Naomi Watts lands Princess Diana role

Watts (r) said she looked forward to the "challenge" of playing the Princess (l)

British-born actress Naomi Watts is to portray Princess Diana in a new film believed to explore her relationship with the heart surgeon Hasnat Khan.

The pair had a discreet romantic affair that began in 1995 and ended a few months before her death in August 1997.
Directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel, Caught in Flight is described as "a compelling portrait of Diana, Princess of Wales during the last two years of her life".
Watts, 43, said it was "such an honour to be able to play this iconic role".
"Princess Diana was loved across the world, and I look forward to rising to the challenge of playing her on screen," she continued.
Hirschbiegel, who previously dramatised Hitler's final days in 2004 film Downfall, described Watts as "a truly exceptional actress who embodies the warmth, humanity and empathy of such a global icon".
Earlier reports had linked US actress Jessica Chastain to her part in the film, to be based on a screenplay by British playwright Stephen Jeffreys.
Watts, whose films include the remakes of King Kong, The Ring and Funny Games, received an Oscar nomination for her work in 21 Grams and was recently seen alongside Leonardo DiCaprio in J Edgar.
Produced by Ecosse Films, whose previous features include John Lennon biopic Nowhere Boy, the movie will begin shooting in the UK later this year.

Deep freeze tightens grip across Europe

The Arctic conditions sweeping Europe have tightened their grip, with more deaths reported in Poland and Ukraine, taking the toll to well over 200.

Polish authorities said nine people had died in the last 24 hours.
An EU official denied there was an emergency as a result of a drop in Russian gas supplies to member states.
But Italy's economic development minister described the situation in the country - where some 60,000 households are without power - as "critical".
Overnight in Poland temperatures reportedly dropped to beneath -30C.
Ukraine's government has said that the country's death toll stands at least 130.
Many of those who died from hypothermia there were homeless people living on the streets, officials said.

“Start Quote

People are in panic”

Mihail Liskov Mayor, Biser, Bulgaria 

 

In parts of Italy, temperatures dropped to their lowest levels for years, with -10C recorded in Milan and heavy snow closing Rome's Colosseum and the Roman Forum.

A total of 17 people have died since the plunging temperatures began in Italy, with eight dead on Sunday alone.
Economic Development Minister Corrado Passera said gas flows were being closely monitored after demand in the country reached all-time highs following a sixth straight day of limited gas supplies from Russia.
'Cold wave'
The Tuscan towns of Arezzo and Siena - where some 36,000 households have been without power for days - said they were considering taking legal action against Italian power supplier ENI.

Some tourist attractions in the Italian capital have been closed due to snow

The firm's chief Paolo Scaroni said they were importing extra gas from Algeria and northern Europe to make up the shortfall.
"We are expecting another cold wave in Russia and we don't know how Gazprom will behave on Thursday and Friday," Mr Scaroni said, according to Agence France Presse.
EU energy spokeswoman Marlene Holzner said that despite a decrease in gas deliveries in Poland, Slovakia, Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Greece and Italy, "it's not a situation of emergency yet".
The extreme weather has also affected central and eastern Europe's remote villages and hamlets.
In southern Bulgaria, five people were reported to have been drowned as torrential rains broke a dam wall and submerged the village of Biser beneath 2.5m (8ft) of icy water, AFP reports.
"People are in panic. Ninety per cent of the village is underwater," mayor Mihail Liskov told Bulgarian radio.
Many of the village's 800 trapped residents will have to be rescued by helicopter or boat.
Schools shut
In Bosnia-Hercegovina, hundreds of villages have been cut off behind snowed-in roads and avalanches and authorities have been using helicopters to evacuate the sick and deliver food.
Authorities said they have had no contact for 72 hours with about 120 people in the central village of Zijemlja, where residents have no electricity or phone lines, AP reports.
The Serbian government declared an emergency late on Sunday, saying the intense snowfall had cut off some 70,000 people. All primary schools and high schools were shut down for a week to save power and keep children safe.

Meanwhile, some were celebrating the icy conditions.
Wine-makers in the south-east of the Czech Republic had been waiting for the weather to dip beneath -7C to be able to harvest frozen grapes for their ice wine.
Snow dusted the palm-trees in the Algerian capital, Algiers, the first time many local recalled snow falling there for eight years.
In the Netherlands, speed-skaters are hoping that freezing conditions continue so they are able to hold an ice-skating marathon along a 125-mile (200k) network of canals connecting 11 cities in the country's Friesland Province.
The Eleven Cities Tour race has only been held 15 times since it was first officially organised in 1909,

Facebook 'to go public with $10bn share offering'

Facebook makes most of its money through advertising

Facebook will begin the process of becoming a publicly-listed company this week, valuing the social networking site at between $75bn (£48bn) and $100bn, reports suggest.

