If you’ve been reading the newspaper headlines yesterday and today, you could be forgiven for thinking that TalkTalk has suddenly taken strident measures to block online pornography from children’s sensitive eyes.

The Sunday Times dramatically describes the ISP as having “broken ranks” with its fellow ISPs by offering “all its 4m subscribers a blanket opt-out for pornography sites” and forcing all existing users — rather than only new customers — to say whether or not they want the service (I’ll leave it to you whether that’s opting in or opting out). “TalkTalk is offering parents protection for every computer, games console or e-reader accessing the internet via the family broadband connection.”

Following the Times’ lead, Channel 4 proclaims: “TalkTalk now plans to question all of its 4.2m customers, forcing them to choose whether to use settings that would block information on computers, mobile phones, games consoles and e-readers.”

The Metro crows that TalkTalk is “becoming the first provider to offer the service at server level”, while The Mirror reveals that TalkTalk has “introduced a filter called HomeSafe”. The Sun also seems to think HomeSafe is new technology, saying “TalkTalk’s move will put pressure on other internet providers to offer the same service”.

Everyone’s welcome to an opinion — and we certainly have ours — but the stumbling blind coverage of the Sunday Times story shows just how little anyone seems to know about the technology in question

Those of you who are TalkTalk customers or who follow broadband — hey, everyone needs a hobby — may be wondering if you’ve stepped back in time to last year, when TalkTalk first started offering the HomeSafe filter. It’s not a new service; it’s been around for a full year. Guess that “pressure” hasn’t had much of an effect on rival ISPs, eh, Sun writers?

TalkTalk’s plans to ask all existing customers whether they want the filter on or off is slightly fresher, but it’s hardly news. The ISP revealed the plans a month ago: “TalkTalk has long welcomed Parliamentary and Government interest in this area and is demonstrating its commitment by announcing that it will begin testing new ways of prompting existing customers to make a choice about blocking pornography and other categories of internet content.” That’s from a press release dated 17 April, but in case anyone missed that, TalkTalk repeated the news in a blog post on 4 May, and referenced it in another post last week, tellingly titled “Happy Birthday HomeSafe”.

Why, then, are so many writing as though TalkTalk’s announced something new today? Why is a month-old press release suddenly worth a front page splash? TalkTalk’s own press office admitted nothing was new in the Sunday Times‘ story, but said that the paper wanted something to kick off its campaign on the topic. In other words, the Sunday Times is so keen on keeping people talking about the issue that it’s willing to pretend something is new news when it’s not.

Everyone’s welcome to an opinion — and we certainly have ours — but the stumbling blind coverage of the Sunday Times story shows just how little anyone seems to know about the technology in question; a quick glance at the TalkTalk blog would have made it clear to the Mirror, Sun and Metro that this filter isn’t new. While PC Pro readers know enough to notice the flaws in newspaper claims, imagine how confusing these mixed messages are to less tech-savvy people — the very people these automated systems are designed to help out.

To be fair, few people covered the 17 April announcement (ourselves included), possibly down to timing: it’s also — rather intriguingly — the day a report into online pornography was released by MP Claire Perry, reigniting the debate by again calling for ISPs to block  such content at the network level, and force customers to say whether or not they want such a filter. Fancy that.

Maybe that’s why everyone missed TalkTalk’s announcement the first time around: everyone was too busy demanding the Government block porn/worrying the Government would block porn, that no-one noticed TalkTalk had already done what everyone wanted/feared.

Pop quiz, hotshot. Of all the visitors to this website in the month of writing, what percentage arrived using 1,920 x 1,080, Full HD screens? Make yourself a cuppa and have a think, we’ll come back to the answer later.

In the meantime, you’ll no doubt have noticed we reviewed the new iPad last month. As is customary, it attracted all sorts of negative reports at launch, from teardowns showing it’s the most tightly sealed, least recyclable iPad yet, right up to Daily Mail hysteria about it burning people’s hands. But there’s one feature no-one in their right mind was criticising: the screen.

