Category: iT news

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The League of Legends European Championship (LEC) has cancelled a sponsorship deal with a city in Saudi Arabia after backlash from fans.

Game developer Riot was criticised for taking big money from a country that has a poor record on human rights.

Now the company says it realises the deal had “caused rifts in the very community we seek to grow”.

The LEC is one of the most popular esports leagues in the world.

As soon as the deal with megacity Neom was announced, people started kicking off – including those who work for Riot.

Some people pointed out the LEC had changed its logo to reflect the rainbow colours of Pride – and yet had signed a deal with a county that has executed people for same-sex relationships.

And the city Neom is controversial too. It’s a massive multi-billion pound project that intends to create a futuristic city.

Its promotional blurb promises an “idyllic lifestyle paired with excellent economic opportunities that surpasses that of any other metropolis”.

Early ideas included flying taxis and a fake moon.

But a recent report in The Guardian, pointed to claims that up to 20,000 members of a local tribe were being forcibly evicted from their land to make way for the city.

And it looks like LEC has been quick to realise how badly the sponsorship deal went down.

There’s now a new statement, saying: “As a company and as a league, we know that it’s important to recognize when we make mistakes and quickly work to correct them.”

Although LEC says it’s “steadfastly committed to all of our players and fans worldwide including those living in Saudi Arabia and the Middle East,” it’s ended the deal and admitted it moved “too quickly” in an effort to expand esports.

Some fan say it proves how important it is to stand up for what you believe.

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EPA

“If Congress doesn’t bring fairness to Big Tech, which they should have done years ago, I will do it myself with executive orders.”

Those were US President Donald Trump’s words on Wednesday shortly before the leaders of Apple, Amazon, Alphabet and Facebook were quizzed by Congress.

That word “fairness” is crucial when it comes to the future regulation of these tech titans. That’s because, in the mouths of different lawmakers, fairness means very different things.

“These companies, as they exist today, have monopoly power… some need to be broken up, all need to be properly regulated.”

Those were the closing remarks of David Cicilline, chairman of the House judiciary committee’s anti-trust sub-committee.

For him, fairness means not just clipping the wings of Big Tech, but fundamentally restructuring their relationship with Americans.

Cicilline was one of many lawmakers who came out swinging. At one point he asked Amazon’s Jeff Bezos why the company had been compared to a drug dealer.

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Reuters

This being American politics, there was also – of course – a partisan split.

Republicans like Jim Jordan and Matt Gaetz had a different interpretation of fairness – and it had nothing to do with anti-trust.

“I’ll just cut straight to the chase. Big Tech’s out to get conservatives,” said Jordan.

Much of their ire centred around claims of censorship, specifically that Facebook and Google unfairly discriminate against conservatives.

President Trump has suggested likewise. He’s already criticised Twitter and Facebook for removing conservative content and even flagging his own posts and tweets.

US elections

This split makes predicting how the US might try to lasso these tech giants difficult.

Republicans are generally against market regulation, against increasing red tape.

Many Democrats however believe that these companies are acting like cartels – that they’re hurting “mom and pop” businesses. That tougher legislation will protect consumers.

The sub-committee will publish its recommendations – and then it’s down to lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

It’s highly unlikely though that anything much will happen before the US elections in November.

As well as the presidential vote, all the seats in the House of Representatives are up for grabs, as well as about a third of the Senate.

And so we reach a fork in the road for Big Tech in America.

A Republican win would probably see the tech giants scrutinised further over how they police free speech. Section 230 – which gives social media companies immunity from prosecution for what is published on their platforms – would probably be looked at.

If the Democrats win, expect more regulation in an attempt to inject more competition into the tech industry.

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In reality though, it’s unlikely to be that black and white.

There are Republicans that have sympathies for some of the anti-competition arguments, for example.

The accusations around Amazon hurting tens of thousands of small American businesses is a Republican concern as much as a Democrat one.

There may be bipartisan compromises around anti-competition that are palatable to both sides.

But it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that whoever wins the next election, Big Tech is going to get whacked. The question is how and by whom.

