by, visas were necessary almost everywhere, food was often scarce, trains were grimy and unreliable and for the most part air travel was only for privileged officialdom. And always there loomed over the continent, if only in one's mind, the baleful presence of Soviet communism. The iron curtain was like a prison wall, and crossing it from east to west, from St Petersburg (then Leningrad) to Helsinki, say, or from one half of Berlin to the other, really was like a personal liberation.

I'm sorry to have to say it, because those times were cruel indeed for many Europeans, but I greatly enjoyed my travelling then. It was an excitement just being on the long-forbidden continent, as we called it then, and travel in Germany had a peculiar fascination for me. I used vividly to think as I sat at a cafe in Hamburg or strolled a Bavarian meadow that only the other day our own thudding bombers had been killing people in these very streets, and only the other day, if I had gone for a walk here, in no time I would have been bundled off to a prison camp. As it was, no single German seemed to bear a grudge against me, but even now, six decades on, I can still summon the sensation into my mind, if I try hard enough.

But it was the miserable iron curtain that enthralled me most, in those early wanderings of mine. I always loved allegory, and to come across it almost anywhere, from a stretch of barbed wire or a line of pillboxes to its ultimate obscenity, the Berlin Wall, seemed to me a tremendously allegorical moment of history. I enjoyed the impassive faces of the border guards, when I crossed the curtain by one frontier or another, and they with infinite slow suspicion turned the pages of my passport. I relished the feeling of disquiet that accompanied me everywhere, a western journalist meandering through hostile police states, and I welcomed the moments when murky strangers asked me to take messages home to Britain for them, or played the agent provocateur with black market inducements. It was all grist for my mill, after all, and when a diplomat of my acquaintance once asked me to deliver an unexplainable package to an unidentifiable recipient, I carried it across the Chain Bridge at Budapest feeling childishly like somebody in a spy novel.

And now, in another century, almost in another world? Now I can potter around a spanking new Europe as I will, crossing its frontiers almost without producing a passport, and I can even go to the United States without a visa. Of course I relish these new freedoms, which have vastly broadened my horizons and enlarged my opportunities. I am no longer travelling to report for newspapers, but only to gather material for books. As age has caught up with me, too, I no longer pine for those frissons of the cold war, and don't in the least want to be interrogated by armed guards with Kalashnikovs in the interior of Africa. It is a wonderful thing, of course it is, that any of us should be able to travel, wherever we like, whenever we want, pop down to St Pancras and take a train to Avignon, pop up to Manchester airport and be off to Valparaíso.

I have to admit that with the ease and general safety of travel, it has lost a little of its excitement for me. Partly, I am almost ashamed to admit, this is because now everybody else does it too! Everyone has thrilled to Manhattan now. Everyone seems to have been to the Great Barrier Reef. One of my neighbours lately went on a package tour to Lhasa. Even the most beautiful city in the world, Venice, undeniably loses some of its wow factor when you can hardly see San Marco for the massed multitudes of its visitors, and every few minutes the Campanile is dwarfed by the passing of another obese cruise ship. And every one of us, if we haven't actually been to the forests of Borneo or the Amazon jungles, have certainly experienced them via television.

And yet, and yet … during my 60-odd years of the wandering life I really have been to most of the places I want to go to, have been in most of the world's great cities and experienced the wild world from the Himalayas to the Empty Quarter. For much of the time I am perfectly content to stay in my own incomparable corner of Wales. Nevertheless, the moment those engines burst into life and I fasten my seat belt, the moment I glimpse the Andes through the clouds or watch the blue Adriatic tilting through our windows – the moment I step out into a revivified Berlin or a fabulous Dubai, or find myself once again upon the Honolulu beach with a mai tai in my hand – at every such moment I think once again, as I did when I was young, how marvellous the great world is, and how rich the rewards of travelling it.

