Smart meter project is delayed

10 May 2013 Last updated at 12:33 GMT Smart meters show customers exactly how much gas and electricity is being used The introduction of energy smart meters in 30 million UK homes will be delayed for more than a year, the government has announced.

The £11.7bn project will start in the autumn of 2015, rather than the summer of next year, the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) said.

It said that the industry needed more time to design, build and test the communications system required.

The devices show exactly how much gas and electricity is being used.

This should bring an end to estimated bills, because the technology could send back an accurate meter reading to an energy company every day.

According to the industry, the technological advance would be the equivalent of using wireless broadband instead of sending a telegram.

Preparation

The project is considered vital in attempts to cut energy use by households as the UK faces having to import more energy in the future.

The smart meter rollout has been criticised in the past, but the then energy minister, Charles Hendry, said last January: "The last thing we need is more dither and delay."

Continue reading the main story

With energy prices one of the top financial concerns for consumers, the government must also make sure the £11bn cost does not spiral out of control”

End Quote Richard Lloyd Executive director, Which? Now, the programme to install these meters into every UK home is expected to be finished by 2020, also a year later than planned.

Ann Robinson, of price comparison website Uswitch.com, said she was disappointed because smart meters would have "huge benefits", but added that it was "more important to get it right so that it works for consumers".

Angela Knight, chief executive of Energy UK, which represents the major energy companies, said: "We welcome the government's prudent decision to allow an additional 12 months to complete the smart meter programme. This recognises the scale of the programme and the need to prepare carefully."

She said the installation of meters was a complex task and the delay allowed this to take place "in a more efficient and cost-effective manner, and to greater effect".

Energy Secretary Ed Davey said: "Completing the national rollout will be an enormous logistical and technical challenge for the industry. Getting this right for consumers is the government's priority."

Adam Scorer, of watchdog Consumer Futures, said: "Delaying the date for the smart meter roll-out is a sensible move. The programme is not ready. It will cost consumers around £11bn and unless it goes through a hard and rigorous test it could just mean more costs and fewer benefits for consumers."

Richard Lloyd, executive director of Which?, said: "The government is right to take its time to ensure the installation of smart meters in every home is a success but it should use this delay to trial regional roll-outs, similar to the digital TV switchover.

"With energy prices one of the top financial concerns for consumers, the government must also make sure the £11bn cost does not spiral out of control."

Last year, MPs on the Commons Public Accounts Committee said it was "far from certain" consumers would benefit from smart meter savings and urged ministers to oversee the rollout more closely.

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Bowie video pulled in YouTube error

9 May 2013 Last updated at 09:30 GMT The three-minute video features an abundance of religious imagery David Bowie's latest video, which stars Gary Oldman and Marion Cotillard, was temporarily pulled from YouTube over its graphic content.

The Next Day features heavy religious imagery, including Cotillard bleeding from stigmata marks.

YouTube admitted making the "wrong call" in removing the video, and reinstated it with an adult content warning.

Former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey has called the video "juvenile"

Lord Carey told The Telegraph: "If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery perhaps Christians should not worry too much at such an exploitation of religious imagery.

"I doubt that Bowie would have the courage to use Islamic imagery - I very much doubt it.

"Frankly, I don't get offended by such juvenilia - Christians should have the courage to rise above offensive language, although I hope Bowie will recognise that he may be upsetting some people."

The Next Day is taken from Bowie's comeback album of the same name.

The video sees Bowie performing in a basement bar, surrounded by religious figures, while Oldman, dressed as a priest, punches a beggar before dancing with a prostitute, played by Oscar-winner Cotillard.

A spokesman for YouTube said: "With the massive volume of videos on our site, sometimes we make the wrong call. When it's brought to our attention that a video has been removed mistakenly, we act quickly to reinstate it."

Bowie's last video, for The Stars (Are Out Tonight), featured another Oscar-winner, Tilda Swinton.

Oldman previously worked with Bowie in the 1990s, when they performed a duet on guitarist Reeves Gabrels' 1995 album The Sacred Squall of Now.