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Iain Lee

Via guesswork, Google and a bit of trial and error, Iain Lee thinks he has the right equipment to broadcast his new show with Katherine Boyle.

The show is not on the radio, instead the pair broadcast on Twitch, an internet-based service mainly used to watch people play computer games like Fortnite,

No longer just the host, Mr Lee is now the studio manager, camera and lighting operator, plus sound engineer who films, edits and mixes the show.

“I love doing the buttons and the faders and all the technical stuff. I don’t understand it, but I’m a big fan of failure. And oh, do you feel alive when there’s an audience and it’s going wrong.” says Mr Lee, who was once a BBC radio presenter.

The new show required some new equipment.

He had to buy a PC, because his iMac was not much good for playing games on. A decent camera was also purchased to stream live and record him and Katherine Boyle on their chat show, The Late Night Alternative, which launched earlier this month.

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Iain Lee

His Elgato game capture device will help broadcast his video game playing.

Another computer with pre-loaded sounds is attached to an audio mixer deck that also feeds into the PC.

But Mr Lee’s favourite purchase is the £69 ($90) microphone arm. It is spring loaded, clips to the desk and swivels silently without bouncing.

“God, getting it was the sexiest moment of my life – apart from when I labelled plugs, recently,” he jokes.

Mr Lee is getting kitted up because he has just joined 7.1 million other streamers who came to Twitch this past month, wanting to create TV from their own home.

Lockdowns flooded Twitch and has been a bonanza for any company that makes equipment to help streamers. They say sales have surged and demand has exploded.

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Logitech

Some were waiting for this moment.

Computer accessories companies like Corsair and Logitech have been snapping up many of the smaller firms that make streaming related broadcasting equipment.

Over the last three years, Logitech, has acquired Jaybird headphones and Blue Yeti microphones. They have also nabbed gaming equipment and software companies like Streamlabs, Astro Gaming and Saitek.

Bracken Darrell, Logitech’s chief executive, says that he realised streaming was a business opportunity the moment that customers began using their mice, keyboards and webcams to broadcast video games on YouTube.

Mr Darrell says the lockdown has helped people to find their voice and respond to what is going on in the world. He does not think things will return to normal.

“You can’t put the genie back in the bottle,” he says.

John Maier, the head of Blue Microphones agrees. Trends seen for years have been “hyper-charged”.

“People want better sound, video, a better way to share – it all went through the roof as soon as people started to be at home,” Mr Maier says.

On 21 July, Logitech reported a record 23% increase in sales to $792m (£622m).

Mr Darrell believes that the technology for streaming has a long way to go before it’s for everyone.

“Our whole mission is to remove steps. So we’re nowhere near the point where broadcast and streaming is easy enough. It’s still way too hard, too complicated,” he says.

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Claire Lim

Broadcaster and popular Twitch streamer, Claire Lim, or “Wee Claire” as she’s known on Twitch, initially found it difficult to broadcast while playing video games.

She started 18 months ago, playing Red Dead Redemption 2, while chatting via an old webcam.

“I kept falling off my horse, and then I ran over a dog with my horse. I killed it,” she laughs. In between gaming, she began to introduce chatting sessions.

Now as a Twitch partner, she broadcasts on the platform full time, switching seamlessly between several different graphics backgrounds, mixing audio and calling out and reacting to her followers.

Ms Lim’s show includes different characters and her graphics transform in order for her to have a rant as her character, “Scottish Mum”.

She says that instead of a single TV show, she presents as if she were broadcasting an entire channel.

“I want my viewers to laugh, to enjoy their time with me. I want to give them a visual feast,” she says.

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Claire Lim

For this, she uses a streaming deck from Elgato. A bit like a DJ booth for Twitch, its buttons activate stored zoom screens and alert sounds. Each press works like the audio visual queue called by a TV director on a live show.

Elgato is another company, recently acquired by Logitech’s competitor, Corsair, that has seen its fortunes benefit from the rise of streaming during lockdown.

Its products have been selling-out according to Julian Fest, the general manager for Elgato.

His father Markus Fest founded the company 20 years ago but it was around the time that Twitch began, in 2012, that Elgato entered streaming.