Photograph: Geraint Lewis/Alamy

The world is just as interesting – as unexpected, as unvisited, as diverse – as it ever was, even though the nature of its sights has sometimes changed. I am fascinated to see Thai tourists, for example, at a sleek new hotel in Jaipur, and to go to Mauritius to find Russian fat cats trying (in vain) to entertain their molls. I am interested in what "Indo-Pak" Chinese food in Toronto might taste like, and what a McVeggie with Cheese amid the ancestral swarm of Varanasi will offer. I once spent two weeks living in and around Los Angeles airport and, although it wasn't a peaceful holiday, it offered as curious and rich a glimpse into a new century of crossing cultures as I could imagine.

And when I walk around the Old City of Jerusalem after dark, as I did six weeks ago; or visit the beach in Thailand, as I did two weeks after that; or wander among the "gods' messengers" that are the 1,200 roaming deer which still more or less run the old Japanese capital of Nara, I find these classic beauties as rich as ever they were. Places are like people for me and, as with people, the wise, rich, deeply rooted places never seem to change too much, even though they might lose some hair or develop wrinkles. Damascus, Zurich, Lalibela are as pristine as they were generations ago. And even as the tides of history keep washing against a Havana or a Beirut, their natural spiritedness or resilience or sense of style never seems greatly diminished.

My talisman as a traveller has always been that old chestnut from Proust, that "the real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new sights, but in seeing with new eyes". A place is boring only if you bring uninterested eyes to it. Some people say that democratic travel has removed the magic of places, but to me that magic is just as strong as ever (in Petra, in La Paz, even in my hometown of Oxford) if it is real. Garbo never grows old, nor Dylan young. When we worry that a place we love has changed – "Bali isn't what it used to be," I sometimes hear myself saying, "It's usually because we have changed." Fascination is in the eye of the beholder.
Pico Iyer is the author of The Open Road: The Global Journey of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama (Bloomsbury, £8.99)

Photograph: Murdo Macleod

The last great journey on Earth was perhaps Wally Herbert's trek to the North Pole in 1969. Until the end of the last century, explorers were finishing up the scraps – Mike Fay trekked across the Congo, I walked the Namib, and so on.

And now, the world is open to us all. You don't need to read accounts by someone like me, the specialist; we're all doing it. Grab your camera or pen and hike! So these couldn't be better times for the average person – we may all share in the privilege.

Is it exploration? Well, if it's not advancing knowledge, no. Those who today flog to the Poles are not explorers, they are simply athletes. Inspiring – and, I'm afraid, irrelevant. Yet, man is not, in the end, a rational creature; exploration isn't entirely about assembling proven fact. Dr David Livingstone made many discoveries in Africa but his biggest role was actually as communicator, giving the Victorians a picture of the continent for his day. Take Ed Stafford's recent walk along the length of the Amazon. A pointless journey in itself, and 2,000 miles of it along what is in fact a shipping lane. Yet the journey was saved from irrelevance and self-indulgence because along the way he documented the Amazon for his time, which is our time. This task of accurately conveying our threatened world is more urgent than ever.
benedictallen.com

It's become easy – even fashionable – to be negative about social networking. Yet amid all the nostalgia and cynicism, it's also easy to lose sight of the positive aspects that have come along too, especially for travellers.

Personally, I love the fact that we can now make new contacts all around the world at the click of a button; that sometimes just sending an email can open a door to getting welcomed like an old friend; that we can stay in touch with the people we meet; that we can discover places we may not have found by chance, and yet still leave room for plenty of haphazard wandering too.

Does the internet take away all the spontaneity? I don't think so. It can still be exciting to follow a random tip you saw on an obscure blog or to wait for the arrival of an unknown, online contact in a cafe. Sure, it's a bit different to what came before, but one day these will be a generation's "good old days" too.

There's no need to be online 24/7 or constantly slaving to a smartphone to get the benefits. If you want to take a trip without logging in once, you can do so. That's the great thing about travelling in 2011, you can opt in or opt out. And if you have the time and the money to go off into the back of beyond without so much as a guidebook and without seeing (or rarely seeing) another tourist, those days aren't over either.
vickybaker.co.uk

Photograph: Fritz Liedtke

The world is as interesting for travellers as it's always been – but as wanderers we need to balance the utility of new travel technologies with the quieter, more organic rewards previous generations of travellers discovered on the road.