The company plans to file papers with the US financial watchdog on Wednesday, according to the Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal.
The flotation later this year would raise about $10bn, they reported.
This would be one of the biggest share sales seen on Wall Street.
It would dwarf the $1.9bn raised by Google when it went public in 2004.
It would still, however, be some way short of the $20bn raised by carmaker General Motors in November 2010.
'Brilliant achievement' The reports suggest that Morgan Stanley will be the lead underwriter for the sale, with Goldman Sachs also expected to be heavily involved.
Rumours of Facebook's so-called initial public offering (IPO) have circulated for many months, and the company has maintained it will not comment on the subject.
The reported valuation would make Facebook one of the world's biggest companies by market capitalisation.
"Facebook a brilliant achievement, but $75-$100bn? Would make Apple look really cheap," said Rupert Murdoch on Twitter.
The company was started by Mark Zuckerberg and fellow students at Harvard University in 2004 and has quickly grown to become one of the world's most popular websites.
It makes most of its money through advertising.
As a private company, Facebook does not have to publish its accounts, but reports in January last year suggested a document sent by Goldman Sachs to its clients showed the firm made a net profit of $355m on revenues of $1.2bn in the first nine months of 2010.

Davos 2012: Who's afraid of China?

Many in the West worry about being overwhelmed by the sheer size and strength of the Chinese economy

So, who's afraid of China's economic power?

Mention the topic in polite conversation, and chances are that you'll hear complaints about dumping cheap products, stealing jobs and grabbing resources.
If you talk to politicians and economists, you may hear complaints that China is keeping its currency undervalued. There are worries about the size of its foreign currency reserves - currently approaching a massive $4tn (£2.55tn).
So much economic power creates fear and hostility, especially in countries like the United States during an election year, warns Richard Levin, president of Yale University.
Those worries are only bound to increase.
Rich country, poor country?
China's economy, with its 1.3 billion people, keeps on growing rapidly, at a rate of around 10% a year. Already it is the world's second-largest economy. Some here at the World Economic Forum in Davos wonder whether China can still be called a developing economy at all.

“Start Quote

We have no hundred-year history of corporate governance”

John Zhao Hony Capital

 

China's economic growth, says Pascal Lamy, boss of the World Trade Organisation, "will bump into public perception problems".

"There is this perception that there is a Chinese official behind every Chinese business person. That China is grabbing resources. That there is a new colonial 'something'. That they are after technology, stealing, transferring it, all these negative things that translate into [a view] that this is a country that doesn't play by the rules."
Mr Lamy does not agree with these perceptions.
But China, he says, has to develop "a better narrative", tell the world what it really does or suffer a backlash.
"The world outside China still wonders whether China is a poor country with lots of rich people, or a rich country with lots of poor people," says Mr Lamy.
Beginner's mistakes
China is changing so fast, it's probably difficult to make that call.

China is already the second-largest economy in the world - and yet most of its population is poor

John Zhao, chief executive of China's largest private equity firm, Hony Capital, reminded the Davos elite that not that long ago, the Beijing government would tell any Chinese travelling abroad "we make you a nice set of suits, so that you don't look poor".
These days, he said, the West sees mainly very wealthy Chinese travelling abroad. "That also gives the wrong impression. They are wealthy, but they are a minority. Most Chinese are still poor."
But what about China's dubious reputation of doing business abroad? Mr Zhao blames it on beginner's mistakes.
The Chinese government did not know what to do with all its foreign reserves, he says, so they did what everybody else did: buy US Treasury bonds.
And yes, while "there are a few bad Chinese companies" that "intentionally commit fraud," most try to learn and follow the rules.
"We have no hundred-year history of corporate governance," says Mr Zhao.
Robert Greifeld, chief executive of the Nasdaq stock market, notes that the West also has a "rich history of corporate misdeeds - from Parmalat to Enron," and reports that Chinese firms have an "insatiable appetite to learn Western corporate reporting standards".

The big imbalance
However, the trouble with China is much more than just a matter of perception or company reports, argues Stephen Roach, former chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia and now with Yale University.
It's about real economic imbalances, where Chinese consumers and companies save too much, while the West saves too little.
Mr Levin believes that it is about time for the Chinese government to use some of its foreign reserves to invest in its own people, for example by building up a social safety net or boosting a pension systems under pressure from a rapidly ageing population.
More importantly, Mr Roach said, nobody should ignore the 800-pound gorilla in the room: China's reluctance to free the exchange rate of its currency, the renminbi.
It is a controversial topic. So controversial that Mr Lamy noted to general laughter that his briefing notes told him "to shut up" should the topic come up at Davos.
Still, he listed what everyone generally agrees on: The renminbi is undervalued, should be "internationalised" (which means allowed to float freely).
"But it gets difficult when you ask how much," he said. "5% or 30%?"
And, Mr Lamy asked, how would the Chinese public take it when their government's stockpile of dollar reserves suddenly loses a lot of its value?
Return to normal?
Some old China hands disagree with the whole premise that China is behaving unusually at all.
"China is not grabbing resources, it is investing in resources that otherwise would not be developed, whether its in Brazil or Australia or Africa," argues one Davos attendee.
"Is China investing a lot? No, it's a little. Given that it's the world's second-largest economy, it is not investing nearly enough."
Another business leader reminded Davos participants that today's "prejudices" against China were just the same as those "50 years ago, when the Americans were flooding Europe with their products".
Just as we all became a bit "Americanised, maybe we all are going to be a bit more Chinese, but that doesn't bother me either," he said.
The dating game

Will the Year of the Dragon also lead to new understandings between China and the West?