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Tumblr takeover: Sex, jokes and gifs

20 May 2013 Last updated at 13:17 GMT By Dave Lee Technology reporter, BBC News Users on David Karp's Tumblr platform have posted more than 50 billion entries since the site's inception Yahoo is desperate to be cool again.

And, like that kid at school who always got the newest gadgets and video games to impress his "friends", there's seemingly no shortage of money available to get what it wants.

Now, just two months after splashing out millions on a UK teenager's app Summly, Yahoo is set to buy one of the hottest properties in social media: Tumblr.

It will reportedly cost $1.1bn (£723m), a smidgen more than Facebook paid for photo-sharing service Instagram last year.

Yet with users already threatening to leave Tumblr en masse, will simply owning something trendy actually boost Yahoo's internet cred?

Continue reading the main story

It feels like someone is plunging a white hot poker into the woodwork, and setting it slowly on fire.”

End Quote Tumblr user "It's very hard to just buy something cool from somebody else and for it to remain cool," says Robin Klein, a partner at technology investors Index Ventures.

"It's important that the leadership at Tumblr comes into Yahoo, stays in Yahoo, and is a key participant there."

Chief executive Marissa Mayer has confirmed that founder David Karp is to stay with the company. Jimmy Wales, creator of Wikipedia, says this is an important component if the site is to remain a success.

"For a long time Yahoo was viewed in the industry as a very marketing-led company such that any respectable technologist would cringe if they had to work there," he told the BBC.

"Marissa is herself a respected technologist, full-on, and a great business person. And I think she is making all the right moves."

Global in-jokes

But what exactly has she bought?

Wikipedia's Jimmy Wales gives his reaction to Yahoo's deal with Tumblr

Tumblr describes itself as a way to "effortlessly share anything" using a mixture of text, pictures, videos and various other formats.

In plain English, Tumblr can be best described as something that exists between Twitter and a traditional blog, for people who have more than 140 characters to say - but not much time in which to say it.

This formula has seen the site notch up more than 100 million registered blogs, which between them have published more than 50 billion posts.

The site was set up in 2006, when Mr Karp put together the first bit of Tumblr's code in a two-week period between jobs. Within a year, Mr Karp was - according to his business partner at the time - now the reluctant chief executive of a rapidly expanding start-up.

But the huge levels of traffic came with predictable teething problems. Tumblr soon started to suffer from a lack of stability, with its equivalent of Twitter's "fail whale" - the screen presented when the service was over capacity - becoming a common and frustrating sight for users.

Several rounds of investment later, and with an employee base that has expanded from two back then to 175 today, the ship has been well and truly steadied.

Continue reading the main story

Yahoo's chief executive took to Tumblr in an attempt to ease the worries of users. This is what she said:

"We promise not to screw it up. Tumblr is incredibly special and has a great thing going.

"We will operate Tumblr independently. David Karp will remain CEO.

"The product roadmap, their team, their wit and irreverence will all remain the same as will their mission to empower creators to make their best work and get it in front of the audience they deserve.

"Yahoo! will help Tumblr get even better, faster."

And now, Tumblr thrives. Famed for its lightning-quick set-up speeds allowing people to have a great-looking, full-featured blog in seconds, Tumblr is centre stage in the internet community.

Tumblr's forte lies in viral hits or memes, global in-jokes which capture the mood of sometimes niche but passionate readers.

One recent example, White Men Wearing Google Glass, pokes fun at the ever-so-dorky appearance of those keen to show off Google's latest invention.

Last year's stand-out hit was Texts From Hillary Clinton - a collection of images captioned with humorous examples of what the then US Secretary of State may have been writing.

Clinton herself was a fan - the last image is one of her with the blog's creators.

Tumblr is even credited with bringing about the resurgence of the animated gif - an image format that until recently had been seen as tacky and outdated, but is now a key component of discourse and comedy online.

Not safe for work

All that sounds very appealing to Yahoo and its investors - but there is one elephant in the room that needs to be acknowledged. Or rather, naked people in the room.

Tumblr is bursting with amateur pornography. The company does not give a breakdown of how many of its sites are adult-orientated, but it's clear it has no issue in accommodating them.

The site's terms of service say sharing of explicit pictures is fine - as long as it is clearly labelled as NSFW, meaning not safe for work.