More Technology of Business

After he and his father found their software was being pirated, they contacted illegal downloaders to find out why they were stealing the product.

“And they all came back with the same response, oh, I’m recording my Xbox, I’m recording my PlayStation and uploading it to YouTube,” says Mr Fest.

Instead of fighting them, they built a product based on their feedback. In 2018, Elgato was sold for an undisclosed amount and Mr Fest went with it to Corsair.

As for Mr Lee, he says the show is “going great guns” and the tech is holding up.

“Katherine and I are having fun learning in front of everyone and I think the audience like it. Why would anyone need to go to a studio to do a radio or TV show ever again? It just doesn’t make sense anymore.”

Kylie and Kendall Jenner are amongst dozens of influencers BBC Click has discovered to be promoting the sale of imitation Apple AirPods on Instagram.

The two celebrities have a combined following of 322 million followers.

Apple believes such cloned earphones may infringe its intellectual property rights, but is not pursuing a case against the two sisters.

However, the firm has taken previous action against influencers it believed to be hawking “knock-off” AirPods.

Kylie and Kendall Jenner declined to comment.

Lookalike tech

Click’s investigation uncovered dozens of social media influencers promoting clones of Apple Airpods and Apple Watches.

The influencers do not hold stock of the goods themselves. Rather they promote links to websites where anonymous sellers ship the products directly from China.

The products typically may be indistinguishable for the genuine items at first glance, but feature different brand names on their packaging and sometimes deliver a poor user experience.

Promotion of such products can be regarded as being a copyright and trademark infringement under UK law, if the knock-offs are deemed to look similar enough to the legitimate items.

The national co-ordinator for the UK’s National Trading Standards eCrime team said that if influencers were found to be promoting knock-off products, in the first instance they would be informed of consumer laws, but if they continued then “formal action” would be considered.

“We would be concerned that some consumers, swayed by the power of social influencers, and the overall look and feel of the websites, might be misled into thinking they are buying genuine Apple AirPods,” Mike Andrews said.

Instagram itself has told the BBC that influencers must follow local laws and vet brands before agreeing to paid partnerships.

Drop shipping

The vendors behind the products are known as drop shippers – a kind of intermediary who doesn’t make or even see the products they sell, and uses influencers to promote them.

They typically source their products from online Chinese marketplaces and have them sent directly to consumers.

‘You can have a massive business without ever going to China,” Kevin David, a drop shipper based in Miami told Click.

“I’ve personally sent millions of dollars to China. I’ve gotten millions and millions of dollars of products and I’ve never even been to China.”

He added: “Those Airpods, some of my personal friends make hundreds of thousands a month selling those.”

Whilst legal, drop shipping is open to abuse with reports of:

• products not being delivered
• refunds not being given
• websites suddenly being shut down

“All you need is an internet connection and a website and you’re ready to go,” commented Sanchit Jain, an e-commerce analyst, from the consultancy Ender Analysis.

“The downside is that people get conned, don’t get what they paid for and are misled. It really is the Wild West, especially because you are easily able to create a new store as and when you please.”

Apple told BBC it was aware that drop shipping contributed to counterfeit sales and allowed bad actors to remain anonymous.

It added that its teams “are continually adapting to counterfeiters’ latest tactics”.

BBC Click’s investigation will be broadcast on the BBC News Channel on Saturday and will also appear on iPlayer

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Reuters

Hackers have broken into real news websites and posted fake stories stirring up anti-Nato sentiment, a cyber-security firm has warned.

The disinformation campaign, nicknamed “ghostwriter”, has been ongoing since 2017, according to FireEye researchers.

It is designed to “chip away” at support for Nato in Lithuania, Latvia, and Poland, they said.

While the false stories are “aligned with Russian security interests”, it is not known who is behind the attack.

The disinformation campaign uses “falsified news articles, quotes, correspondence and other documents designed to appear as coming from military officials and political figures in the target countries,” FireEye said.

In some cases, false news stories were posted on real news websites without permission.

News websites typically use a content management system (CMS) to handle the large number of articles published.