Love or hate Apple’s methods, few can deny that its products drive technological progress. When Apple first introduced the Retina display on the iPhone 4, minds were set racing as to where this would eventually take us: if high-pixel-density displays were viable on a mobile phone, with Apple’s huge economies of scale, how long before they’d spread upwards?

Sure enough, the new iPad took that next step. A resolution of 1,536 x 2,048 on a 9.7in panel means a staggering pixel density of 246ppi. This isn’t as high as the iPhone 4, but it’s higher than any tablet we’ve seen. It’s high enough that on this larger screen you finally notice the relatively low resolution of images and logos used in many websites and apps.

It isn’t the content’s fault – until last month, it didn’t need to be of a particularly high resolution. Now, suddenly, it does. Like the BBC rebuilding EastEnders’ shoddy sets to stand up to HD viewing, an upscale is needed – and sharpish, with three million new iPads meeting eager eyes within the first four days on sale.

The sheer number being sold means that it’s smartphones and tablets driving this technological change. Of the 19 handsets in a recent PC Pro smartphones Labs, 14 had a pixel density of 200ppi or higher, and 11 of those were above 250ppi. Tablets aren’t far behind, with the front-running iPad soon to be rivalled by a 10in tablet from Asus with a 1080p screen – that’s 218ppi.

The general feeling is that laptop displays have barely progressed in the past few years.

Compare that to the 100ppi of the average 15.6in, 1,366 x 768 laptop screen and it sounds like the future is here today. So let’s go back to the quiz question, about how many PC Pro website visitors use 1080p screens. If you guessed 50%, you’re in dream land. If you said 40%, or even 30%, I’m afraid you’ve been sold a lie by the Full HD brigade.

The actual figure is 11%. For fairness, we’ll add those with the less common 1,920 x 1,200 resolution to take it up to 16%. Not a lot, is it? If we take that further, and add the few visitors with higher-resolution 27in and 30in screens, we hit the heady heights of 18%, meaning a massive 82% of you make do with resolutions that are frankly laughable by the standards of a £399 tablet.

It hasn’t gone unnoticed. Although you could argue that a laptop’s longer viewing distance doesn’t need the sharpness of the new iPad, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t expect better than we currently get. Each month we receive emails and comment threads asking when manufacturers will wake up and offer Full HD screens, or higher, on reasonably priced laptops. The general feeling is that laptop displays have barely progressed in the past few years.

So where are the high-resolution laptop screens? First, they’ve been waiting for an OS that can handle them properly – Windows 8 finally adds the kind of high-dpi support OS X has had since Lion. They also require a bigger battery, which may be putting off manufacturers in the current market of ultra-thin Ultrabooks.

But the simpler fact is that panel production is focused elsewhere: larger 1080p TVs and monitors, and smaller smartphones and tablets. Sony offers a 13.1in Full HD panel on its top-end VAIO Z, but that’s a rare sight these days. What we need is a financially flush company with an already popular product to take on the risk of ordering a new panel in real numbers to drive things forward. So far in the laptop world that hasn’t happened.

But signs are promising. First, Apple did exactly that with a 3.5in smartphone, and now again with a 9.7in tablet. The rumour mill was already buzzing with talk of a Retina MacBook display before the new iPad, and we remain almost desperately hopeful it arrives in the next update. Some will inevitably bemoan it if it does, Apple technology being automatically A Bad Thing; but like it or not, it’s largely thanks to Apple that such leaps are being made.

(This article first appeared in issue 212 of PC Pro.)

HP’s Global Influencers Summit in Shanghai has been dominated by Ultrabooks – and, of course, Sleekbooks – but the firm’s fourth new laptop is one of the most intriguing.

It’s the Elitebook Folio 9470m, and HP hopes that on release in October it’ll entice high-flying executives with its combination of corporate features and attractive design.