As for explicit video, it's a no-no to use Tumblr's own video feature to upload adult clips, but embedded videos uploaded elsewhere is not a problem - indeed, Tumblr even recommends a specific pornographic site to do just that.

It's an approach that could create problems for Yahoo, predicts Index Venture's Robin Klein.

Yahoo's Marissa Mayer is working to revive the company's fortunes

"This is where segmentation becomes so important," he tells the BBC. "Advertising must go to where it wants to be.

"There's no way advertisers will be happy to end up on porn sites."

US technology news site AllThingsD has reported a "source close to the situation" as saying Yahoo would have a hands-off approach to running the site - porn and all - once it is under their control.

Abandon ship!

But that hasn't stopped some users getting nervous.

"They're going to lose a number of bloggers," predicts Mr Klein.

"I'm sure they've factored that into their thinking. They're going to have to manage this."

Wordpress - a rival blogging platform - reported that more than 72,000 people imported their Tumblr blogs to Wordpress in just one hour on Sunday evening.

Within moments of the news of the probable buyout becoming public, bloggers flocked to Tumblr to express their dismay.

One user wrote: "Tumblr has been my safe place for three years now, and it feels like someone is plunging a white hot poker into the woodwork, and setting it slowly on fire. Thanks Yahoo."

A search for the term Yahoo on the site brings many more examples - some with colourful language.

Much of Tumblr's development team will join Yahoo

Yahoo will be hoping that, like so many internet storms, this anger will drift away - leaving behind a highly active, highly profitable bounty.

"Tumblr so far has not made a huge amount of money," says Luke Lewis, UK editor of news site Buzzfeed.

"But the potential is there. The people who use Tumblr are really young, they are really engaged and spend hours a day on Tumblr."

And while seemingly unpopular, Yahoo does at least have one thing going for it, according to one user.

"At least it wasn't bought by Facebook."

Follow Dave Lee on Twitter @DaveLeeBBC

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VIDEO: YouTubers welcome charging plan

YouTube has launched a trial scheme allowing channels to charge users for the videos they watch.

A small number of channels will offer subscriptions starting at $0.99 (£0.64) a month.

Each channel will offer a free 14-day trial and many will have discounted annual rates.

JJ, who is behind the KSIOlajidebt channel, and Ali-A, who uploads regular Call of Duty gameplay videos, give their thoughts.

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Summer-born 'need exam score boost'

10 May 2013 Last updated at 14:18 GMT By Judith Burns BBC News education reporter All school tests should be marked on a sliding scale according to pupils age, says the study Summer-born children should have their exam marks boosted to compensate for being almost a year younger when they sit tests, a report argues.

In England, pupils born in August are less likely to get good GCSEs or go to university than those born in September, the Institute for Fiscal Studies says.

Some may even drop out of school.

The age-adjusted scores should be used to calculate school league table positions, the authors argue.

The report draws on an array of official data, including the National Pupil Database, which contains details of every pupil in England.

Report co-author Lorraine Dearden said: "In a world where everything was fair we would expect the proportion of kids by month of birth who get the expected level at each age to be the same."

But the report finds this is not the case, with a significant gap even at GCSE level. More than 60% of September-born pupils achieve five A* to C grades, compared with less than 54% of those born in August.

Mild special needs

August-born students are also around two percentage points less likely to go to university when they leave school, one percentage point less likely to attend a leading university and one percentage point less likely to complete a degree.

Some 12.5% of August-born pupils are assessed as having mild special educational needs by age 11, compared with only 7.1% of those born in September.

"Our research shows that children who are relatively young in their year have lower self-confidence, lower belief in their academic ability, and are more likely to start smoking younger than their relatively older peers," said co-author Claire Crawford.

The authors argue that being 11 months younger than the oldest pupils in the year when they sit tests is the main driver of the differences in test scores.

It outweighs the effect of having had less time at school in areas where summer-born children start education later in the year.

The report says the solution is to "age-adjust" national achievement test scores, arguing that this "is a simple and straightforward way of ensuring that those born towards the end of the academic year are not disadvantaged by taking the tests younger".