And what if Chinese companies snap up Western firms?
"More and more Chinese companies are looking at firms like Coca-Cola and General Electric and see their success, so they are learning from them... and are interested in becoming multinationals."
It doesn't always work, though.
Mr Zhao tells the story of a German company that decided to spurn the better takeover deal offered by a Chinese firm and sold the company to a French owner instead.
"They made the right decision," says Mr Zhao. "If they felt they could not operate within the Chinese company, the deal would have been a disaster. So that's why we are telling Chinese companies: work on your corporate culture."
Another Chinese executive compared the corporate relationship between China and the West to courtship: "Before marriage, you should date. And so I hope Chinese companies will open offices around the world, so that they learn the culture."
Win-win
"Get ready for more Chinese investment, it will happen," Pascal Lamy told the Western bosses and politicians in the audience. And turning to the many Chinese in the audience he warned that "for this to be a win-win, China has to address perceptions on both sides, in the West and within China".
Otherwise, China's reputation would end up like that of global trade, where the results "are great, but in politics it's [considered to be] terrible".
The outside world should understand that China is changing, was the impassioned plea of Michael Wong, a young entrepreneur whose company, TouchPal, makes smartphone applications that can be found on 20% of the world's Google Android phones.
Companies like his were pushing for change, for example working hard to ensure the protection of intellectual property.
"The stereotype of China may be true for the past, it may even be true for now, but it will change, much faster than you think, in three to five years," said Mr Wong.
"We are the future of China."
And possibly of the world, he might have added.

How do Australians respond to shark attacks?

 

Three attacks in as many weeks have put sharks back on to Australia's front pages. Mercifully, the victims survived - but three maulings is about as many as this country would often see in an entire year.

Off a remote beach in Western Australia, a snorkelling guide was injured by a 10-foot (3m) tiger shark, while two surfers were savaged in separate attacks on the continent's heavily populated east coast.
Graham Nickisson, a member of the Westpac Rescue Helicopter aircrew, was dispatched to find the "rogue shark" - possibly a bull or juvenile great white - responsible for ripping off part of a board rider's thigh at Redhead Beach, near Newcastle, north of Sydney.
What he witnessed from the sky that day over the glittering New South Wales coast was staggering. Never before during a career spanning three decades had he seen the ocean rippling with so many sharks.

"This was quite extraordinary to actually see them so close to shore on our city beaches. I've never seen it in all my years. It was frightening particularly being so close to swimmers. They were certainly unaware the sharks were there," he says.

From the air, some appeared to be up to 4m long including one of nature's most menacing creatures, the hammerhead.
"We came across a lone surfboard rider and when we had a closer look we spotted a shark in the vicinity of him.
"We thankfully got him out of the water as the shark was getting closer and closer, to within about 20ft (6m) of him. We were concerned that we were about to witness a disaster but it all turned out well."
An abundance of baitfish, due to cleaner water and more nutrients in the ocean, is one reason why sharks could be attracted in greater numbers to the coast.
Swimmers and surfers are almost certainly accidental victims but while attacks off Australia are uncommon - figures of 20 in 2009 and 14 in 2010 were higher than normal - deaths are rare. On average there's one fatality each year, yet news of close encounters invariably prompts Australians to wonder what is lurking out to sea.
Rodney Fox, who was almost killed by a great white shark 40 years ago, believes society is gripped by an "irrational fear" of these shadowy prowlers, many of which are protected in Australian waters.
"I've spent my whole life trying to get people to understand that sharks just aren't as bad as people make out," he says from the deck of his boat in South Australia.
He still bears the scars of a spectacular brush with death. His wounds required 468 stitches.

From left: Conservationist Rodney Fox in his youth, after a shark attack, and today

"This huge thump and crash hit me in the chest," says the 71-year-old conservationist and filmmaker.
"I stuck my fingers in its eyes and it let go. I pushed it off and grabbed the whole shark in a bear hug so it couldn't bite me and as I was holding on, I realised I was going to drown because I was 10 metres under water.

'Australians are just used to it'

Carl Bridge Australian studies professor, King's College London

"It's normally very rare to see a shark, let alone be attacked by one.
Australians know certain rules to help them avoid being attacked. For example, dogs draw attention by splashing around.
This won't stop people swimming for long due to the fine weather.
Aussies are not great risk-takers. They are just used to warnings."

