Website Arts

Avia Watches

2008-12-10T00:00:00+01:00

Website Arts is delighted to annouce the launch of the new website for Avia Watches.

Founded in 1910, Avia Watches are an established quintessentially British brand with an eccentric edge.

There will be lots of additions in the coming months including online shopping, with lots of activity happening right up to the Avia Watches centenary in 2010.

Historic Royal Palaces

2008-12-08T00:00:00+01:00

Website arts Limited is very proud to announce that the Historic Royal Palaces online shop will be undergoing extensive improvement by website Arts Limited over the coming months. You'll find an exciting, often exclusive range of gifts, collectibles, tableware, jewellery and much more, all inspired by the royal palaces in their care: the Tower of London, Hampton Court Palace, Kensington Palace, the Banqueting House and Kew Palace.

Turning Social Networks Against Users

2008-09-14T23:00:00+01:00

Ever since Facebook opened its doors to third-party applications a year and a half ago, millions of users have employed miniature applications to play games, share movie and song recommendations, and even "zombie-bite" their friends. But as the popularity of third-party applications has grown, computer-security researchers have also begun worrying about ways that social-networking applications could be misused. The same thing that makes social networking such an effective way to distribute applications--deep access to a user's networks of friends and acquaintances--could perhaps make it an ideal way to distribute malicious code.

A number of research projects have demonstrated growing unease. At the Information Security Conference in Taiwan this week, researchers from the Foundation for Research and Technology Hellas (FORTH) in Greece will present details of an experiment that involved enlisting Facebook users in a potentially devastating kind of Internet attack. The researchers created an application that displays photographs from National Geographic on a user's profile page. However, invisible to the user, the app also requests large image files from a target server--in this case, a test machine hosted at FORTH. Provided that enough people add the application to their page, the resulting flood of requests can shut down the server or render it inaccessible to legitimate users.

Elias Athanasopoulos, a research assistant at FORTH who is involved in the project, says that the researchers made no effort to promote their application but found that around 1,000 Facebook users installed it within a few days. The resulting attack was not particularly severe, but Athanasopoulos says that it could disrupt a small website, and he suggests that the onslaught could be made more intense with minor adjustments to the application. The attack relies on open access to Facebook. "It's very difficult to provide a platform that will not [allow developers to] interfere in malicious ways with the rest of the Web," he says.

A more detailed analysis covering several different social-networking sites suggests that the potential for mischief may actually run much deeper. Two computer-security consultants--Nathan Hamiel of Hexagon Security Group and Shawn Moyer of Agura Digital Security--recently built examples of malicious applications on top of OpenSocial, an open application platform used by MySpace, hi5, Orkut, and several other social networks. One of their demo applications, called DoSer, logs out users who view a compromised profile page for seven seconds. Another, called CSRFer, sends unauthorized friend requests from a target user. But Hamiel says that there are plenty more ways to attack social networks and that little can be done to defend them. "[An application] hooks into the social net about as deep as it can go," he says.

The real price of bottled water

2008-08-04T23:00:00+01:00

As we become increasingly aware of the environmental impact of bottled water, could this be the start of a backlash against the industry?

Fancy some Just Born Spring Drops from India, or some Cloud Juice from Australia? Nip down to Claridge’s and you can get some liquid refreshment from either of these drinks, or one of the hotel’s other 28 exotic bottled waters.

The waters are brought in from all corners of the globe and range in price from £5 to £50 a litre. Some are said to aid digestion, others are good with salads, and one or two apparently complement sushi.

Most people’s passion for bottled water doesn’t extend this far, but we still buy it in enormous quantities. Here in the UK, we drink more than two billion litres each year. Tap water is often seen as an inferior drink, a bit cheap and embarrassing to ask for in a restaurant.

But in a growing number of cities, such as San Francisco, New York and Paris, drinking tap water is becoming the trendy green choice. Several restaurants have decided to stop serving bottled water altogether because of concerns over the environmental impact of making, transporting and disposing of billions of bottles.

Carbon footprint and waste

Here in the UK, green campaigners are also supporting the tap. “Selling water in bottles and burning massive quantities of fossil fuel for its transportation does not make economic or environmental sense,” says Jenny Jones, Green Party member for the London Assembly.

“Most containers for bottled water are made from non-degradable plastics, which take 450 years to break down when disposed of in landfill sites. Even glass bottles of water still take a lot of energy to crush and recycle,” she adds.

One recent study calculated that the bottled water industry in the UK generates annually about 33,200 tonnes of CO2 emissions. That is just a little less than the electricity consumption of 20,000 households and the equivalent to the annual energy needs of 6000 homes.