The attackers apparently gained access to the CMS of the target website and replaced old articles with their own content, or posted entirely new false articles.

They would try to spread the fake stories on social media before they were taken down.

In one example from last year, a Lithuanian news site published a fake article claiming that German soldiers had desecrated a Jewish cemetery.

In another, a fake message was posted to the Polish War Studies Academy website, claiming to be from the organisation’s commander. It called for troops to fight against “the American occupation”.

Those attacks were complemented by other methods – such as opinion pieces and blog posts written by non-existent “journalists”, and fake emails designed to look like they had come from government officials, military officers or journalists.

Some of the attacks had previously been reported by national authorities.

But FireEye’s report collected the various individual attacks into what it said was a “broader influence campaign”.

There have been rising tensions between Russia and several Nato members in recent years.

Poland has sought to have the United States forge a permanent military base in the country, while Russia says the arrival of US troops on rotation there in recent years is a threat to its security.

Lithuania, once a part of the Soviet Union, has said it is concerned about a potential threat from Russia, and announced plans to build a fence around the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad.

Latvia has a large and vocal ethnic Russian population. A pro-Russia party won the most votes in the 2018 election, though it did not enter government.

Latvia, Lithuania and Poland are all members of Nato, which was founded after World War Two to balance the threat of communist expansion from the Soviet Union into Europe.

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Northern Ireland has become the first part of the UK to launch an app for tracking and tracing coronavirus.

Named StopCOVID NI, it has several features for logging details of those experiencing symptoms of the virus.

The app will run alongside a phone-based contact tracing programme already in place and will identify those at risk of infection.

It has been released for download from Apple’s App Store and on Google Play.

StopCOVID NI will be officially launched on Friday but became available to download on Thursday afternoon.

Within an hour of its release, hundreds of people had installed it on their mobile phones.

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Pacemaker

Northern Ireland Health Minister Robin Swann said that the more people that downloaded the app, the more effective a tool it would be in the local coronavirus response.

“This could be the most important thing you do all year,” he said.

“It could prevent you from spreading the virus to people you care about.”

How does it work?

After a positive Covid-19 test result, a person will receive a unique code by text message.

That message will invite the person to enter the code if they use the app.

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Entering the code will trigger a “Bluetooth handshake”, allowing the app to notify any other user who has been nearby for long enough to be at risk of infection.

“There will be some people who won’t be able to or won’t want to use the app, and that’s okay,” said Dan West, the chief digital information officer at the NI Department of Health.

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“The more people who do use it, the more protection this will provide to the whole community. We can say that for sure.”

The app is intended for over-18s initially because of a conflict between data protection laws and the need for identifiable safeguarding consent.

The Health and Social Care Board is meeting the children’s commissioner, the information commissioner’s office and the Children’s Law Centre to find a way through that.

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HSCNI

Analysis:

BBC News technology correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones

There’s been a lot of talk of the importance of getting contact tracing apps to work across borders – but between them Northern Ireland and the Republic have done it, a world first.

Their apps, built by the same developer, were designed to be compatible but what was vital was an agreement to share databases of the people who test positive for the virus.

What we still don’t know is whether the app will work – as yet. There’s not enough evidence from around the world to show that a technology-driven approach to contact tracing is effective.

But the NHS in England, which abandoned its first app to switch to the decentralised model used by StopCOVID NI, will be watching closely what happens in Northern Ireland.

What about the border?

Robin Swann previously said his department was working with its counterpart in the Republic of Ireland.

The ambition was to have the two systems work in tandem, so information about contacts who need to be traced can be shared by both governments.

Both apps have been designed by the same company, Nearform.

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HSCNI

The contact tracing programme has been operational in Northern Ireland since mid-May.

• The great coronavirus-tracing apps mystery

It involves people with a positive test result being contacted by phone.

The people they have been within 2m of for 15 minutes or more are called and advised about isolating or being tested if they have symptoms.

The app is an add-on to that, to help with contact tracing, and alert those who may not be easily contacted.

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Reuters

The heads of Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google owner Alphabet appeared before US lawmakers on Wednesday night to defend their companies against claims they abuse their power to squash competitors.