He got to the surface but the shark followed him and swallowed his fish float, which was still attached to him, dragging him under again. Fortunately, the line snapped and he kicked for the surface, where he was rescued by the crew onboard a passing boat that had seen the sea turn red.

Australia has a huge coastline that stretches almost 50,000 kilometres and is punctuated by over 10,000 beaches, more than any other nation on Earth. The vast majority of the population - about 85% - live within 50km of the sea. It's not so much blood but salt water that courses through their veins.
More people than ever are taking to the ocean to surf, swim and sail but the chances of coming face-to-face with jaws full of flesh-tearing teeth are slim.
"There are a small number of attacks each year," says Dermot O'Gorman, the head of conservation group WWF-Australia. "It's much more high-risk to drive your car than to go swimming on an Australian beach."
A shark alert was issued at Manly beach in Sydney earlier this month but on an overcast summer's day, surfer Nick, a 22-year-old finance worker from Queensland, was eager to take to the battleship grey waters in search of a decent wave.

Sydney's Manly beach recently issued a shark alert

"You try not to think about sharks but occasionally you see a shadow in the water," he says.
"You see them quickly but they swim away. It's obviously a bit frightening and you lift your legs up off the board but if you're out with other surfers you take your chances. You're out there just to surf, not to worry about sharks."
His 23-year-old friend Phil agrees.
"There's obviously a threat out there but attacks don't happen that often. It's a risk that most people are willing to take.
"For the number of people who go surfing and use the beaches in Australia, I think it's generally pretty safe most of the time."

Growing the world's most expensive lemons

Kevin Connolly's lemon tree has pride of place on his balcony

In a region where most land is desert and droughts are commonplace, growing a tree is not a guilt-free pleasure.

The joy we felt in watching our lemon tree being manoeuvred off the back of a flatbed truck by two burly delivery men was surely very similar to the joy you would feel in growing it from seed.

It just took half an hour, rather than half a lifetime.

There is an economic issue admittedly. So far I have harvested only four of my lemons and I think they have cost about £100 ($155) each, but I am obviously hoping that the average price will fall over time.

For all the fragile grace with which it dances in the chilly winter winds, the tree conceals an astonishing number of thorns beneath its gentle leaves - although at the moment it is pricking my conscience more than my fingers.

The problem is, that like most balcony gardeners in Israel, we have installed a miniature irrigation system to keep the lemon tree alive in the brutal heat of summer.

It does not amount to much more than a couple of metres of brown plastic piping and a timer attached to a tap. But every time I hear the muted sloshing of another carefully calibrated dose, the desert around us feels a little drier.

Lack of fairness

Often the water issue here is reported as part of the broader tension between the Israelis and the Palestinians.

Many of the smaller rivers fed by the River Jordan are dry for most of the year

A French parliamentary report, for example, recently concluded that the 450,000 Israeli settlers who live on the West Bank of the River Jordan, in defiance of international opinion, use more water than the 2.3 million Palestinians whose home it is.

The fairness - or lack of fairness - with which resources are shared is important, of course.

But there is a larger issue which may in the end be more important still. That is the alarming way in which the amount of water in the lakes and rivers which support life for everyone here is dwindling.

The River Jordan carries water south from the Sea of Galilee to the Dead Sea, passing as it does through Palestinian, Jordanian and Israeli land.

These days the Jordan in many places is hardly more than a listless and polluted dribble, but there is plenty of evidence that it was once very different.

Frequent rapids

Half way along the valley for example there is a hydro-electric power plant, long since abandoned.

It is a sobering thought that once the river waters turned its mighty turbines, when these days they are hardly potent enough to moisten a handkerchief.

And we have the writings of the 19th Century American naval officer William Lynch, who in the 1840s rather surprisingly persuaded the government of the United States to fund an expedition down the Jordan Valley.

He spoke of rapids, frequent and most fearful, and of waves like the hammers of the Titans.

Even allowing for the need to persuade his fellow Americans that they were getting full value for their tax dollars, it's clear that there was a lot more to the Jordan back then.

That is partly because these days Israel pumps water out of the Sea of Galilee to feed its national supply system and partly because neighbouring Arab countries use water from the rivers that feed the Galilee.

The effect on the River Jordan is measured best by watching what is happening to the level of the Dead Sea, into which it flows.

It is shrinking by a metre a year. It is only about two-thirds of the size it was in the 1930s.

The ancients once believed it was certain death to try to sail across the Dead Sea - give it another 100 years or so and you'll be able to step over it.

Televised golf

So something has to be done - and attitudes to water in the Middle East are not always rational.

The River Jordan flows into the Sea of Galilee before ending at the Dead Sea

There is the whole debate about how much sense it makes to grow non-native plants like bananas and oranges for a start. And I wince when the lawn-sprinkler system at my apartment complex switches itself on.

