Jon Burgerman, Kate Moross & more show customised Lomo cameras from today

A travelling exhibition that comes to London this week celebrates the cult Lomography camera the Diana, featuring customised versions created by leading creatives including Rob Ryan, Jody Barton, Jon Burgerman, and Kate Moross.

'Lomo' cameras have gained cult status in recent years thanks to their 'imperfectly perfect' images, which are typically colour-drenched, low-fi and with unpredictable contrast, giving a retro, authentic feel. The manufacturer, Lomography, has capitalised on the cameras' hipster status, releasing a slew of special editions and customised versions.

The Diana World Tour started in Hong Kong and has travelled to Tokyo, Seoul, Porto, Lisbon, Madrid, Barcelona, Paris, Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou, New York and now London. It is at the Lomography Gallery Store April 2-30. As well as featuring cameras customised by illustrators and graphic designers, it includes models by graffiti artist Ninety, fashionistas Philip Treacy and Tatty Devine, and others.

For more information visit the Lomography Gallery Store website.

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Apple's iPad: The first reviews are in

The iPad doesn't arrive in stores until Saturday (in the US), and most tech reviewers, like civilians, will need to wait until then to get their hands on one. As usual, though, Apple provided early review units to journalists from a few major newspapers and other media outlets.

The big surprise in these reviews is...well, there aren't any big surprises. Everyone's impressed. Everybody brings up both pros (the interface, the form factor, the general level of polish) and cons (lack of Flash, no camera, inability to replace a laptop in every circumstance) that we already knew about.

Click here for more Apple iPad coverage

The most significant new positive factoid: Apple's battery-life claim of ten hours seems to be conservative. And there are a few new quibbles (did we know that the iPod app doesn't do Cover Flow)? Bottom line: It's the extremely slick first-generation device we thought it was.

After the jump, summaries of the reviews that have hit the Web so far. You might want to read ‘em all, but if you can only read one, see Tim Gideon's piece at PCMag.com-it's by far the most detailed look at the gizmo.

Walt Mossberg, The Wall Street Journal, "Apple iPad Review: Laptop Killer? Pretty Close"

Star rating equivalent (on a 1-5 star scale): ****

The good: "So I've been using my test iPad heavily day and night, instead of my trusty laptops most of the time. As I got deeper into it, I found the iPad a pleasure to use, and had less and less interest in cracking open my heavier ThinkPad or MacBook."

The bad: "If you need to create or edit giant spreadsheets or long documents, or you have elaborate systems for organizing email, or need to perform video chats, the iPad isn't going to cut it as your go-to device."

Battery life: "For my battery test, I played movies, TV shows and other videos back-to-back until the iPad died. This stressed the device's most power-hogging feature, its screen. The iPad lasted 11 hours and 28 minutes, about 15% more than Apple claimed."

The last paragraph: "All in all, however, the iPad is an advance in making more-sophisticated computing possible via a simple touch interface on a slender, light device. Only time will tell if it's a real challenger to the laptop and netbook."

David Pogue, The New York Times: "Looking at the iPad From Two Angles"

Star rating equivalent: ****

The good: "The iPad is so fast and light, the multitouch screen so bright and responsive, the software so easy to navigate, that it really does qualify as a new category of gadget. Some have suggested that it might make a good goof-proof computer for technophobes, the aged and the young; they're absolutely right."

The bad: "When the iPad is upright, typing on the on-screen keyboard is a horrible experience; when the iPad is turned 90 degrees, the keyboard is just barely usable (because it's bigger). A $70 keyboard dock will be available in April, but then you're carting around two pieces."

Battery life: "Speaking of video: Apple asserts that the iPad runs 10 hours on a charge of its nonremovable battery - but we all know you can't trust the manufacturer. And sure enough, in my own test, the iPad played movies continuously from 7:30 a.m. to 7:53 p.m. - more than 12 hours. That's four times as long as a typical laptop or portable DVD player."

The last paragraph (okay, the last two paragraphs): "The bottom line is that the iPad has been designed and built by a bunch of perfectionists. If you like the concept, you'll love the machine. The only question is: Do you like the concept?"

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Apple's Woz: Students, grandparents ideal markets for Apple's iPad

Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple, has revealed he plans to get two iPads, one with and one without 3G connectivity, with a third earmarked for a friend. Wozniak, better known as Woz, will wait in line "just for fun" this weekend to pick up the Wi-Fi iPad from the Apple Store.

Woz asked by Newsweek who the iPad was aimed at suggested students and older users would benefit most from Apple's new device.

"The iPad could lower the cost of acquiring computers for students. I think it's going to be huge in the education market. Think about students going off to college." Woz insisted. "They want an Apple product, but their parents don't want to spend that much. Now they have the ideal thing. They can go to college and someone may have a whacked-out $6,000 laptop, but the guy with the iPad will get all the attention."

Click here for more Apple iPad coverage

The co-founder of Apple also suggested the iPad would appeal to those who find traditional computing over complicated and daunting.

"My wife's parents - they're not ready for the complicated computer world. They have these old computers. But the iPad simplifies things. It's like a restart. We all say we want things to be simpler. All of a sudden we have this simple thing," Woz added.

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Former Dell employees may face civil action from SEC

Dell on Friday said its former employees may face civil or administrative action from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in connection with an accounting probe that began in August 2005.

Several former employees had been contacted by the SEC in relation to the inquiry into Dell's accounting books, but no current employees have been contacted, said David Frink, a Dell spokesman.