The team analysed scores from the Key Stage 2 tests, which are taken by all pupils in their final year of primary school in England. Primary school league table positions depend on pupils achieving an expected standard.

Sliding scale

They found that August-born pupils scored on average seven points less than classmates born in September.

They conclude that pass marks should rise for September-born children by three points: "So the oldest children would have to perform slightly better than they do at the moment in order to reach the expected level, which would now be an expected level for a given age rather than at a particular point in time."

The marks would change on a sliding scale, with the pass mark for children born in October and November rising by two points; for January and December-born children by one mark; staying the same for February and March children; and reducing by one point for those with April or May birthdays, by two points for those born in June or July, and by three points for those born in August.

The authors recommend that similar age-adjusted scores be extended to other school tests, from assessments of six-year-olds' reading skills to the crucial exams taken by 16-year-olds.

Continue reading the main story

If you started having different exam grades for children born in different months it would be extremely complicated. No one would understand it and there would be disputes”

End Quote Dame Sally Coates Academy headteacher However, the authors acknowledge that the differences are most dramatic when children are first at school, and lessen as they grow older and the relative age gap reduces. There is no evidence that they persist into adulthood. So the exam results given to prospective employers should be absolute scores rather than age-adjusted, they concede.

'Intensive intervention'

Head teachers warned that tinkering with pass marks could have unintended consequences.

Brian Lightman, of the Association of School and College Leaders, said: "Telling summer-born children that they don't have to perform as well as their peers will do nothing to raise their self-esteem, confidence or achievement in later life.

"Employers need graduates who have reached a certain standard of education. Giving some students a grade which is adjusted downwards would lower their standard of achievement when it actually needs to be raised. This will have the opposite effect to what is intended."

Dame Sally Coates, head of Burlington Danes Academy in west London, told the Today programme on Radio 4 that she had not personally seen evidence of a birthday-related performance gap at secondary level.

She suggested that instead of tinkering with exams there should be "intensive intervention for younger children in early primary school".

Dame Sally said: "If you started having different exam grades for children born in different months, it would be extremely complicated. No one would understand it and there would be disputes."

Prof Rachel Brooks, of the University of Surrey, agreed early intervention could help prevent disparities in educational outcome.

She said: "The way in which pupils are grouped can have an effect - streaming tends to compound disadvantage, while summer-born children tend to do better within mixed-ability classes."

A Department for Education spokeswoman said: "We trust teachers to put their pupils' results into context when discussing them with parents, particularly for young children where age can have a strong influence on the scores.

"In addition, we have changed the schools admissions code to make it easier for parents to defer their child's entry until they reach their fifth birthday."

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Is Ecuador home to the world's best chocolate?

5 June 2013 Last updated at 23:08 GMT By Irene Caselli Esmeraldas province, Ecuador Ecuador has some of the oldest varieties of cocoa trees, which have distinctive flavours In the lush province of Esmeraldas, on Ecuador's northern border with Colombia, farmers are proud to say they produce "black gold".

They are not talking about oil, Ecuador's main export, but cocoa beans.

The smooth, bitter-tasting paste extracted from the beans is the key ingredient in chocolate and one of this Andean country's claims to fame.

It is also deeply connected to the history of Ecuador, the world's largest exporter of cocoa until the beginning of the 20th Century.

Plant disease and the rise of new cultivations in British and French colonies across Africa and Asia saw Ecuador lose its top spot in the early 1900s.

Cocoa started losing its appeal to farmers and was replaced by bananas and coffee, which were more lucrative.

West Africa became the world's leader in cocoa production and exports, with a focus on so-called "bulk" or "ordinary" beans, used for processed chocolate-flavoured candies and sweets.

Connoisseurs say fine chocolate has as many distinctive tastes as fine wine. Vintage chocolate

"Fine" or "flavour" beans, the top-quality varieties used in gourmet products because of their superior taste, account for only 5% of the world's cocoa production, but demand is increasing.

Much like wine, chocolate reflects the flavours of the region where cocoa beans are grown, and how they are dried and fermented.

Over the last decade, as the demand for more flavourful cocoa has risen, Ecuador has emerged as the pre-eminent exporter of fine beans.