Interestingly, this whole now-versus-then argument was a topic of debate when I first started vagabonding 15 years ago. Many of the older travellers I met back then – some of them veterans of the 1970s hippy trail across Asia – argued that my travel experiences were tainted by luxuries such as email and credit cards. These days I am myself tempted to look at a younger generation of travellers and suggest that smartphones and micro-blogging are compromising their road experiences. I have to remind myself that this isn't a new conversation – that technology has been altering the travel experience since at least the dawn of the steamship and the railroad engine. Any technology that makes travel easier is going to connect aspects of the travel experience to the comforts and habits one might seek back home – and can make travel feel less like travel.

George Orwell tackled this issue in his 1937 essay The Road to Wigan Pier. "Everyone who has travelled by primitive methods in an undeveloped country knows that the difference between that kind of travel and modern travel in trains … is the difference between life and death," he wrote. "The nomad who walks or rides, with his baggage stowed on a camel or an ox-cart, may suffer every kind of discomfort, but at least he is living while he is travelling; whereas for the passenger in an express train or a luxury liner his journey is an interregnum, a kind of temporary death."

Here Orwell seems to argue that technology is destroying the true experience of travel – but he goes on to assert that restoring the travel experience is not as simple as refusing the technology: "So long as the railways exist, one has got to travel by train … Here am I, 40 miles from London. When I want to go up to London why do I not pack my luggage on to a mule and set out on foot, making a two days of it? Because, with the Green Line buses whizzing past me every 10 minutes, such a journey would be intolerably irksome. In order that one may enjoy primitive methods of travel, it is necessary that no other method should be available."

What in Orwell's day was a matter of rail transit is now an issue of constant connectedness – what I like to call the "electronic umbilical cord". At one level the ubiquity of smartphones and wireless internet makes travel more accessible: apps such as image recognition search Google Goggles can be more dynamic than guidebooks, and sites like couchsurfing.com help travellers connect with local hosts. On another level, part of travel's charm has always been its disorienting uncertainty – and it can be hard to stumble into serendipity when all your travel decisions are filtered through your iPhone.

Thus the importance of balance. Just as Orwell wasn't going to walk to London when there were Green Line buses available, most of us aren't going to discard our smartphones and internet access for aerograms and hand-drawn maps. That said, there are times when a far-flung post office encounter or directions scribbled on to the back of a grocery sack can lead a person into the kind of experiences that make travel so surprising and worthwhile.

That means 21st-century travellers must be aware of when their gadgets are enhancing new experiences, and when those gadgets are getting in the way of new experiences.

If in doubt, unplug the electronic umbilical cord and throw yourself at the mercy of your exotic new surroundings. This time-honoured travel strategy can be daunting if you're not used to it, but you'll soon come to discover that unplugged travel carries its own, often more rewarding, set of possibilities.
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Forget Google — it's Apple, which converts to the evil empire

Even when Apple , was mainly a computer manufacturer, people used to compare it to BMW. It was because it made animal, nicely designed products for a niche market composed of wealthy, design-conscious customers who also served as an enthusiastic – nay – fanatical evangelists to fire. It was seen as innovative and quirky but not part of the industry's mainstream, which was dominated by Microsoft and the companies that make PCs, ran Windows software. This view of Apple was summed up by Jack tramiel, head of the Commodore, when Steve Jobs showed him first Macintosh computer. "Nice, Steve," growled contentedly and Tramiel. "I guess you want to sell it in stores."

It was a long time ago. Now is the Apple with a market capitalisation of just over $ 331bn, the second most valuable company in the world – bigger than Microsoft ($ 220bn), Oracle ($ 167bn) or Google ($ 196bn). Quirky little computer company has grown to a giant. But not necessarily a huge-friendly variety, as the world's magazine publishers have recently discovered and as music and software industries have known for a long time. To Apple now controls the commanding heights online content business, and it seems to do the same mobile phone company. At the moment it looks as though no one has a good idea of how to stop it.

