As smartphone users wake up to the dangers of apps snaffling data they would rather not share, researchers at Microsoft have come up with a neat solution to the problem that could be used to bake a balance of content personalisation and privacy into its Windows Phone operating system.

Many of today's most popular smartphone apps reliant on harvesting information about users to deliver a personalised service, according to Ben Livshits of Microsoft Research. 

But unless users are aware of the extent of this information, they risk handing over more data than they bargained for, as app makers harvest user data and transmit it to their own datacentres.

A case in point is photo-sharing service Path, which caused a furore earlier this year after users realised the app had sent the contents of their address book back to the firm while Apple and Google where also caught up in the issue.

So Livshits and his colleague Drew Davidson of the University of Wisconsin developed MoRePriv.

It designed to be used with the Windows Phone system to build up a picture of the user, and defines the level of data sharing allowed on the phone according to a set of pre-established roles, such as technophile or business user.

“MoRePriv advocates leaving user data on the mobile device, under the control of the user,” they said.

This change in perspective means users retain control of their data and cloud providers will not fall foul of data protection or privacy laws.

MoRePriv analyses the use applications such as email, SMS and Facebook to establish a persona for the user – this persona is not intended to exactly match the user, but provides a means to establish rules for data sharing based on their profile.

“The use of personas limits the potential for user tracking: while persona information can be shared by apps to perform server-based personalisation, for instance, it is not enough to link the user across multiple interactions,” the researchers said.

The researchers then used Amazon's Mechanical Turk to establish how these different categories of user would have to sharing data in various circumstances before testing the system using a Windows Phone running the Mango version of the operating system.

They found that the system was able to reduce the permissions given to 73 per cent of apps that wanted some access to data, providing the user with greater privacy without crippling the apps that they want to use.

It remains to be seen if the tool could be extended to other systems, but it could be a key step on the road to providing device owners with more control over how their data is stored and secured, and kept away from organisations with unknown motives.

The original designs for iPhones and Android devices looked quite different from what we know today. Fortunately, none of them actually hit the market.

Gone would be the giant touch screens and virtual keyboards we currently use. In its place, we would have been typing with Blackberry-esque physical keyboards and spinning classic iPod click wheels.

The blueprints for the original Android device concepts emerged during the ongoing Oracle trial. According to reports from the courts, the "Google Phone" would have been outfitted with a physical keyboard, a 200MHz processor, a 2-megapixel camera and QVGA display.

The people at Apple, meanwhile, considered an iPhone with a similar design to the classic iPod. Former Apple Senior Vice President Tony Fadell recently said the company had considered launching the iPhones with click wheels and a physical keyboard.

"The biggest problem with the 'iPod+phone' was we had a little screen and this huge hardware wheel," Fadell explained on an episode of the On the Verge podcast.

The time of the click wheel has long passed but it is interesting to imagine a world where the virtual keyboard never took off. Without touch screens we most likely would have never seen the giant and high definition displays we're used to.

So next time your writing an email on your iPhone or Android device just remember your experience could have been quite different.

LAS VEGAS: IBM kicked off its Impact conference in Vegas on Monday in a rather unusual way. Out was the corporate video, showing a corny round-up of all the firm’s achievements over the past 12 months followed by a stilted executive speech; in was a talk by Walter Isaacson, chairman of policy studies organisation the Aspen Institute, and more famously known as Steve Jobs’ biographer, on the lessons Jobs' legacy can teach on innovation and creativity.

Isaacson introduced his subject with a typical example of Jobs’ humility.

“Steve called me after I’d done my books on [Benjamin] Franklin and [Albert] Einstein and said ‘Why don’t you do me next?’, Isaacson said. However, Isaacson went on to explain that this was a fair comparison based on the passion and creativity these individuals had.

One of the anecdotes Isaacson gave about Jobs was back when the Apple former chief executive was a child and was helping his father build a fence. Jobs’ father said to him they had to make the back of the fence just as beautiful as the front. When Jobs questioned this, pointing out that nobody would ever see the back, his dad responded: ‘You will know’. Jobs said this was one of the most important lessons of his life.