Here are five key moments from the hearing.

1. Mark Zuckerberg’s emails revealed

Did Facebook buy Instagram in 2012 to neutralise a threat? That was the topic raised by Democratic representative Jerry Nadler.

Emails between Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg and his chief financial officer David Ebersman were revealed as part of the hearing.

In one, Mr Zuckerberg said: “These businesses are nascent but the networks established, the brands are already meaningful, and if they grow to a large scale they could be very disruptive to us… I’m curious if we should consider going after one or two of them.”

Mr Ebersman asked if Mr Zuckerberg hoped to “neutralise a potential competitor”.

Mr Zuckerberg replied it was a combination of that and hoping to improve Facebook’s services.

In a follow-up email, he added: “I didn’t mean to imply we’d be buying them to prevent them from competing with us in any way”.

The slide presenting this email to Congress was titled “Whoops!”, tech news site the Verge reported.

At Wednesday’s hearing, Mr Zuckerberg said several international regulators – including the US Federal Trade Commission – had investigated the takeover at the time, and had decided not to block it.

In another email, he had said it would be a while before Facebook could afford to buy Google. At the hearing, Mr Zuckerberg said the comment was a joke.

2. Apple defends its 30% app cut

Democratic congressman Henry Johnson raised concerns about Apple’s App Store, suggesting its rules were sometimes “changed to benefit Apple at the expense of [third-party] developers” and also discriminated between different creators.

“Sir, we treat every developer the same,” Apple chief executive Tim Cook responded.

“We have open and transparent rules… we do look at every app before it goes on. But those apps, those rules apply evenly to everyone.”

But emails between Apple senior vice president Eddy Cue and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos showed that Apple agreed to halve its App Store commission to 15% to get Amazon’s Prime Video onto its platform.

In April 2020, Apple introduced a scheme that let video-streaming platforms avoid the 30% fee if they integrated with other Apple products, as news site Bloomberg reported. Amazon is part of this deal.

In another email, sent a decade ago, Mr Cue suggested Apple could take a 40% cut rather than 30%.

“In the App Store’s more than 10-year history, we have never raised the commission or added a single fee. In fact, we’ve reduced it for subscriptions and exempted additional categories of apps,” Mr Cook told the hearing.

3. Republicans accuse the tech giants of bias

Several Republicans made allegations of anti-conservative bias on social media.

Republican congressman Jim Sensenbrenner asked Mark Zuckerberg why Twitter had removed a post by the US president’s son, Donald Trump Jr, discussing the efficacy of the drug hydroxychloroquine.

Twitter is not owned by Facebook.

“I think what you might be referring to happened on Twitter, so it’s hard for me to speak to that,” said Mr Zuckerberg.

However, he added that Facebook did remove posts that could be directly harmful to people.

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EPA

Republican congressman Jim Jordan suggested Google might tailor its features to aid Joe Biden’s presidential campaign.

“Can you assure us you are not going to silence conservatives and… you’re not going to configure your features [to favour] Joe Biden?” asked Mr Jordan.

“You have my commitment. It’s always been true and we’ll continue to conduct ourselves in a neutral way,” replied Google’s chief executive Sundar Pichai.

Democrat Mary Gay Scanlon suggested Mr Jordan had been pushing “fringe conspiracy theories”.

Mr Jordan reacted with fury, saying: “We have the email – there were no fringe conspiracies.”

Later, Republican representative Greg Steube was teased online for asking Mr Pichai why his campaign emails were being marked as spam in Gmail.

4. Amazon dodges a ‘simple’ yes-or-no question

Democratic congresswoman Pramila Jayapal asked Jeff Bezos for a “yes or no” answer: Did Amazon ever use seller data to make its own business decisions?

This was a reference to reports that Amazon has used data gathered from businesses selling products via its site to design and price its own rival first-party goods – something the firm has previously suggested had been limited to a group of rogue employees.

Mr Bezos responded that he couldn’t give an answer in such simple terms.

“What I can tell you is we have a policy against using seller-specific data to aid our private-label business, but I can’t guarantee you that that policy has never been violated,” he said.