It is a favourite destination for globetrotting chocolatiers in search of the best, and cocoa production has also become a sustainable source of income for Ecuador's farmers.

Continue reading the main story

After 250 years exporting cocoa, nobody knew how to make chocolate in this country”

End Quote Santiago Peralta Ecuadorean chocolate maker "Farmers didn't use to pay much attention to cocoa," says Ignacio Estupinan, a 66-year-old farmer who is known in the area as Don Nacho.

"Now everybody knows how valuable cocoa is. It's the best business we have," he adds.

Scholars believe cocoa plants first grew in the Amazon basin, possibly in the area that now corresponds to Venezuela, another large cocoa exporter.

However, a recent archaeological study suggests that Ecuador may have been the original home of the cocoa bean.

Archaeologist Francisco Valdez found ceramic pottery dating to 3,300 BC that contained microscopic remnants of cocoa.

The discovery, made in Ecuador's southern Amazonian region of Zamora Chinchipe, suggests that cocoa beans were being harvested and consumed more than 5,000 years ago.

The West's love affair with chocolate started much later - in the 16th Century, when Aztec ruler Montezuma introduced Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortes to a spicy chocolate drink, known as "xocolatl".

When sugar was added to the mix, the drink became a fad in Europe, and cocoa much sought after.

Ecuador played a key role in introducing chocolate to the West.

Unlike other Spanish colonies in South America, where gold and silver were abundant, Ecuador was exploited for its cocoa.

A scene depicting Spanish explorer Hernan Cortez meeting Montezuma , king of the Aztecs

Ecuador's native cocoa beans are known as "Nacional" or "Arriba", a name believed to derive from the location of its discovery. Arriba means "up river" and many cocoa plantations were located along the Guayas river, which flows towards the port of Guayaquil, Ecuador's largest city.

Top quality

In her book Chocolate Unwrapped, Sarah Jane Evans, one of the UK's leading food writers and a founding member of the Academy of Chocolate, says that the characteristic of Ecuador's fine cocoa is "a floral profile with blackcurrants and spice."

Chocolate tasters say the aroma of Ecuador's cacao is more complex because Arriba beans vary hugely in taste and size according to the area in which they are grown.

"Each bean has a special, different flavour," says Santiago Peralta, founder of Pacari, a successful Ecuadorean brand of fine organic chocolate.

Mr Peralta says the quality of Ecuador's chocolate is due to the country's diversity in terrain and equatorial location on the equator.

While Ecuadorean chocolate is known for its floral characteristics, some beans taste more like fruits, while others have a nutty flavour.

Continue reading the main story It takes six months for cocoa beans to ripen. Harvests take place twice a yearThe beans, which are covered in a white pulp, are removed from the podsBeans are put in large heaps and covered up to ferment. This takes about a week. and is when the cocoa flavour starts to developBeans are then dried for a week then taken to the chocolate factoryThey are then roasted, and separated from their shells in hulling machinesThe insides of the bean, called nibs, are turned into a liquid or chocolate liquorThe chocolate liquor is blended with cocoa butter, and other ingredients and stirred for several hoursThe resulting thick mixture comes out and is poured into bar-shaped containersThe bars are now ready to be packaged and eaten, about four days after the cocoa beans reached the factory"We tailor-make our chocolate according to the cocoa beans we receive," Mr Peralta says, adding that he tastes every new batch of beans that arrives.

Mr Peralta's dedication is one of the reasons Pacari has become the success story of Ecuador's cocoa boom.

"We wanted to have the best quality - it was the only chance we had to make it," he explains.

"After 250 years exporting cocoa, nobody knew how to make chocolate in this country."

In 2002, together with his wife, Carla Barboto, Mr Peralta went looking for old cocoa trees, while developing a fair-trade model to give farmers better pay for a better product.

The experiment worked. His chocolate company won several prizes at the 2012 International Chocolate Awards for its combination of flavours and a successful alternative business model.

One of its bars, Raw Chocolate, was judged the best "dark plain" bar in the world.

Pacari's Ecuador-based production did not go unnoticed.

Other Ecuadorean companies started making their own chocolate and foreign chocolate-makers came to Ecuador not only to source their beans, but also to produce bars.