Recycling and packaging

There are more than 200 different brands of bottled water on our supermarket shelves. The biggest selling are names like Evian and Volvic, which travel up to 600 miles to reach us. Most of the bottles are made from non-biodegradable plastic and only about a quarter are recycled, according to the Waste and Resources Action Programme.

In its defence, the bottled water industry claims that it is making moves to be greener. The Bottled Water Information Office (BWIO), which represents several big brands including Volvic and Evian, says recycling rates are increasing and the industry continues to make inroads into packaging technology.

“The industry has already reduced the weight of packaging by 30 per cent,” says Richard Laming, spokesperson for the BWIO. “Individual manufacturers are committed to introducing energy efficiencies and some producers have started experimenting with biodegradable forms of plastic.”

One company experimenting with a different type of packaging is Belu Water, which introduced a biodegradable bottle made from cornstarch (PLA). The problem is that the bottles don’t break down easily in home compost systems, and that commercial compost collections will generally not take them.

Now Belu wants the bottles to be recycled instead, even though founder Reed Paget is aware that recycling companies do not have a separate recycling stream for PLA. He says the bottles can be recycled with normal plastics until Belu can encourage more recycling companies to separate biodegradable plastics from normal plastic.

Some brands of drink, such as Innocent and Ribena are now using recycled plastic for part or all of their bottles. But wide use of this material, known as PCR plastic, is not expected yet in the UK, according to Duncan Goose, founder of One water.

Is bottled water better for you?

Efforts to find greener options are commendable, but do we need to drink bottled water at all? Clive Johnson, a water expert at the Royal Society of Chemistry, is in no doubt.

“Tap water is as safe, if not more safe, than bottled water,” he says. “[It] is subject to more analyses and tests than both food and bottled water. It is also at least 1000 times cheaper to produce and requires less energy because it arrives at our taps with the help of gravity.”

But what about all the good minerals in bottled water? “All water has minerals,” says Johnson. “ Tap water has minerals and calcium too.”

Ethical brands

There is an extra twist in the bottled water debate. Young brands such as One, Frank, Belu, and Thirsty Planet, are all part of a growing trend of ethical bottled waters. These are produced by small companies in the UK who don’t distribute overseas.

Their main selling point is that they give money, in some cases all of their profits, to water projects in developing countries. These companies aim to help communities that would give anything to be able to turn on a tap and have a permanent supply of fresh water.

Primates 'face extinction crisis'

2008-08-04T23:00:00+01:00

A global review of the world's primates says 48% of species face extinction, an outlook described as "depressing" by conservationists.

The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species says the main threat is habitat loss, primarily through the burning and clearing of tropical forests.

More than 70% of primates in Asia are now listed as Endangered, it adds.

The findings form part of the most detailed survey of the Earth's mammals, which will be published in October.

PRIMATES IN PERIL

Nations with the highest percentage of threatened species:

Cambodia - 90%

Vietnam - 86%

Indonesia - 84%

Laos - 83%

China - 79%

(Source: IUCN Red List)

Other threats include hunting of primates for food and the illegal wildlife trade, explained Russell Mittermeier, chairman of global conservation group IUCN's Primate Specialist Group and president of Conservation International.

"In many places, primates are quite literally being eaten to extinction," he warned.

"Tropical forest destruction has always been the main cause, but now it appears that hunting is just as serious a threat in some areas, even where the habitat is still quite intact."

The survey, involving hundreds of experts, showed that out of 634 recognised species and subspecies, 11% were Critically Endangered, 22% were Endangered, while a further 15% were listed as Vulnerable.

Asia had the greatest proportion of threatened primates, with 71% considered at risk of extinction. The five nations with the highest percentage of endangered species were all within Asia.

EDF pulls out of British Energy takeover

2008-07-31T23:00:00+01:00

The UK’s ambitions of nuclear regeneration were thrown to the wind today, as French energy giant EDF pulled out of discussions on the eleventh hour. Shareholders argued that soaring energy demands and rising costs, put BE in the position for a better offer.

France’s biggest energy company was expected to confirm the £12 billion takeover today; however the French state-owned firm felt conditions regarding the takeover were not right for their development within the UK.

France is a world leader in nuclear technology and has assisted many countries seeking to develop their nuclear presence, particulary in the Middle East. British Energy, who is 35 percent owned by the British Government, looked to update their nuclear stations in the UK with the aid of EDF. British Energy currently operates eight dated nuclear reactors in the UK.

Reports say that the embarrassment could have been avoided, had BERR not sold their stake in the company. The takeover could have seen the requirements of non-oil and gas energy fulfilled; however the ‘advanced discussions’ have not led to the desired results for the UK's overhaul.

EDF do have other options in UK for nuclear development, with two sites adjacent to land purchased by the French firm. EOn, RWE, and Iberdrola, as well as the UK's Centrica have mulled the takeover, but the recent rejection has seen shares in BE tumble.