Mr Bezos was not asked any questions for the first hour of the hearing, and was seen on the video call eating a snack.

He did get in one zinger near the end of the hearing, which may have been aimed at Mr Zuckerberg.

“It appears to me that social media is a nuance-destruction machine, and I don’t think that’s helpful for democracy,” the Amazon founder said.

5. Google accused of working with China

Republican congressman Matt Gaetz claimed that Google collaborates with Chinese universities that take “millions upon millions of dollars from the Chinese military” and noted that tech investor Peter Thiel had previously accused the company of “treason”.

Sundar Pichai denied that his employees were acting against American interests.

“We are not working with the Chinese military, it’s absolutely false,” he said.

“What we do in China, compared to our peers, it’s very very limited in nature. Our AI work in China is limited to a handful of people working on open-source projects.”

The four bosses were also asked a yes-or-no question by Republican Greg Steube: “Do you believe the Chinese government is stealing technology from US companies?”

Only Mark Zuckerberg was prepared to say that China did steal US technology.

Tim Cook said: “I don’t know of specific cases where we have been stolen from by the government.”

Sundar Pichai responded: “I have no first-hand knowledge of any information stolen from Google in this regard.”

Mark Zuckerberg said: “I think it’s well documented that the Chinese government steals technology from US companies.”

Jeff Bezos responded: “I haven’t seen that personally but I’ve heard many reports of it.”

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Huawei has become the biggest vendor of smartphones in the world for the first time, according to analysts’ estimates.

It took the top spot by shipping 55.8 million devices in the last quarter, overtaking Samsung’s 53.7 million.

The report comes from analytics firm Canalys, which called the change “remarkable”.

The fact that China came out of pandemic lockdown earlier than other countries is pinpointed as the reason for Huawei’s success.

Huawei phones have also struggled to appeal to Western markets because they do not have Google-made apps, which are banned due to US trade restrictions.

Its new-found dominance is mainly driven by its impressive sales back home in China.

Overseas shipments are actually down for the company, by 27% – but Canalys estimates that it now sells more than 70% of all smartphones in mainland China.

“This is a remarkable result that few people would have predicted a year ago,” said analyst Ben Stanton from Canalys.

• Huawei’s next phone will not have Google apps
• Huawei’s Android loss: How it affects you

The firm also highlighted that the coronavirus pandemic hit Samsung’s shipments hard, dropping them by an estimated 30%. That made it easier for the Chinese market – which emerged from lockdown sooner – to dominate the rankings.

“If it wasn’t for Covid-19, it wouldn’t have happened,” Mr Stanton said. “Huawei has taken full advantage of the Chinese economic recovery to reignite its smartphone business.”

“Taking first place is very important for Huawei,” his colleague Mo Jia added.

“It is desperate to showcase its brand strength to domestic consumers, component suppliers and developers.”

The lack of integration with Google’s popular apps on Huawei phones is likely to put off some smartphone buyers. Trade restrictions imposed by the US mean that Google cannot collaborate with Huawei to add them.

That means that Google Maps, YouTube, the Google Play Store and other apps seen as standard on most Android devices are simply not available through normal means.

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Huawei has responded by building its own app store solution, which The Register reports now has some 81,000 apps aimed at Westerners, and more than 70 million European users.

But it is not clear how many of those users are people with access to the Google app store, and how many are using the Huawei App Gallery as their only source for new apps.

The analysts expect that Huawei’s grip on the top spot will be temporary. The phone maker’s numbers are actually down by 5% globally, and Samsung is likely to recover from its poorer results in that quarter.

A spokesperson for Huawei, however, said the company “has demonstrated exceptional resilience in these difficult times.”

“Amidst a period of unprecedented global economic slowdown and challenges, we’ve continued to grow and further our leadership position by providing innovative products and experience to consumers.”

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NASA/JPL-Caltech

The multi-billion-dollar, decade-long effort to bring rock samples from Mars to Earth gets under way on Thursday.

It starts with the US space agency’s latest rover, called Perseverance, which is launching from Florida.