Isaacson also told delegates that Jobs’ favourite phrase was, ‘Don't be afraid, you can do it’, which he’d use to encourage anyone from Steve Wozniak to Corning’s chief executive to do what he wanted them to do – in this case, speed up some coding or design Gorilla Glass respectively - and meet his exacting standards.

The passion that Jobs had for his products was matched by that of Einstein, Isaacson said.

“For Einstein, it started at about age seven, when his father gave him a compass. Einstein marvelled that nothing was touching the needle, but it kept twitching,” Isaacson explained.

“[In response to the rule that] time marches along second by second, irrespective of how we observe it, Einstein said, ‘How do we know?’ He came up with the idea that time is relevant as he thought different.”

Jobs and Einstein were also similar in continuing to think differently on their deathbeds.

Einstein was still trying to figure out a unified field theory days before his death, working out why the compass needle twitched and pointed North. During the process of writing his biography, Isaacson said he went to view the six or seven pages Einstein wrote about this: “He wrote line after line of maths equation, even when he was dying in hospital. Eventually the hand writing gets shaky and dribbles off.”

Jobs was similarly driven to the end. Isaacson said that last summer, when it became clear that Jobs was having real trouble in his battle with cancer, he talked about the legacy of great products and worried over whether 100 years from now, Apple would still be seen as an innovator, as a handful of firms like IBM and Disney have managed to do.

Isaacson asked Jobs at the time whether he still felt spiritual.

“Yeah I like to believe that there’s something more to what we do here,” Jobs said.

“But then sometimes when I’m depressed, I think maybe death is like an on/off switch, click and you’re gone. Maybe that’s why I didn’t like big on/off switches on Apple devices.”

Isaacson finished by reminding the Impact audience that the lesson of any great innovator is “you’re part of something bigger. Every single one of the people I wrote about, they felt they were part of something bigger.”

The next project for Isaacson is a book about computing history, and he noted that the IBM name keeps cropping up. No doubt Jobs and his legacy at Apple will feature heavily also.

Members of the UK parliament may soon be waving Apple iPads at each other across the dispatch box instead of order papers, according to reports in the press.

The Commons Administration Committee has recommended purchasing Apple's tablet device for all MPs as a move that it expects would save on taxpayer's money, according to the BBC.

Part of the logic of the proposal is that tablets would make it easier for MPs to do their work and save on paper.

However, MPs are currently already entitled to three desktop computers and two laptops for their office use, and the committee is recommending an iPad in addition to these rather than instead of one or more of them.

According to the BBC, a trial of the iPad by members of the Administration Committee resulted in savings of several thousand pounds through circulating information electronically rather than by hard copy.

Rather pathetically, a committee member is quoted as saying that the prospect of securing discounts from Apple for bulk buying are likely to be limited. Surely the UK government should have more confidence in its purchasing power?

It seems that Parliament is looking at purchasing the older iPad 2 models, rather than the newer iPad announced earlier this month.

The House of Commons Commission is expected to consider the committee's recommendation in a meeting due to take place later today.

UPDATE (27 March): Speaking to V3, a Commons Administration Committee representative confirmed the decision on the MP's iPad bid had been pushed back to 30 April after discussion on another topic rolled passed its allotted time during the meeting on 26 March.

The launch of a new Apple product is always accompanied by the inevitable queue, with eager fans getting in line outside stores around the world to ensure they can say they were one of the first to get hold of whatever new shiny device the firm is selling.

The new iPad was no different, with some fans getting in line last weekend, although most had a far more casual one night sleepover on the cold, hard, unforgiving concrete of Regent's Street.

When V3 popped along this morning to see what was going on we came across the usual mix of the weird and wonderful, which we've documented below in photographic glory, because a picture is worth a thousand words...

Apple teased the assembled queuers by putting a solitary device tantalisingly within reach behind a thin-sheet of glass.

Meanwhile, the world's media (sort of) continued to gather to try and get a spot to snap those on the other side of the barriers. V3 had arrived at 7:30am, so had no such trouble bagging a top spot.

Eventually, as the clock ticked around to 8am, the crowds were let in, to huge cheers and applause from Apple's blue-shirted staff. Some people going into the store to buy the new iPad, already had the new iPad they'd bought at midnight from other locations, and were filming the experience on the device, which was an odd sight.