For starters, there’s TPM, Intel vPro and a range of HP software, including a customisable BIOS – handy for IT managers who want to restrict access to certain parts of the software or, indeed, lock out meddling employees entirely. HP will also install its ProtectTools software suite alongside Windows 7 Professional, and a fingerprint reader is also an optional extra.

The Folio will come with a set of accessories. The battery, which HP says will last nine hours, can be upgraded with a secondary power pack that – the firm claims – increases the Folio’s longevity to a whopping 20 hours. The battery slice attaches to the bottom of the 19mm EliteBook and adds several millimetres to the base of the machine, bringing the Elitebook’s dimensions firmly out of Ultrabook territory. Nevertheless, it’s a worthwhile addition for those who spend plenty of time on the road.

For those who stay attached to their desk, there’s also a docking station with a broad range of additional ports and sockets: four USB 3 ports, a D-SUB output, Ethernet socket, audio outputs and a DisplayPort output, which complement the D-SUB, RJ45 and USB 3 sockets that are already included on the machine.

HP has also paid attention to the Folio’s design, with James Mouton, the senior vice president of HP’s global computing unit, saying that “users want something more compelling and sleeker” – a change that’s seen HP “deliberately blur the line between commercial and consumer”. The Folio is certainly one of the best-looking corporate machines we’ve seen thanks to its brushed metal exterior and black bezel, although the odd hint of plastic and visible seams mean it can’t quite compete with the best consumer machines.

We can’t comment, though, on screen quality or ergonomics. With release so far away and final tweaks presumably still being made, HP could only bring a dummy model to Shanghai.

Aside from confirming that the Folio will use Intel’s ultra-low voltage Ivy Bridge processors and that its 14in screen will have a resolution of at least 1,366 x 768, HP’s representatives wouldn’t divulge any more information about the Folio’s internals.

And the October release date also means pricing hasn’t been finalised. Don’t expect it to be cheap, though, thanks to the premium design, Ivy Bridge processor and broad range of security features – and don’t expect the docking station or battery slice to command bargain prices, either.

The big question is whether HP can produce a business class Ultrabook to accompany the Folio by October.

Normally an all-in-one printer wouldn’t draw crowds, but HP’s latest – the OfficeJet 150 – is a little different. While it offers the print, copy and scan functions you’d expect from a multifunction machine, this one is barely a foot wide – and weighs only 3kg.

HP is billing the OfficeJet 150 as a portable all-in-one for busy business folk and, while it’s certainly not as light or mobile as the average laptop or tablet, we can easily see it being kept on the back seat of a car or in a backpack.

The clever design sees the paper tray folds up from the top of the machine, and beneath that lies a horizontal panel that, once lifted and locked into place, reveals a small colour touchscreen LCD.

The output tray unfolds from the bottom of the machine, Bluetooth is the only wireless option, and there are two USB 2 ports, one of which supports PictBridge. There’s an SD card slot, too, with pictures able to be printed directly from media plugged into these ports. It’s a fine feature set that should cover most eventualities, but we can’t help but think that HP has missed a trick by not including Wi-Fi.

HP is claiming the 2,100mAh battery inside the OfficeJet 150 will last for 500 prints, and it’ll also be possible to buy replacement batteries – and HP will also offer a car adapter among its range of accessories.

Such tiny dimensions inevitably mean compromise. The paper tray at the top of the machine can only accommodate 50 sheets and, when copying, paper has to be fed into the machine one page at a time. Print speed seems reasonable, with HP claiming 22ppm for monochrome jobs and 18ppm for colour prints. The OfficeJet 150 is powered by the ARM9 core that’s found in many of today’s top smartphones.

There’s no denying that miniaturisation drives up prices: the OfficeJet 150 will cost €400 (around £320) when it arrives in June. Whether that’s a price people will be willing to pay for portable printing is debatable, but it’s one of the most interesting takes on the humble all-in-one we’ve seen for years. Watch out for the full review.

HP has added to its laptop range with a pair of devices that straddle the line between Ultrabooks and traditional laptops.