When the robot lands on the Red Planet in February, it will not only search for evidence of life but also package rock samples for return to Earth labs.

This will take an elaborate mix of future missions, but it all begins with the one-tonne, six-wheeled rover.

Lift-off of Perseverance on a United Launch Alliance Atlas rocket is timed for the start of a two-hour window that opens at 07:50 local time (12:50 BST; 11:50 GMT).

It’s the third mission heading to Mars this month after launches by the UAE and China.

• China’s Mars rover rockets away from Earth
• UAE launches historic first mission to Mars

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Kees Veenenbos / space4case.com

Once Perseverance takes off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, it faces a seven-month cruise to the Red Planet.

It’s being targeted at a 40km-wide, near-equatorial bowl called Jezero Crater.

Satellite images suggest this held a lake billions of years ago. Scientists say the rocks that formed in this environment stand a good chance of retaining evidence of past microbial activity – if ever that existed on the planet.

Perseverance will spend at least one Martian year (equivalent to roughly two Earth years) investigating the possibility.

Unlike the previous four rovers Nasa has sent to Mars, its new machine is equipped to directly detect life – either current or in fossilised form.

But any evidence it uncovers will almost certainly have its sceptics, which is why researchers want to bring whatever Perseverance finds back home for the deeper analysis only sophisticated laboratories on Earth can perform.

How is Perseverance different from earlier rovers?

At first glance, Perseverance looks to be a copy of the Curiosity robot Nasa sent to Mars’ Gale Crater in 2012. Indeed, the new robot even incorporates some leftover parts from the earlier mission.

But the seven instruments on Perseverance are either major upgrades or totally new.

Expect some remarkable new imagery from the 23 cameras on the vehicle – and sound, because the Perseverance mission carries microphones as well.

“We hope to capture some of the sounds of entry, descent and landing; and some of the sounds of driving around, merging that with the video we can take,” explained Jim Bell, the principal investigator on the rover’s mast-mounted camera system, MastcamZ.

In addition to geological investigations and the search for life, there’s an emphasis on future human exploration.

The Moxie instrument will practise making oxygen from Mars’ carbon dioxide-dominated atmosphere; and there are even samples of spacesuit material aboard to see how they cope in the planet’s harsh environment.

• What you need to know about Perseverance
• The Mars rock heading home with Perseverance

What role will the Ingenuity helicopter play?

This is purely a technology demonstration. Ingenuity aims to prove that aero vehicles can operate in Mars’s rarefied air.

The 1.8kg machine will be deployed from Perseverance’s belly once a suitable location for its flight experiments has been identified.

Ingenuity’s twin, counter-rotating blades will have to spin extremely fast to get off the ground.

Engineers have five sorties planned over a 30-day period, with the ambition on each excursion of climbing ever higher into the sky and getting further away from Perseverance.

“Today, we simply don’t use the aerial dimension in space exploration, but in future we will,” said Nasa’s Ingenuity project leader, MiMi Aung. “They will be used, for example, in a scouting function. When humans arrive, or indeed future rovers, the rotorcraft will go in front and gather high-definition images of the way ahead,” she told BBC News.

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NASA/Cory Huston

Why is Jezero Crater so interesting to scientists?

Jezero is named after a town in Bosnia-Herzegovina. In some Slavic languages the word “jezero” also means “lake” – which should explain the fascination.

This 500m-deep bowl once saw huge volumes of water flow in through the western wall to pool on the crater floor.

Where the water entered, it even deposited sediments to form a delta. Perseverance will try to land next to this feature.

Jezero displays multiple rock types, including clays and carbonates, that have the potential to preserve the type of organic molecules that would hint at life’s bygone existence.

Particularly enticing is the “bathtub ring” of sediments laid down at the ancient lake’s shoreline. It’s here that Perseverance could find what on Earth are called stromatolites.

“These are ancient fossilised microbial mats,” explained rover deputy project scientist Katie Stack Morgan.

“They leave behind very thin layers, with concentrations of particular elements and organics at repeated intervals. We’ll be looking for those fine laminations, looking for chemistry and textures you wouldn’t expect if these things were just abiotic, or didn’t involve life.”