Things started to get really surreal, though, when a gaggle of clearly-fake air hostesses turned up and started posing with the first few fans through the door. Apple apparently had no issue with this and let it take place without incident.

As if this wasn't enough, one chap then added a giant cat's head to the situation, with wonderfully bizarre results.

While for the on-looking press this was an amusing side-note, for most exiting the store it was a chance to celebrate getting their hands on the device, as first-in-line Zohaib Ali did with style.

Eventually, though, when the dust had settled there's only a few traces left that would hint at the madness that had gone before. No doubt the iPhone 5 launch - or will it be the new iPhone? - will see the whole circus start up again.

Tablet computers have only been around in their current guise for two years but their popularity in the consumer markets has meant that the Office of National Statistics has added the device to its national shopping basket used to measure the spend of UK consumers.

The organisation said that the devices were now making such an impact on the market that they needed to be included in its retail guide, particularly as they were accounting for much of the nation's spend on technology, in place of older devices.

"Developments in technology influence the basket update and in 2012 tablet computers (such as the iPad and Samsung Galaxy Tab) are being included for the first time," it said.

"This mirrors the evolution of computer equipment through desktop personal computers, laptops and now tablets, and they are being introduced to capture price changes in this rapidly expanding market."

With the new iPad set to be launched on Friday, and no doubt ready to fly off the shelves into the arms of grateful consumers eager to get their hands on the latest iDevice from Apple, the ONS's timing appears justified.

It wasn't just tablets that were added, though, with bundled communication packages - telephone lines, internet and TV services - also included, underlining the new way many consumers purchase digital services.

The inclusion of these services, as well as tablet computers, in the ONS's updated shopping list underlines just how central technology has become to the lives of the general public, both for use in the workplace and at home.

Apple's share price passed the $500 mark for the first time in the firm's history on Monday afternoon as the success of its iPad 2 and iPhone devices continue to make the firm one of the world's most valuable companies.

It has taken just six months since passing the $400 on the Nasdaq market to rocket to £500 and comes three years after the firm's share price was a comparatively paltry $89.31 in February 2009.

Since then the success of its iPhone and iPad ranges, particularly their increasing use among both consumers and business users, has fuelled the firm's valuation, which is now inching towards $470bn as it continues to rake in record profits.

The firm's financial success is in stark contrast to some of its key rivals, with the likes of Microsoft stagnating on $30 per share price - and a market cap of $256bn - and Nokia on just $5 a share or a $18.5bn market cap, as other firms find it hard to make any traction in the smartphone and tablet markets.

Only Google can outperform Apple for share-value, with its stock currently priced around the $613 mark, but with fewer shares it circulation, it's value is a 'paltry' $199bn.

The question everyone will be asking, though, is clear: why on earth didn't I buy some shares in Apple three years ago?

Google has blindsided bitter rival Apple by hiring a senior employee from the iPhone maker, despite the firms apparently having an agreement not to poach each other's staff.

Simon Prakash, senior director of product integrity at Apple, was responsible for ensuring that products such as the iPhone and iPad were of the highest quality before they hit the market. No cushy job that, as he worked to the notoriously high standards imposed by former chief, Steve Jobs.

Although his job role at Google is unclear, Prakash is set to start work on a secret project, according to Venturebeat. He could find himself reporting directly to Google co-founder Sergey Brin, who takes charge of a variety of secret research and development projects at Google.

This isn't the first time that Google has tried to tempt an employee from Apple. Former Apple chief executive Steve Jobs alledgedly emailed Google to ask the firm to stop trying to recruit its staff, after an incident back in 2007.

A court document revealed that Jobs emailed former Google chief executive, Eric Schmidt, asking him to stop "stealing" employees. Schmidt agreed with the Apple chief's request.

This latest hire represents a big coup for Google and is likely to add fuel to the already intense rivalry between the firms.

Even though Apple is likely to be displeased at this latest development, it is unlikely to do anything about it. The US government wants to crack down on "no poach" agreements as they are deemed to be anti-competitive.