They’re both Envy branded models, with the smaller Envy 4 boasting a 14in screen and the larger Envy 6 including a 15.6in panel. On the outside, at least, both devices just about provide the dimensions we’re used to seeing from Ultrabooks: the smaller of the two is 20mm thick and weighs in at 1.8kg, with the latter barely any thicker and only a little heavier.

It’s on the inside where HP has made most of its changes. The Envy 4 and 6 Ultrabooks include Intel processors, but the model we’ve sampled deployed a Core i3-2367M – a relatively modest chip and, crucially, a Sandy rather than Ivy Bridge part. HP assured us that Ivy Bridge models will also be available.

The storage situation is little clearer: the Envy 4 can be bought a with either a 32GB mSATA cache drive and 500GB hard disk or with the 500GB hard disk on its own, and the Envy 6 offers a 120GB SSD as well as variations on the other storage configurations: either a single 320GB hard disk or the same hard disk augmented with its own 32GB cache driver. If you’re buying a hard disk model, though, that means the laptop will have to make do with a Sleekbook sticker rather than Ultrabook branding.

Curiously, HP is also offering some of its Envy 6 machines with AMD processors – and, with Intel tightly controlling its own laptop format, these are also being marketed as Sleekbooks.

Models on display here in Shanghai use AMD’s next generation APUs, which include both processor and graphics core in a single chip. Gamers don’t just have to settle for the fine graphics chip included in AMD ’s APUs, either – Intel-based Envy 6 models will be available with an AMD Radeon HD 7670M inside.

Thankfully, the exterior is less confusing, with both machines boasting near-identical design. Black or silver metallic-effect plastic is the order of the day on both the interior and lid, and it makes for a classy-looking machine, even if it can’t match up to the sleek design of the Spectre XT.

Ergonomics and build quality, meanwhile, feel like a mixed bag. The wrist-rest feels strong enough, with little give to be found on either side of the trackpad, and there wasn’t too much give in the Envy 4’s lid – although the increased size meant the Envy 6’s lid bent and flexed more. Both the 14in and 15.6in models include 1,366 x 768 resolution screens and, while that felt a little too low on the larger Envy, quality appears to be good throughout.

The keyboard is comfortable, although some might dislike the slightly bouncy base and soft typing action, and the trackpad wasn’t perfect either – it’s certainly responsive, but its clicking action felt a little too light for our liking.

Beats Audio is included on both machines, but our brief test produced music that, while good, is little better than we’ve heard from other mainstream and high-end laptops.

Both Envy machines provide Ultrabook-style dimensions and, in some cases, Ultrabook-style performance – even if they’re actually Sleekbooks – and HP is pricing both of these machines accordingly. Envy systems bearing the Ultrabook logo will start at £649, making them some of the cheapest Ultrabooks on the market, and Sleekbook versions are £100 cheaper.

We’re pleased to see a major manufacturer including AMD’s APUs in its laptops after a period of Intel Core-based dominance, and it seems like APUs will be up to task; despite being unable to compete with Intel on sales or marketing clout, combining CPU and GPU into one chip certainly makes sense in a laptop of this size.

It remains to be seen, though, whether the lower price makes up for the Envy 4 and 6’s ergonomic issues, with questionable build quality evident across some of the models we’ve seen. HP’s Envy 4 and 6 Ultrabooks and Sleekbooks will be available in June. Until then, tell us what you think in the comments – and let us know if you’ve got your head around the Ultrabook and Sleekbook names, too.

HP has unveiled its latest range of Ultrabooks at its Global Influencer Summit in Shanghai.

Leading the charge is the Spectre XT, which slots into the firm’s offering just beneath the Envy 14 Spectre, and it makes an excellent first impression. It’s only 15mm thick and weighs 1.4kg, which brings it into line with the best Ultrabooks around, including the Dell XPS 13 and Asus ZenBoook UX31 – and that also means it’s almost half a kilo lighter than the original Spectre.