Then there are the televised golf tournaments from elsewhere in the desert played on lushest of grass - it is bunkers and sand traps, not putting greens, which are native to the Middle East. And God knows how much that defiance of natural circumstance must cost.

And of course, in its modest way our lemon tree is not helping. Every time I hear the gurgle of the irrigation pipe I imagine the Dead Sea shrinking a little further.

By the time we come to leave Israel, I am told the tree will be too big to fit in our building's lift so a crane will have to be hired to winch it over the edge of the balcony - thus probably raising the average price of the lemons again by quite a bit.

Instead of selling it, I am tempted to take it down to the shores of the Dead Sea and replant it there.

Deprived of its artificial life support system it might not thrive - but it'll do it good to learn to fend for itself.

South Carolina: Voting draws to close in tight primary

Party officials are hoping 450,000 voters turn out for the primary

Voters have endured heavy rain in the US state of South Carolina as Republican candidates battle for the presidential nomination.

Opinion polls suggest a tight race between frontrunner Mitt Romney and former house speaker Newt Gingrich.

Saturday's election is a crucial test for the four remaining contenders.

The stakes are particularly high in South Carolina as the winner there has gone on to win the nomination in every election since 1980.

while this is historical fact, it is in no way an iron law.

Conservatives opposed to a Mitt Romney candidacy see the primary as their best chance of puncturing the sense of inevitability surrounding Mr Romney's bid, though should Mr Gingrich win, the contest would be far from over, our correspondent says.

Mr Romney, a former governor of Massachusetts, has long been seen as the favourite for the nomination, but has failed to excite large numbers of Republican voters.

Mr Gingrich has captured the headlines and risen in the polls in recent days, batting off a potentially damaging interview from an ex-wife, in which she said he had wanted an "open marriage".

The other two major candidates left in the race are former Senator Rick Santorum and Congressman Ron Paul.

Mr Santorum is competing with Mr Gingrich for the conservative vote, while Mr Paul's libertarian message has won him a passionate support, especially among young voters.

'Near showdown'

The candidates made a last-ditch effort to win votes across the state on polling day, stopping to visit a host of polling stations before returning to their bases to watch the results come in.

At one point on Saturday, Mr Romney and Mr Gingrich were set to cross paths in Greenville, but Mr Romney appeared at Tommy's Ham House earlier than planned.

"I'm the only guy's who's spent his life in the real world," Mr Romney, standing on a chair in the crowded restaurant, declared.

He added: "We've got a long way to go. So come join us in Florida, in Nevada, Michigan, Colorado. We've got a long way to go."

Continue reading the main story

South Carolina Primary

• 'First in the South' primary since 1980
• Every South Carolina winner since 1980 has become Republican nominee
• 2.7 million registered voters
• Republicans, Democrats and independents all eligible to vote
• Republican officials hope for turnout of 450,000

When Mr Gingrich walked in - just minutes after Mr Romney left - he said: "Where's Mitt?"

"I need your help," Mr Gingrich said. "This is a very, very important day. We have an opportunity to nominate the genuine conservative who can debate, and who can take it to Barack Obama."

At the polls, voters seemed prepared to overlook Mr Gingrich's personal life.

"I remember what he did when he was speaker and in a group where there's not a lot to choose from that counts," said Frankie Jackson, voting with his 18-year-old daughter in Lexington County.

Others backed Mr Romney. "For me the main issue is the economy," voter Jim Pagett said in the state capital, Columbia.

"I feel there is no other candidate in the Republican field who has the business experience he has," he said, adding that he was had concerns Mr Gingrich did not have the temperament to be president.

Primaries and caucuses will be held in every US state over the next few months to pick a Republican nominee before the eventual winner is anointed at the party convention in August to take on Mr Obama in November.

Results are due to start coming in from about 7:30pm (00:30 GMT Sunday).

Iran's Press TV loses UK licence

George Galloway is one of the more well known faces who presented on Press TV

Iranian news network Press TV has had its licence revoked by the media regulator Ofcom and will no longer be allowed to broadcast in the UK.

Ofcom said the state broadcaster's English language outlet had breached several broadcasting licence rules over editorial control of the channel.

Press TV has also failed to pay a £100,000 fine imposed last year.

The channel called the decision "a clear example of censorship". It will be removed from Sky on 20 January.

The £100,000 fine was imposed last year after the network broadcast an interview with imprisoned Newsweek and Channel 4 journalist Maziar Bahari, which the Ofcom said had been conducted under duress.

Ofcom said Press TV had "indicated it is unwilling and unable to pay".

It was during the investigation into the Bahari interview that the media regulator formed the impression that editorial decisions on the channel were being controlled by the offices in Tehran, instead of the UK.

Press TV was given the opportunity to respond and make the relevant amendments needed to comply with the broadcasting code, but "failed to make the necessary application", Ofcom said.

In a statement issued to the BBC, Press TV's newsroom director Mr Hamid Emadi said: "We asked Ofcom if Press TV Limited did not have control over the broadcast, why was it getting fined, if it did have control, why would the licence be revoked?