The former employees received "Wells Notices," indicating that the SEC staff had reached a preliminary decision for the SEC to commence a civil or administrative action against the notice's recipients, Dell said in an SEC filing on Thursday.

The identities of the former employees have not been released, Frink said.

"It is possible that other individuals have received or will receive such notices," Dell said in the filing.

The company is being investigated by the SEC for issues of revenue recognition and financial reporting in certain periods prior to fiscal year 2006, dating back to 2001. Dell said it is cooperating with the SEC in the ongoing investigation, but a settlement agreement hasn't been reached.

"Any resolution would likely include monetary penalties, which cannot be quantified at this time, and other relief within the SEC's authority," Dell said in the filing.

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BT flood leaves thousands without Internet, telephone acess

Thousands of web users in north and west London have been left without telephone or internet access after a BT exchange in Paddington flooded.

The London Fire Brigade were called to the flood, which was followed by an electrical fire, early yesterday morning (March 31).

The incident is thought to have had a knock-on effect at 30 exchanges across the country.

TalkTalk, Zen and Vodafone's mobile network are among the operators whose services have reportedly been affected.

"Following major flooding at a BT exchange in the Paddington area, tens of thousands of customers in parts of north and west London may be experiencing a loss of broadband and/or telephone service," BT said.

The ISP also revealed that web users in other parts of the country may also be affected.

"We are currently working on restoring services to customers, however as this is a complex incident we cannot accurately predict when all services will be restored. We will issue further updates as the situation changes," BT added.

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Ofcom regulator wants lower mobile termination rates

UK communications regulator Ofcom has proposed to reduce mobile termination rates - the price operators pay to connect calls to other networks. The new rates should result in cheaper phone calls from fixed-line to mobile phones, the regulator said on Thursday.

The proposal follows recommendations made last year by the European Commission to lower termination rates across Europe. So UK consumers aren't the only likely to see cheaper rates on phone calls. Businesses and households will benefit to the tune of at least €2 billion over the four years from 2009 to 2012, the Commission said in May last year.

In 2010, regulators in Belgium and Portugal have already lowered mobile termination rates, according to market research company Fitch Ratings.

Ofcom proposes lowering termination rates from 0.043 ($0.065) per minute to to 0.005 a minute by 2015.

This means fixed-line operators will pay less to mobile operators when their subscribers call a mobile phone, and Ofcom expects that these savings will be passed on to consumers

In Europe, mobile termination rates were last year around ten times higher than fixed-line termination rates, according to the European Commission. The difference was one of the reasons it took action.

Smaller mobile operators -- which pass on more calls than they receive, and therefore pay more to their larger competitors -- also stand to gain from the rate changes. 3 UK has been campaigning for mobile termination rates to be reduced for a long time, and its subscribers can now expect cheaper calls, according to a spokesman.

Large mobile operators are understandably not as happy. Vodafone thinks a cut of the magnitude Ofcom is proposing deters future investments, it said in a statement.

The European Commission doesn't agree, and instead it thinks the higher mobile termination rates are an indirect subsidy that benefits large mobile operators to the detriment of smaller mobile operators and fixed-line operators. In the process, money is funneled away from investments in upgrades to high-speed internet networks, the Commission said.

Mobile termination rate cuts are likely to reduce European mobile operators' service revenue growth by up to 3 percent per year over the next three to four years, according to Fitch Ratings, which on Tuesday published a report on the subject entitled European telecoms - mobile termination rates are a drag.

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Email accounts of foreign journalists in China hacked

The email accounts of eight foreign journalists working in China and Taiwan were hacked recently, leading Yahoo to suspend several of the accounts last week, the Foreign Correspondent's Club of China (FCCC) said Wednesday.

"We have confirmed eight cases in which journalists in China and Taiwan have had their email accounts hacked in recent weeks, with several accounts disabled by Yahoo on March 25," the FCCC said in an email sent to members.

Among the hacked email accounts, the settings of one account were also modified to forward all emails to another email address, it said.

"Yahoo has not answered the FCCC's questions about the attacks, nor has it told individual mail users how the accounts were accessed. Password security and malware are ongoing concerns, but it's unclear whether they are related to this case," the group said.

The FCCC warned members to change their email passwords and advised them to use other means of communication for arranging interviews or other "sensitive business."

Yahoo was not immediately available to comment.

FCCC warning highlights growing concerns

While there is no evidence linking the hacked email accounts and the Chinese government, the FCCC warning highlights growing concern over the email surveillance of individuals generally viewed with suspicion by the Chinese government, including human rights activists and foreign journalists working in China.

Earlier this month, foreign journalists in China were the target of a sophisticated email malware attack. Emails in that attack appeared to originate from the Shanghai World Expo press office and contained a malicious PDF attachment. The attack seemed to target foreign journalists registered to cover the Expo, which opens on May 1.

In addition, a sophisticated attack from China that targeted the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists in December led Google to close down a censored version of its search engine in China, redirecting users to an uncensored site in Hong Kong instead.

Circumstantial evidence also implicated China in a computer spying network, dubbed GhostNet, that touched users in 103 countries and was used to transfer data to servers in China. The network was discovered in 2009 after researchers were asked to examine computers in offices of the Dalai Lama in India, the U.S. and the U.K. The computers that comprised GhostNet are believed to have been infected by malware in email attachments sent to specific individuals.

The Dalai Lama is viewed with deep suspicion by the Chinese government, which accuses him of working for Tibetan independence.

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