• A deep dive into the science of Jezero Crater
• Recognising life’s traces in Martian rocks

How does Perseverance fit into wider Mars goals?

We know from the search for the earliest life on Earth that the evidence can sometimes be controversial.

So, even if Perseverance stumbles across rocks that appear to have been fashioned by some ancient Martian biology, it will almost certainly require confirmation by analytical instruments on Earth that are far superior to the miniaturised versions carried on the rover.

That’s why a key task for Perseverance will be to package its most interesting rocks in small metal canisters and leave them on the Jezero Crater floor.

Nasa and the European Space Agency (Esa) intend to go fetch these tubes with two more missions that are scheduled to leave Earth in 2026.

It’s a remarkable endeavour involving a second rover, a Mars rocket and a huge satellite to ship the sample tubes home, getting them here in 2031. “You can argue that what we’ll be trying to do is as complicated as the Apollo Moon landings – when you think of the complexity of the robotics involved,” David Parker, director of human and robotic exploration at Esa, told BBC News.

“And it will also be a step on the way to sending humans to Mars because the architecture of this Mars Sample Return project is really a scale model of a human mission with its multiple vehicles that have to launch, land, launch again, rendezvous in orbit and return to Earth.”

Nasa and Esa estimate the total cost of getting samples back to Earth, including the $2.7bn (€2.3bn; £2bn) cost of Perseverance, will come to at least $7bn (€6bn; £5.4bn).

An illustrated guide to Mars Sample Return

Click here to see how will Nasa and Esa bring rocks from Mars to Earth.

• Airbus to build ‘first interplanetary cargo ship’
• Europe pushes ahead with ‘dune buggy’ Mars rover

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Twitter has banned the US president’s eldest son from tweeting for 12 hours.

The action followed a post by Donald Trump Jr containing a video clip discussing the benefits of hydroxychloroquine.

Some, including President Trump, have suggested the anti-malaria drug works as a preventative measure against coronavirus, despite medical studies that indicate the contrary.

Twitter said the post had violated its Covid-19 misinformation rules.

Donald Trump Jr will still be able to browse Twitter and send direct messages in the interim.

Twitter told the BBC: “We are taking action in line with our policy.”

The main US social media sites have all taken measures to crack down on misinformation about the coronavirus.

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Andy Surabian, a spokesman for Donald Trump Jr told the BBC the decision had been “beyond the pale”.

“Twitter suspending Don Jr for sharing a viral video of medical professionals discussing their views on hydroxychloroquine is further proof that big tech is intent on killing free expression online, and is another instance of them committing election interference to stifle Republican voices,” he said.

“While there is indeed much disagreement in the medical community about the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine in treating coronavirus, there have been studies reported by mainstream outlets like CNN, suggesting that it may in fact by an effective treatment.

“Those pretending otherwise are lying for political reasons.”

Analysis

By Marianna Spring, Specialist disinformation and social media reporter

This is the latest move by Twitter to crack down on coronavirus misinformation – and the latest escalation in its clash with President Trump and his allies.

This latest step to restrict the account of the President’s son will no doubt add fuel to the fire, with more cries of censorship from the President’s supporters.

Misleading, harmful claims about hydroxychloroquine have been promoted by public figures and politicians throughout the pandemic.

Discussions about the drug have become just as polarised as the ongoing debate about masks that is happening online.

The video shared by Donald Trump Jr yesterday was emblematic of this, featuring people claiming to be doctors who support Trump. They suggested that studies indicating the drug was not effective were “fake science”.

With pressure mounting on social media sites to act more quickly and decisively about coronavirus misinformation, this move perhaps should not come as a surprise.

But Twitter has not flagged claims the US President has made about hydroxychlorquine himself.

Where it opts to draw the line will be a difficult – and politicised – decision.

In signs that the conflict between Trump and Twitter is not abating, the President has asked the National Telecommunications and Information Administration to file a petition to look at how social media companies moderate content.

The petition asks the Federal Communications Commission to reconsider rules that shield social media providers from liability for content posted by their users, but still let them remove posts they deem to be objectionable.