"Ofcom contradictions are nothing new for Press TV. The British government's tool to control the media has, on several occasions, changed its decisions regarding Press TV in its two-year campaign against the alternative news channel."

The statement also claimed that Ofcom, which it called "the media arm of the Royal family", had failed to respond to a letter sent by its Chief Executive earlier this month.

Press TV channel launched in 2007 to break what Iran's state broadcaster called a Western "stranglehold" over the world's media.

Sopa: Sites go dark as part of anti-piracy law protests

housands of internet sites are taking part in a "blackout" protest against anti-piracy laws being discussed by US lawmakers.

The Wikipedia encyclopedia and blogging service WordPress are among the highest profile pages to remove material.

Google is showing solidarity by placing a black box over its logo when US-based users visit its site.

The Motion Picture Association of America has branded the action as "irresponsible" and a "stunt".

Visitors to Wikipedia's English-language site are greeted by a dark page with white text that says: "Imagine a world without free knowledge... The US Congress is considering legislation that could fatally damage the free and open internet. For 24 hours, to raise awareness, we are blacking out Wikipedia."

It provides a link to more details about the House of Representatives' Stop Online Piracy Act (Sopa) and the Senate's Protect Intellectual Property Act (Pipa).

If users try to access its other pages via search sites, the text briefly flashes up before being replaced by the protest page. However, people have been sharing workarounds to disable the redirect.

Global protest

WordPress's homepage displays a video which claims that Sopa "breaks the internet" and asks users to add their name to a petition asking Congress to stop the bill.

"The authors of the legislation don't seem to really understand how the internet works," the site's co-founder, Matt Mullenweg told the BBC.

Across the globe, several Pirate Party sites have been taken offline. The political parties - which advocate reform of copyright laws - took the action in the UK, Spain, Sweden, Argentina, Canada and elsewhere.

Mojang, the developer of Minecraft, has replaced the game's website with a protest message

The news recommendation site Reddit, the online magazine Boing Boing, the software download service Tucows and the German hackers' group the Chaos Computer Congress also removed access to their content.

The tech news site Wired covered its headlines and pictures with black boxes which were only removed when covered with the cursor.

The US news website Politico estimated that 7,000 sites were involved by early Wednesday morning.

'Gimmick'

The moves were described as an "abuse of power" by one of the highest profile supporters of the anti-piracy bills.

"Some technology business interests are resorting to stunts that punish their users or turn them into their corporate pawns, rather than coming to the table to find solutions to a problem that all now seem to agree is very real and damaging," said former Senator Chris Dodd, the chairman of the Motion Picture Association of America.

"It is an irresponsible response and a disservice to people who rely on them for information... A so-called 'blackout' is yet another gimmick, albeit a dangerous one, designed to punish elected and administration officials who are working diligently to protect American jobs from foreign criminals."

The US Chamber of Commerce said that the claims against the legislation had been overstated.

"[The sponsors] announced they would roll back the provisions of these bills designed to block foreign criminal websites, striking a major conciliatory note with those who raised legitimate concerns," said Steve Tepp, chief intellectual property counsel at the chamber's Global Intellectual Property Center.

"That was on top of the changes that guarantee the bill applies only to foreign sites. What remains are two pieces of legislation that are narrowly tailored and commercially reasonable for taking an effective swipe at the business models of rogue sites."

The proposed legislation would allow the Department of Justice and content owners to seek court orders against any site accused of "enabling or facilitating" piracy.

Sopa also calls for search engines to remove infringing sites from their results. Pipa does not include this provision.

'Threat to innovation'

Google posted a blog on the subject claiming that the bills would not stop piracy.

"Pirate sites would just change their addresses in order to continue their criminal activities," it said.

"There are better ways to address piracy than to ask US companies to censor the internet. The foreign rogue sites are in it for the money, and we believe the best way to shut them down is to cut off their sources of funding."

Other net firms that have criticised the legislation decided not to take part in the blackout.

Twitter's founder, Dick Costolo, tweeted that it would be foolish to take the service offline.

Facebook declined to comment on the page blackouts but referred users to a new page by its washington DC service which said: "The bills contain overly broad definitions and create a new private cause of action against companies on the basis of those expansive definitions, which could seriously hamper the innovation, growth, and investment in new companies that have been the hallmarks of the internet."

Debate

The events coincided with news that the US House of Representatives plans to resume work on Sopa next month.

The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Lamar Smith, said: "I am committed to continuing to work with my colleagues in the House and Senate to send a bipartisan bill to the White House."

The Senate is expected to start voting on 24 January on how to proceed on Pipa.

Even if Congress approves the bills, President Barack Obama may decide to veto them.

The White House issued a statement at the weekend saying that "we will not support legislation that reduces freedom of expression, increases cybersecurity risk, or undermines the dynamic, innovative global internet".

Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang resigns from its board

Jerry Yang, the co-founder of Yahoo!, has resigned from its board.

Mr Yang founded the online company in 1995 with David Filo and was its chief executive from June 2007 until January 2009.

His resignation comes two weeks after the company hired former PayPal executive Scott Thomson to be its new chief executive.

Mr Yang annoyed some shareholders by turning down a $47.5bn (£31bn) takeover offer from Microsoft in 2008.

The company's current market value is about $20bn.

Mr Yang has also resigned from the boards of Yahoo Japan and Alibaba Group and said in a statement: "The time has come for me to pursue other interests outside of Yahoo!".

He also expressed support for the company's current management.

"I am enthusiastic about the appointment of Scott Thompson as Chief Executive Officer and his ability, along with the entire Yahoo! leadership team, to guide Yahoo! into an exciting and successful future," he said.

Yahoo! shares rose 3.4% in after-hours trading.

Some analysts had seen Mr Yang as an impediment to the sale or restructuring of the business.

"This is clearly a positive. It provides a more objective and unemotional approach to strategic alternatives," said Brett Harriss at Gabello & Co.

"It's also good for the new CEO. He has one less entrenched legacy board member to resist his vision."

In addition to leaving the board, Mr Yang is also giving up his title of "Chief Yahoo".

"While I and the entire board respect his decision, we will miss his remarkable perspective, vision and wise counsel," said Yahoo! chairman Roy Bostock.

CES postscript: Smart TVs get ready for prime time

There are thousands of apps already available, with more to come, on the various smart TV formats

It must have been a coincidence, but in retrospect the choice seems apt.

The transatlantic flight heading towards Las Vegas' Consumer Electronics Show (CES) was screening the episode of 30 Rock in which Alec Baldwin's character tries to impress his new boss with a voice-controlled television.

His demo is less than smooth.

"What we have is some mute kids," says one of the on-screen characters - and the sound turns off. "Crap!" responds Mr Baldwin, and the set switches to "Keeping up with the Kardashians".

Fast-forward to CES, and the newly unveiled smart TVs may have avoided this pitfall, but other limitations were apparent.

Voice instructions were often misunderstood, or ignored altogether, if operators added an unapproved word to their commands. Gesture controls proved a fiddly way to select links on built-in web browsers, and could be accidentally triggered by a third-party in the room.

Continue reading the main story

“Start Quote

We see TV as being at the centre of that connected world”

Andy GriffithsSamsung

In extreme cases error messages popped up and TVs had to be rebooted.

But even if some of the bells and whistles still needed more tweaking, there was a sense that this year's trade show marked a turning point - TVs sets with the ability to stream online content and run apps appeared on their way to becoming the norm.

Unleash the apps

At the end of 2011 there were 82 million connected TVs in homes worldwide according to research group Informa. By 2016 it forecasts that number will have ballooned to 892 million.

"There had been some early efforts - Samsung and other vendors putting apps on televisions," says Brian Blau from the tech analysis firm Gartner.

"But this year we are seeing a real coming out party at CES where we can now sort of see the future of smart TVs, and I would even go so far as to call it version 1.0."

For years much of the tech industry has pursued a vision of the computer as the home's digital hub. Owners used their PCs to copy photos off digital cameras, download music and movies and then transfer the material to other compatible devices.

Samsung's built-in camera allows its TV to recognise gestures and identify users

Advanced users might have connected their laptop to their TVs or streamed content to the sets wirelessly, but the televisions were at most at the end of a spur coming off the hub, rather than its heart.

The roll-out of cloud services allied to faster internet speeds now offers televisions the chance to usurp the PC's place, and offers users further freedom from the confines of broadcasters' schedules.

No 'idiot box'

Samsung - the world's best-selling TV-maker - has been at the forefront of efforts to deliver this vision.

One of the promotional videos it showed at this year's event claimed watching television by appointment would become a foreign concept in the future, and its executives talk of the TV being the centre of the home.

"We call it more than a TV, and I think that's exactly the experience we're looking for, where you have a whole democratisation of content coming through," explains Andy Griffiths, managing director of Samsung UK and Ireland.

Continue reading the main story

“Start Quote

There is heavy use of streaming services into people's homes today, and that's only going to increase”

Mario QueirozGoogle TV

"[It is] influencing the way people choose their content, manipulate their own content and personalise their own content.

"If you put that under the banner of smart TV and what smart TV can deliver to you, it increasingly interfaces with some of the PC functionalities - but in fact it's about being a connected product. We see TV as being at the centre of that connected world."

Skype soccer mash-up

Users are offered thousands of apps allowing them to use social networks, play video games, run educational software and follow exercise routines. But smart TV makers recognise that people still want a sit-back rather than lean-forward experience most of the time.

Furthermore they acknowledge that increasing numbers of homes own other connected devices. So users may still find it preferable to tweet about a show via their tablet or smartphone rather than shrink the TV picture to pull up an app alongside.