Local pride

New York-based Red Thalhammer visited several cocoa-producing countries before settling for Ecuador.

A native of Austria, Ms Thalhammer had previously worked on branding for gourmet food and was not ready to let go of those high standards for her own chocolate.

"Ecuador has super-high quality cocoa," Ms Thalhammer says.

She started her own chocolate line, called Antidote Choco, made entirely in Ecuador.

Several other chocolate-makers have followed suit. One company, Ecuatoriana de Chocolates, opened up a factory in 2007 to help chocolatiers go from bean to bar in one location.

The implications go far. For example, in Esmeraldas, one of the poorest provinces in the country, farmers can now get more money if they produce high quality cocoa.

"In the past, Esmeraldas was not considered a cocoa-growing area, but now it has been producing prize-winning chocolate," says Daysi Rodriguez, a community worker in Esmeraldas. "This fills us with pride!"

On his farm, Don Nacho looks at a 50-year-old cocoa tree.

He works on his own on the 60-hectare farm, where he grows 30 different varieties of fruit, besides cocoa.

He seems tired, but he also seems to care about something else, more important.

"We have to work together to make our country look good abroad," he says.

Ecuador's new black gold may be providing a rather stable future for farmers, while at the same type putting Ecuador back on the chocolate map.

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IMF chief Lagarde made key witness

24 May 2013 Last updated at 20:28 GMT Speaking after a second day of questioning, Ms Lagarde insisted she had always acted in the interests of the state

A French court has decided not to place the head of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde, under investigation over a payout made when she was finance minister.

Ms Lagarde was instead made an assisted witness in the case, meaning she will be called upon to testify but is not directly under suspicion.

Some 400m euros (£342m; $516m) was paid to disgraced tycoon Bernard Tapie in 2007.

Ms Lagarde has denied any wrongdoing.

"My status as assisted witness is not a surprise to me, since I always acted in the interests of the state and in conformity with the law," Ms Lagarde said after a second day of questioning that lasted some 12 hours.

The status of assisted witness is far less damaging for Ms Lagarde than if she had been placed under formal investigation, which could have put her under pressure to resign, the BBC's David Chazan reports from Paris.

He says there will be relief in France, where there were fears the country's image would be tarnished.

The Court of Justice of the Republic, which investigates ministerial misconduct, is looking into claims that Mr Tapie, a controversial business figure, may have received favourable treatment because of his support for the former president Nicolas Sarkozy.

'Best solution'

Ms Lagarde decided to use arbitration to settle a long-running legal battle between the state and Mr Tapie. The tycoon received a much bigger payout than he might have been awarded by a court.

Continue reading the main story 1993: Credit Lyonnais bank handles sale of Adidas, in which Bernard Tapie is a majority stakeholder1993-2007: Court battle drags on as Mr Tapie claims Credit Lyonnais undervalued the sale and that he was cheated following the winding-up of the once publicly-owned bank2007: Mr Tapie, a former Socialist, switches to support Nicolas Sarkozy in the presidential election. Ms Lagarde, Mr Sarkozy's finance minister, intervenes in the Tapie case to order binding arbitration2008: Special panel of judges rules Mr Tapie should receive damages of 285m euros (400m after interest added)2011: Public prosecutor recommends judicial investigation into Ms Lagarde's actionsMarch 2013: French police search Ms Lagarde's Paris apartmentApril 2013: Ms Lagarde receives summons to appear before magistrate for questioning The IMF chief insists the award was the best solution at the time. She is not accused of profiting from the payout, but she is being questioned over the alleged misuse of public funds.

The case stretches back to 1993 when Mr Tapie sold his stake in sports company Adidas to Credit Lyonnais. Soon afterwards, the bank sold on the stake for a much bigger profit.

Mr Tapie claimed the partially state-owned bank had defrauded him by deliberately undervaluing Adidas at the time of the sale, and the arbitration panel found in his favour.

Ms Lagarde's predecessor as head of the IMF, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, was forced to resign in 2011 after a New York hotel maid accused him of sexual assault. Charges were later dropped.

The BBC's correspondent in Paris, Christian Fraser, says that after that scandal, few in France want to see another prominent French politician embarrassed on the world stage.

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