There’s no denying the Spectre XT is a good-looking laptop. The lid and wrist-rest are both constructed from brushed metal, the screen is surrounded by a slick black bezel, and the base is red to signify the inclusion of Beats audio.

The screen, meanwhile, has been slimmed down from the original Spectre – it’s now 13.3in rather than 14in. Resolution has taken a step down, from 1,600 x 900 to 1,366 x 768, but it looks as though HP has been able to preserve the enviable levels of quality, with vibrant colours and decent detail in evidence when we used the XT.

The Gorilla Glass covering of the original Spectre has been removed, and the loss of that dose of originality is our only major complaint about the XT’s looks. If that’s helped make the Spectre XT thinner and lighter, though, that’s a trade-off we suspect many will be happy to make, with a little extra portability arguably more important than snazzy design.

There’s plenty to like in the ergonomic department. We criticised the original Spectre for its mediocre build quality, and we’re happy to note that HP seems to have addressed our concerns; while there’s still a little give in the rear of the screen, the desktop isn’t distorted, and the wristrest is firm.

There’s a little flex in the base of the keyboard, but the Scrabble tile keys are responsive and comfortable and, as with the original Spectre, the keyboard is still backlit. The entire trackpad is smooth and responsive but, like last time, the two buttons at the bottom of the pad are simply seperated with a thin white line – and they’re still a little too tough for our liking.

Under the hood, HP’s latest offers precisely the kind of specification we’d expect from the next generation of Ultrabooks. Processing power – at least in the model we’ve used – comes from one of Intel’s Ivy Bridge chips, the 2GHz, low voltage Core i7-3667U, and storage is provided by a 256GB Samsung SSD – plenty of room for Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit and Adobe Photoshop Elements and Premiere Elements 10, which are included as standard. There’s also four gigabytes of RAM. HP is claiming eight hours of battery life, and connectivity includes dual-band 802.11n Wi-Fi and a pair of USB 3 ports. A separate Spectre XT will also be released to appeal to businesses thanks to the inclusion of Windows 7 Professional and a TPM security chip and the removal of third-party software such as the two Adobe apps and Norton Internet Security.

The Spectre XT will cost at least £899 when it arrives on these shores at the end of June, with the business-specific XT a little cheaper at £859. We’ll have a full review at launch but, for now, it looks as though HP has managed to put together a good looking, fast and light Ultrabook. So, does this look like the machine that will open your wallet, or are you still to be persuaded by Ultrabooks? Let us know in the comments.

Only one smartphone is capable of generating the sort of publicity the iPhone can right now, and that’s Samsung’s Galaxy S III. That phone was unveiled at a glitzy launch event at London’s Earls Court Exhibition Centre.

Anyone hoping for a groundbreaking step forward in terms of its hardware, however, might be disappointed. There are no great surprises.

The screen is a 4.8in Super AMOLED 720 x 1,280 unit, the phone runs Ice Cream Sandwich, as you might have expected, and on the rear is an 8-megapixel snapper, accompanied by a single LED flash unit. You might have spotted that the screen doesn’t boast the Plus version of the AMOLED screen technology as the Galaxy SII; the good news is it looks crisp and colourful, and on first impressions, pretty bright too.

Under the hood, meanwhile, is the expected quad-core processor clocked at a heady 1.4GHz, 1GB of RAM and a choice of 16GB, 32GB or 64GB of storage.  That makes for a very, very quick phone. The heavily modified UI (more on this later) feels super fluid and highly responsive, from the rippling water of the lock screen to web pages and menus. We headed off to the SunSpider website to run a quick test, and the S III returned a stonking time of 1,483ms – more than half a second quicker than the iPhone 4S and HTC One X.

Android aficionados will also be pleased to note the presence of a microSDXC card slot, allowing the storage to be expanded by a further 64GB. And we were buoyed by a battery with a huge capacity of 2,100mAh, which bodes well for the S III’s stamina.