Each year, Fortune magazine sends queries to a sample of us CEOs asking for their opinions of their competitors. Results for the year 2011 has just been released and they show that the Apple is the "most admired" company in the United States. This is the sixth year in a row, it has held this title.

The reasons are obvious. Product page creates Apple beautifully designed, extremely functional and user friendly devices, joy customers and give fat profit margins; It has a culture which reliably delivers these products at specified dates; It is much more innovative than any of its competitors; and it has a unique mastery of both hardware and software.

On the strategic side, has the company displayed a deep understanding of technology and an astute assessment of potential devices and services that people will pay over the odds. Most CEOs would kill to run a business, each having a quarter of these competences. Apple seems to have all of them. Its current dominance is built upon three main ideas. First is that the design really means something. It is not something you can outsource to a design consultancy – which is what most businesses do – and design is as much about ease of use, as it is about aesthetics. The second insight was that of illegal music downloading maelstrom triggered by Napster could not item, and the first company to offer a simple way to legally buy music (and, later, other types of content) online would clean. And third — and most important – there was insight that mobile phones are really just handheld computers happen to make voice calls, and that it computing is the bit that really means something.

Most of the media comment about Apple attributes all these insights to its charismatic Steve Jobs, co-founder, with the explanatory statement, that Apple Renaissance began when he returned to the company in 1996.

It may well be, although it seems unlikely that such a comprehensive corporate recovery could be a single person, no matter how charismatic work. What is more plausible is that Apple's corporate culture trains on some of the characteristics of its CEO personality, much as Microsoft was once a corporate extension of Bill Gates, with all that implied in aggression and drive.

Regardless of the legend, is that Apple now has a dominant position in several Central enterprises (content distribution and mobile computing) and have a seriously disruptive consequences for the mobile phone industry. In particular, its iTunes Store it control over tollgate through which billions of paid for music tracks and albums, videos, and apps cascade down to millions of customers worldwide. It charges a Commission on anything that passes through this gate. And each Apple mobile device sold can only be activated by connecting to the entrance.

This will give Apple unprecedented power. Plenty of other organizations offering paid for downloads, but none have credit card information with so many internet users are accustomed to paying for things online. This was a reason why holders of printed periodicals began to slaves when iPad appeared. Here at last was a way to get people to pay for online content: just make it available on iTunes and let Apple collects money. It rankled sure that Apple took 30%, but – hey – at least it would bring an end to the parasitic free riding, which was endemic on the web. In the future, the web was dead: publishing of magazines as iPad apps was the future.

Then Apple changed abruptly with the rules of procedure, stipulates that any salesperson a digital subscription on a Web site publisher must also make the same subscription offer within app from Apple would take a cut of 30%. Publishers have been furious over this, but there is nothing they can do about it if they wish to do business on the iTunes store, you have to do it the Apple way.

This was just one example of the large unfriendly Giant flexing its muscles in itself, but it could be a harbinger of the future.

Umberto Eco once wrote a memorable essay claimed that the Apple Mac was a Catholic entity, while the IBM PC was a Protestant. His reasoning was, like the Roman Church, Apple offered a guaranteed route to salvation — Apple way – provided a fixed to it. PC users, had, on the other hand, to take personal responsibility for the work out of their own routes to heaven.

ECOS metaphor applies with a vengeance for the new generations of Apple iDevices, which is strictly controlled appliances. You think maybe you own your lovely, shiny new iPhone or iPad, but in reality, an invisible virtual string connects it back to Apple HQ on an infinite loop, Cupertino.

You can not install anything on it, which did not have the prior approval of Mr jobs and his subordinates. And if you are foolish enough to break the rules and examine your own path to salvation, so that you can find when you next attempt to synchronize with iTunes, as it has become an expensive paperweight, designed beautifully. If there is no power, so I do not know what is.

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