However, manufacturers insist there are instances where it makes more sense to have everything on one screen.

"Probably the best example is that you are watching live sport and a family member phones on Skype and you want to take the call but you still want to be watching the football," says Andrew Denham, Panasonic UK's marketing director.

Panasonic and others hope the Olympic Games will drive sales of smart TVs

"You just mute the game, and you can have the interface with the loved one, and nobody's any the wiser that you are still watching the football - unless there is a goal score of course.

"It's actually trying to make that multiscreen-in-one-environment work in a very effective way that's going to be a key to tiering it down, so that it is not just catch-up services that are popular but other applications."

Google TV 2.0

While Samsung and Panasonic are developing their own system software, Google is taking a second crack at offering its own smart TV service.

At the show, LG and Vizio unveiled new sets with the search firm's Android-based software built in. Sony also added the facility to two devices - a set-top box and a Blu-ray player.

The first version of Google TV launched in October 2010 to much fanfare, but proved a flop - enabled devices were criticised for being too expensive, and several TV networks blocked the US-only service from accessing their web content.

This time round a focus on apps may tempt content providers to co-operate, but for now it remains reliant on its own YouTube service as well as streams from Netflix, Amazon and several niche operations.

"I think it is more difficult for the web to come to TV than it was to smartphones for example," says Mario Queiroz, vice president of product management for Google TV.

"TV content is of very high quality, high resolution and performance.

"But what is happening is with the silicon and hardware technologies that we're seeing, the bandwidth coming into people's homes and with the advanced operating system that is Android, this is becoming a possibility.

"There is heavy use of streaming services into people's homes today, and that's only going to increase."

Sony has released a remote control with a touchpad for its Google TV devices

Alternative systems

Google TV is due to expand to Europe this summer, but it will face competition from another third-party system.

UK-based Canonical was punting a rival Linux-based Ubuntu operating system at the trade show. It says it offers a solution to clients who do not want to develop their own software and content deals, but feel uncomfortable linking up with Google.

"[Manufacturers] want to make money after the device goes out, and often with a device running on Google, Google has so much power," said Peter Goodall, who manages product strategy at the firm.

"We are a more flexible partner in that sense. We can help them integrate their own services so that they are still making money after the sale."

Whichever operating system proves most popular, the internet poses a threat to the rest of the pay-TV market.

Yet cable TV box-maker Tivo argues that it also presents an opportunity. The firm, which makes devices for Virgin Media in the UK, boasts that it is better positioned to offer an "elegant" service offering live, catch-up and pay-per-view shows, as well as programmes its devices select and record on their owner's behalf.

Furthermore, it says that recent developments have spurred pay-TV providers on to furnish its boxes with more material.

"It tends to light a fire under the operator world, who are quite concerned about the thrust of where companies [like Google] may want to go, which they consider highly disruptive to their relationship with their subscribers in the television space," says Tivo's chief executive Tom Rogers.

There are almost as many smart TV operating systems as there are manufacturers

"So the Google emphasis in the industry is actually something we have found helpful to galvanising more operators around our solution."

Further evidence of Tivo's efforts to exploit, rather than be undermined by, Google came with its sole CES announcement - a remote control and content-finding app for Android devices.

Kinected TVs

Lenovo, Toshiba, Sharp, Hisense and Haier were among several others launching new smart TV models at the Las Vegas event.

However, despite all the innovation on show, many analysts appeared preoccupied by the one company without a booth - Apple.

The firm's strength in the online music industry, its Siri natural speech recognition facility and a hint of having "cracked it" in the recent Steve Jobs biography, have all combined to create an as yet unjustified sense that the iPhone giant is about to disrupt the television market.

However, it may be Microsoft that deserves closer scrutiny.

In an otherwise news-light presentation, chief executive Steve Ballmer revealed that its XBox Live online service now had more than 40 million subscribers. He added that increasing numbers of these owners were using their consoles to watch live TV, on-demand programming, news and movies.

The firm already offers UK users access to content from Sky, Amazon's Lovefilm, YouTube and 4 on Demand among others, and US users were promised additional content from News Corp's Fox TV channels.

"People don't know them as a TV interface, but if you are a gamer you clearly understand the value of that, especially if you have the Kinect accessory," said Gartner's Brian Blau.

Analysts have praised the Kinect's integration with the Xbox 360's TV services

"Its voice and gesture controls in combination with its handheld controller and new Metro user interface are starting to gel with the XBox 360."

According to Reuters, Microsoft had planned to go further and unvail its own tv and subscription service, but baulked at the fees media companies demanded.

However, analysts expect the firm to offer an even smoother TV browsing interface when it releases its next generation games console - possibly as early as the E3 games conference in June.

For now, the smart TV market looks fragmented from the point of view of content, and immature in terms of some of the technologies involved.

But as smart TVs become ever smarter, previous generations of unconnected sets may soon appear only slightly less antiquated than the black-and-white models of yesteryear.