Design

Alas, despite all the big words from the Samsung executives, the Galaxy S III’s design fails to excite. There’s nothing like the HTC One X’s polycarbonate body, nor its turned glass edges; instead, the glossy “glazed” finish, available in “Pebble Blue”  blue and “Marble White” feels hollow and plasticky.

It’s slim at 8.6mm from front to back, and light at 133g; the bezel is very narrow and the rounded edges and rear make a pleasant change from the square fare we’ve become used to from the Galaxy range, but physically it isn’t the star we were hoping for.

Camera

And there isn’t a huge jump in camera resolution either. What Samsung has done with the S III, however, is beef it up in a similar way to the HTC One X. The camera may ‘only’ shoot 8-megapixel images, but it comes laden with features that should make taking snaps that bit easier.

It will take 20 shots in single burst, for instance, at a rate of 3.3 frames per second. Full resolution stills can be captured while you’re shooting 1080p video and, once you’ve fired of a series of shots, there’s also a best shot select feature, which attempts to pick out the choicest images. It felt extremely responsive in our time with it, although we wouldn’t like to pass judgement on quality just yet.

There’s also a 1.9-megapixel front-facing camera, which is capable of recording 720p video.

The “human” smartphone

Samsung’s big play with its new smartphone isn’t the hardware, but its host of smart, “human” features. According to Samsung, this is a phone that “understands you”, that sees and listens to you.

The headline here is its eye motion sensing technology. Dubbed SmartStay, this monitors the user’s eye movements with the 1.9-megapixel front-facing camera and keeps the screen from dimming or switching off as long as your eyes are on the screen.

It was impossible to test this in any depth at the  launch event, however in our short play with the S III the screen did indeed seem to timeout while the screen was facing away from us and remain on when we were face to face with it.

Then there’s S Voice, which introduces advanced voice recognition — an uncanny echo of the iPhone 4S’ Siri feature. Saying “hi Galaxy” wakes the S III up, for example, and you can ask it to tell you the weather and launch the camera app. It’s  a feature we suspect Apple’s lawyers are going to be examining very closely indeed.

Direct Call extends the Galaxy S III’s smart feature set to its phone capabilities. While texting you can lift the phone to your ear and it will call the person you’re texting automatically. Smart Alerts buzz the phone as you pick it up to indicate the number of missed calls and texts. Social Tag, meanwhile, recognises the faces of your friends in photos allowing you to directly access their Facebook wall from the photo gallery or send a text.

One party trick also worth noting is Pop-up Play, which allows you to keep video playing in a small window, and nip off to do something else — check something on the web, send a text message or update your Twitter feed.

Media

As with many top-end smartphones these days, the S III has a host of features aimed at hooking up with your home entertainment system. AllShare Cast allows video content to be streamed wirelessly to an HD TV with the help of a small box that can be attached to said TV.

The screen of the phone can be mirrored in similar fashion, and there’s also DLNA support which allows for more traditional, home network-based streaming via DLNA, allowing videos and music to be played from other DLNA-enabled  components around the home.

Verdict

In all, despite all the smart features, beefed up camera, CPU, user interface and screen, the Samsung Galaxy S III has yet to set our pulses racing. Perhaps it’s the plasticky build quality. Perhaps it’s the fact that in no area does this handset stretch out a significant lead on the HTC One X.

But that could all change, of course, once we get our hands on a review sample and spend some quality time with it. The S III will be launched across Europe on 29 May; keep an eye out for our full review closer to the time.

Nvidia kept this one quiet, but early on Sunday morning it revealed what will, almost certainly, become the fastest graphics card on the planet. As naming convention dictates it’s a dual-GPU card and, as high-end gaming silliness dictates, it arrived at the office in a wooden crate.

We found the office crowbar and got to work and, within seconds, the GTX 690 was laid bare: cold industrial aluminium, a pair of windows looking through to the two vapour chamber coolers within, and the large central fan that’s saddled with the unenviable task of keeping the two cores cool.

Those cores are tweaked GTX 680 chips. There are still 1,536 stream processors per core, which equates to 3,072 across the entire card, but the table-topping clock speed of 1,006MHz has been lowered to 915MHz, with its maximum boost of 1,058MHz now standing at 1,018MHz.

Elsewhere, the numbers are just as impressive as they were on the original GTX 680: 3.5 billion transistors in each core makes for a 7 billion total across the 282mm PCB, and there’s 4GB of RAM across the card running at 6,008MHz.

Nvidia claims the GTX 690 is more power efficient than two GTX 680s running in SLI, but the new card still needs a pair of eight-pin power sockets on its backplate. Display outputs, meanwhile, stretch to three DVI-I ports and a mini DisplayPort socket.

One thing Nvidia is keeping close to its chest, though, is price. The GTX 690 will begin hitting shops on May 3, with wider availability four days later. We’re going to strap this monster into our test rig and see what it can do, with a full review going live later this week. Until then, though, let us know in the comments: is this your next graphics card, or does its (inevitably) high price put you off?

Finally, something resembling advice has appeared, but it’s not come from the ICO but from business organisation the International Chambers of Commerce (ICC). Despite the inevitable disclaimer on page 2 that it “does not constitute legal advice”, it’s by far the most practical guide to the cookie regulations I’ve seen so far and is the result of research carried out by an organisation looking at this from a practical point of view rather than the compliance-based approach of the ICO.

Indeed, David Evans, group manager for business and industry at the ICO, said at the launch of the guide: “Today’s ICC UK guidance provides organisations with a good starting point from which they can work towards full compliance.” Which is about as close to a ringing endorsement as we’re ever likely to get from the 21st Century equivalent of the Circumlocution Office.

It’s not that the guide says anything new per se, but because of its business focus it bridges the gap between the legalistic coverage of the regulations produced by the ICO and the pleas of website owners to “JUST TELL ME WHAT TO DO!”

My advice is to download and digest the guide – it’s not long and it’s a model of clarity. In summary, the ICC’s guide places cookies into four categories and then explains its thinking about how each should be dealt with. The first category is Strictly Necessary. To fit this category, the cookie must be “related to a service provided on the website that has been explicitly requested by the user”. Aside from obvious cases such as shopping cart cookies and access to protected areas, the ICC suggests that remembering previously entered text so it’s not lost if the page refreshes falls into this category. No user consent is required for category 1 cookies.

The second ICC category is Performance Cookies. And here it gets interesting because the ICC includes analytics, advertising and Pay Per Click cookies in this category – provided they only store anonymous data and cannot therefore be used for behavioural targeting of ads. This was my biggest single concern with the regulations – I could see no way they could realistically be applied if it denied European website owners access to essential analytics information that would be available to owners elsewhere. Consent for cookies in this category, according to the ICC, can be obtained by placing appropriate wording in the site Terms and Conditions (most professional sites will have this already). So, no opt-in required.

The ICC’s third category is Functionality Cookies – cookies that remember user choices so that they have a more personalised experience. This might include detecting if the user has already seen a popup so that it isn’t shown again, submitting comments and remembering colours, text size etc. As with Performance Cookies, the ICC suggests you can comply with the regulations by inserting text into your terms and conditions rather than forcing users to choose explicitly.

This leaves the final category, the “bad boys” that the regulations were originally aimed at: Targeting/Advertising Cookies. We’ve all experienced the slightly creepy way ads follow us around the internet – they do this by collecting information about our browsing habits which is then used to serve up targeted ads. Even in this pretty clear-cut case, it’s possible to argue that the onus is on the ad serving network to request consent but, to be on the safe side, the ICC advises website owners to get clear, explicit consent from users if their site employs such technology.

For most website owners, then, it seems minimal changes are necessary – at least according to the ICC’s interpretation of the regulations. It’s a pity it’s taken a third party to produce such clear guidance rather than the body responsible for implementing the law but at least it’s arrived, in the nick of time. Good on the ICC.

Jacobson went on to say that if the game “doesn’t hit targets, we won’t be doing another for the platform”, and his view – that it’s not worth developing on Android when so much cash is lost to piracy – is hardly unique. Research firm Yankee Group found that 27% of Android developers surveyed saw piracy as a “huge problem”, with a further 26% also expressing concern And the developer of hit iOS game Infinity Blade cites piracy for not porting the game, saying that the OS “will become a viable place for game developers, but that hasn’t happened yet”.

Declining developer interest

Worrying statistics are beginning to emerge elsewhere, too: cross-platform app development service Appcelerator’s latest developer survey (which consulted 2,173 developers) found interest in Android dropped by 4.7% in the last quarter. That was the biggest drop in interest among the major platforms: the iPhone dropped from 91% to 89% interest, and Windows Phone 7 held steady at just under 40%, after a huge jump in the previous quarter.

It’s easy to see why developers feel this way. Take this thread in Reddit’s Android section, which concerned app payment. Some responses make for grim reading: “I run Linux so I’m not in the habit of paying”, says one, and another says he has “never paid for an app, will never pay for one” – going on to cite ad-supported versions as his preferred alternative. Other users also oppose payment but, as well as using ad-supported software, they also run ad-blocking tools — putting a swift stop to another potential revenue stream.

Our sister title Bit-tech has seen similar attitudes. It launched a £1.79 Android app last summer, and some of the comments made for grim reading.  “If it was free, sure. I don’t pay for apps” said one, and another explained that his initial excitement “soon turned to glum disappointment” when asked to pay – before hinting he’d wait for a pirated version.

On both occasions pirates and those who objected to paying were chastised by the majority who are willing to pay for the software, but slim margins mean even a small number of non-payers can be significant. Indeed, Jacobson says that even if 10% of pirated copies directly represented lost sales “that would make a massive difference for developers”, and could even be “the difference between a studio surviving”.

It’s indicative of the attitude that seems to pervade much of the platform. Many seem to think that paying is wrong, iOS users are somehow being ripped off by software that’s never been cheaper, and that ripping off developers — often self-employed people who rely on that lost income — is acceptable.

The secure alternatives

It’s harmful, and not just for those who lose sales. Google’s Play store has plenty going for it: not far behind the App store in quantity and, arguably quality. Google’s carefree attitude often does more harm than good, though, and as time goes on I’m beginning to think that curated, managed walled gardens are the way forward, rather than the once-appealing open fields.

If app piracy worsens, though, these trends will not continue. Developers will return to iOS or even switch to Windows Phone 7. Both are more secure, and Windows Phone 7 is gathering steam, with 30,000 apps added from December to April, bringing the total to 80,000. Analysts from Morgan Stanley reckon that 43 million Windows phones will be shipped this year, with that number rising to 74 million in 2013.

Apps are the lifeblood of a smartphone, for both developers and users – and if a significant proportion of a platform’s userbase isn’t willing to pay for software, then many won’t see this as a viable business model. If developers desert Android, then neither its versatility nor its low cost will keep a grip on plenty of users who see the best, biggest and most innovative apps appearing on rival platforms.

Similar effects have been felt on the otherwise-healthy PC: Ubisoft didn’t port I Am Alive to the PC, saying “so few people pay for PC games… we have to weigh up the cost of making it”. Successful shooter Bulletstorm won’t see a sequel because the original “didn’t do very well on PC”, with Epic Games president Mike Capps saying “piracy was a pretty big problem”.

If piracy worsens, developers and users will move away from Android, and manufacturers will surely follow the crowds. Samsung, HTC and Sony still support Android, but if the platform falters, sales drop and profits slide, then these companies will have few problems switching allegiances.

Plenty of people love Android but, conversely, plenty of its biggest fans seem to show their allegiance by resisting the urge to support some of its best software and most talented developers. If that continues, there might not be much of a platform left to exploit. It’s a worst-case scenario, but it’s easy to prevent: next time you feel like pirating rather than forking out less than the cost of a sandwich, reconsider. Your favourite phone platform might depend on it.